Fishing with Alfie - May 2016

Alfie with his first Rudd

Alfie is my 8 year old Nephew and he has shown an interest in fishing when we've been away on family camping trips in the past. With this in mind I decided to get him a fishing rod for his last birthday. It's good to nurture these things and I was amazed at the passion and patience he had displayed when I'd shown him the ropes previously.

I decided on a 4m whip as the ideal first rod for him. There's no reel to worry about and it really is fishing in a very pure and simple form. I think this is a great starting point for as youngster....the joy of float fishing. It's very visual, simple and it teaches a lot about watercraft and concentration which are all important aspects.

I took him to a local pond recently to see if we could get him into a few fish and christen his rod. He was so excited about going, it was really great to see. The weather wasn't that great on the day but it didn't put him off  at all, a bit of rain wasn't going to stop him going on his first proper fishing trip!

Plenty of Rudd came Alfie's way

We went for around 3 hours and he adored it. He got to grips with the pole in no time at all and was baiting the hook and swinging the rig out like a pro with a huge smile on his face. There are plenty of rudd in the pond and they were very obliging with Alfie managing to catch a dozen or so in the first hour.

After this, I asked if he wanted to try and get a bigger fish and the response was a decisive 'yes please'. I explained that we would have to introduce some groundbait and put a larger bait on the hook, then wait a while to see if a bigger tench would be interested in our offerings. This was no problem for Alfie at all, he was keen to see if we could get a whopper!

Sure enough, 20 minutes later there were tench bubbles in the swim and I fired his imagination and anticipation by explaining what what was happening under the water. There were a couple of twitches to the float and then it just slid away from view. He lifted the pole and was instantly in touch with a much better fish that was pulling 5 feet or so of elastic from the tip of his giving him quite a thrill in the process.

Once the tench was in the net it was quite clear that Alfie was over the moon, with 'high fives' all round and a beaming grin from ear to ear......my work was done. Hopefully he'll be hooked for life, it's great to see him getting so much pleasure from fishing. Well done Alfie!

I think the smile says it all :) Well done Alfie!!!