A penknife was the absolute business for every 12-year-old boy growing up around Angus, (Scotland) in the early 80’s. It wasn’t used for anything naughty, just a prized possession to keep in your pooch. Now, a Swiss Army knife was a different level. The pinnacle, if you will. The Holy Grail. It was like having a new iPhone when everyone else was still using Nokias. My brother bought the biggest one I’d ever seen. It was called the ‘Victorinox Champ’ and as well as a selection of knife blades it had scissors, a screwdriver, corkscrew, hoof pick, a file and a small set of removable tweezers (all essential items, I think you’ll agree). 

Anyway, Mildew tried to change the topic and talk about other (non-fishing related) stuff, probably including wrestling, doing stunts on his bike or starting fires. Now I would usually have been invested in all of these conversations, but I was still thinking about the fishing. Can we PLEASE just talk more about the fishing. He eventually took the hint and asked if I wanted to join him the following weekend. Of course I did. I was all in. So off we went, wheelie’ing our way along the old railway line, probably trying to start a small fire in the bushes, whilst talking about wrestling.  

My first day fishing

Buying my first fishing rod

There was a gun shop on Clerk Street in Brechin. It sold some basic fishing tackle and I pressed my chubby face against the window before plucking up enough courage to go inside. A gun shop in the early 80’s wasn’t the most welcoming environment for a 12-year-old window shopper, but the man was patient. He brought out a pile of second hand tackle from the back shop and a battered old 7-foot spinning rod and fixed spool reel caught my eye.

I used money I had earned from my paper round delivery job and bought it all the next day. It was poor quality, but I managed to use it, and I immediately loved it. The bail arm was temperamental and two of the rod eyes were hanging off. The cork handle was loose and the reel seat was wobbly and didn’t house the reel foot properly. But I could live with it and would later fix it up. I bought some basic tackle from Woolworths; a bubble float, a pack of 3 flies and some Mepps spinners.

After-school hunters

I remember our first fishing trips were usually after school or on a Saturday. They involved a lot of shouting and bankside commotion as we tried to come up with strategies to catch fish. Talking quietly was never an option. I remember making Mildew laugh so much that he was nearly sick and then started to cry! I felt alive. The riverbank was ours.

Mildew drew first blood, catching the fish on a bubble float and fly contraption. A modest fish of around 5 inches in length, it was quickly dispatched and stuffed into an empty polythene bread bag before we paraded it all over town to show his friends and family (social media has made this so much easier to do now. I am kicking myself – we should’ve invented Facebook there and then to share this moment. Actually, we would have needed to invent the smartphone too, so we could photograph the fish and upload it to Facebook. The alternative was to hand our camera film into Boots and get the one hour service. No. This was all too much to achieve on a Saturday afternoon as Mildew had to get home for World of Sport and the Wrestling).      

I was immensely proud of him catching that first fish. I think it was probably a salmon parr and even if it was a trout, it was certainly too small to keep – but we knew no different.

Fish or chips?

So, while all the hard lads from my year were down the chipper during lunch break and after school, playing Donkey Kong, Frogger and Pac-Man arcade games, with a pocket full of ten pence pieces and a quarter of Soor Plooms, I started to walk a different road. Literally. The chipper was diagonally opposite my auld man’s wallpaper and paint shop and had I been spotted within sniffing distance of that salt’n’vinegar waft, I’d likely have been booted up the arse for my misadventure.  

I took the longer road, down through some back alleys, popping out on the High Street, just meters away from the Sports Shop. It was here that I spent MY ten pence piece, buying a day permit to fish the River South Esk.

Fishing the River South Esk at Brechin

The local ‘Gamie’ would stand and watch for poachers from the steep ramparts of the castle on the cliff face above.  You couldn’t get access to the Castle Hole unless you could wade across the tail of the pool upstream of the weir.

The water below the bridge was near to the Voodoo Temple. A 12-year-old boy with a bowl haircut and cows licks would never dare to go near the Voodoo Temple, mainly because he was too scared, but also because if his auld man found out about it, he would likely build an ‘arse kicking’ contraption to save him having to get out of his chair and deliver the walloping.

