"Fishing is complete and utter madness" - Spike Milligan

It is true, one does have to have at least half a dozen screws loose to take up angling, and fly fishing is perhaps the pinnacle of lunacy. Let us pursue a difficult quarry, using a bit of fluff carefully arranged around a hook and as a means of presentation we shall develop a method of casting which maximises the opportunities for mishap.

It’s all rather beautiful really.

I have been fishing for 42 years and fly fishing for 38 of them, but the beginning of this journey was definitely a bit potty. The story will begin with my father, who was not a keen fisherman, but who had spent enough of his childhood bothering the inhabitants of the Great Ouse, in what was then Huntingdonshire, to have acquired a little fishing tackle and a few stories of great Pike and Perch and Chub. When I was about 5 he handed me his old cane fishing rod, a wooden handled thing, whole cane butt and middle sections with a greenheart top, and he told me that he would teach me to fish one day. That promise was one he would live to regret, and one which changed my life immeasurably.

I had to meet various criteria, largely relating to my being able to swim at least 50 meters and being past my 6th birthday, and the challenge was accepted with enthusiasm. It may have just been a ruse to get me swimming properly, but it worked, and by my 6th I was like a pale, skinny, otter.

The shortcomings of the scheme were that my dad wasn’t really much of a fisherman, he was devoted to the cause as only a father could be, but the guidance was a little vague. Hook sizes were baffling, knots were creative, baits were definitely a bit left field. The upshot being that for two years I fished without a single bite, or at least if there was a bite I didn’t recognise it until the ant egg, or bit of boiled wheat had long since been snaffled. Not only did my dad endure my boundless optimism, and ultimate dismay at the end of any fishing excursion, but his mother also on occasion would take me to the river to try bits of bread and cucumber with similar results. And so was spent my first two years of fishing, yet not once did I entertain the idea of packing it all in and playing football. Absolutely barking mad.

Eventually we moved to Hadleigh in Suffolk, where I was enrolled in the local fishing club as a junior member and things improved significantly. I was told that my bamboo rod was of no use, the brass reel a joke, and after being given a shopping list including a 14ft match rod, fixed spool reel, and an assortment of rig bits I appeared at my introductory fishing lesson looking very much all the gear and no idea. I even had a keep net and landing net, which struck me as a bit beyond the odds given my experience thus far. Hooks sizes were finally explained to me and once equipped with a size 20 and a maggot I caught my first ever fish, a little tench, and I will never forget that moment. I believe it is still recorded in the club records somewhere, not the fish, but my reaction to the whole event. Proof that teaching kids to fish is a worthwhile endeavour.

I have also never forgotten that old bamboo rod, I miss it to this day, I did continue to use it from time to time, but it simply wore out, the handle broke and the repairs became ever more unsound. I have no idea when it finally went, but there was no fanfare or state funeral, just a quiet passing into memory.

Since then I have had all sorts of expensive, high tech carbon, kevlar, boron, bait runner, multiplying, optical alarm trickery, but that too has simply passed into memory. I savour my fishing these days, I prefer bamboo and silk, a quill float, no more tackle than can comfortably fit into a small bag or my pocket, and I have never been happier. I have a bamboo coarse rod, whole cane butt and middle, with a split cane top, and that is all I have needed to catch the occasional Carp, or Perch or Tench. Boiled wheat is actually quite an effective bait for carp too! My fly fishing is all done with a couple of split cane rods, admittedly I am spoiled in as much as I can just build myself something and have a play, but simplicity is key, and I could get by with just the 7ft Dart if I had to. What drives me with the rod building though, is the search for the magic of those first rods, my first split cane fly rod for example, which was an 8ft Robert Turnbull three piece. That feeling when the world slowed down and the whole fishing experience changed forever.

A friend once said of me that I had to do everything the hard way, fishing with “a wooden rod and bloody silk”, and perhaps he’s right, but I enjoy it so much more, and anyway, we already know I’m as mad as a hatter.