Friends often ask "when did you actually start fishing?" and the question often has me delving into the caverns of my memory for a clue. I have never been able to give a definitive answer. I usually say from about the age of six. I still have the horrendous black glass fibre rod with useless rings whipped in red and ferrules that came away from the rod. Even then I had a gut feeling it was totally inadequate - OK for the pier, but not the streams and ditches of West Wales.
I remember sitting on a plank bridge over a farm ditch using the rod in question and bread paste as bait - again, I had some feeling that the location and method were useless. In fact the photo below (me on left) was taken on the very same day with the very same rod. We caught nothing. The smile is one of hope and expectation!
A recent rummage at my folks place has finally answered the above question of when and how old. A gem of buried treasure has decided to be found - my first ever rod licence. Aged six. A miracle such a piece of priceless ephemera has survived. And an even bigger miracle that I was legal.
County Sports, Haverfordwest is still there. I would hazard a guess more my sort of establishment then rather than now.
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