My first fish

A few weeks later, I was down at the river with another friend (Mildew had already found another hobby -probably Wrestling-related). I went to the long stretch before the Bridge, opposite “Grannies Rock” which protrudes from the slow current about 15 feet from the bank.  Rumour had it that the fish (and loads of eels) all congregated around this rock. I repeatedly cast out my bubble float and fly into the slow main current and chatted nonsense with my pal. I never saw the float dip, I just had a sense that there may have been a fish on and when I reeled in, there it was. I would love to say it was an epic battle, but the rod was so stiff and the fish so small, that it just splashed its way into the side. I couldn’t breathe. I was shaking and my knees were trembling. I was “the Boy”, relatively speaking, obviously. I mean, I wouldn’t have swaggered into the chipper and slammed my 10p down on the Pac-Man ‘up next’ queue, but I felt like I could’ve if I had REALLY wanted to.    

My first fly rod

I remember my first fly rod was bottle green with a black foam handle. The reel was a D.A.M. make and I loved these things more than anything else I owned. I again bought them with my paper round money and it felt like I had earned it. The man in the shop kindly gave me some old editions of Trout and Salmon magazine and a fantastic little book called The Observer’s Book of Fly Fishing, by Peter Wheat. It was such a magic little book, but It is long gone now.

I loved the Trout and Salmon magazine. According to my boss in the paper shop in Brechin, I was the only person under 50 years old that had a subscription and he ordered it in especially for me. I would pour through the pages and catalogues, but I still wasn’t catching fish.

Lessons from a poacher

The local poacher in Brechin was the father of the hardest laddie in school. When the family moved to the area, this lad battered all of the existing hard lads. He quickly made his mark. We all slunk off into the background when he approached. In addition to battering everyone, he was amazing at doing ‘The Robot’ at school discos. Not in a ‘he’ll knock you out if you don’t say he’s great at The Robot’, type way, he really was. The point of this literary digression, is that his father, the poacher, taught me how to fly fish. I bumped into him at the fast riffle water near the Papery in Brechin. He took me under his wing and would help me whenever he saw me at the river. He told me stories of ‘ripping’ Salmon using a long salmon fly rod, a length of lead core line with large treble hooks knotted along its length. After casting out he would try and foul hook the fish. He did this at night up at the Castle Hole. He was fascinating in a terrifying way, and vice versa. I often wondered if he too could do ‘The Robot’.  

Bloody Butcher fly

He had a look in my box of flies and selected a Bloody Butcher. “You need something with a flash of silver or gold in it,” he said. “Now cast your flies ‘downstream and across’, and then twitch the line back up in short jerks”. I caught a handful of fish that day and lost many more. By using the more responsive fly rod, I could actually feel the fight. It was incredible. He told me the fish were smolts and he showed me how to unhook and release them carefully. A bizarre contrast of fish handling, fish care and thoughtfulness from a poacher and father of the Angus Under-16 Bare Knuckle Boxing Champion.  

Catching fish regularly

I would regularly catch 10-15 fish after school or at the weekends, and because I had released them all and had nothing to show for it, people thought I was telling fibs, lying and exaggerating.

My mum and dad eventually came down one evening to see for themselves. They leant on the wall overlooking the river, near to the Pitch and Putt green. I made a thousand casts…and caught nothing. As they were walking back to the car, probably muttering that I was a lying wee *******, I eventually caught a fish and called them back. And then I caught another and another. I’ll never forget my mothers’ reaction. She was astounded by how beautiful the fish were. She cradled one in her hand and kissed it before I returned it to the river. She was weird that way, but I loved that she was as enthusiastic about the fish as I was.  She understood.

I hope they have Wrestling in heaven..

I often wonder who or what I would’ve become, had Mildew not changed my life with his throwaway comment about fishing.  What would my interests have been?  What would I spend my money on?

Mildew passed away last year. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him for over 40 years and last saw him when he was working as a doorman in a busy Nightclub. So, he too had followed his passion in life! Thank you min – for planting the seeds of my life’s obsession.