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I started fly fishing when I was about eight years old. I was lucky that my mum and dad had a holiday home right on the shores of Loch Ness, set in 5 acres with about 200 yards of shore line. I could literally throw a stone from my bedroom window and it would land in the Loch. My dad bought me a fly rod, reel, line and some trout flies after a lot of nagging and let me get on with it. Needless to say I was hopeless, I didn't have a clue what I was doing and those brown trout evaded me for some time.

There wasn't "youtube" or "google" in those days, all fishing knowledge came from books, and after a lot of perseverance I could cast a fly a short distance. I never will forget that first fish I hooked. A tiny Salmon parr it was about 3 inches long and didn't exactly put up a fight but I was the happiest boy in the world.

I suppose I really got into fly fishing some years later, I had just finished school and waiting to go to college in the September, I remember in the summer holidays about lunchtime "hooked on Scotland" was on TV. I longed to fish those Scottish lochs but they were 500 miles away, and then I discovered that there was some local still waters close to me in Northamptonshire that were stocked with trout, Elinor trout fishery to be exact. After nagging my mum and dad to drop me there I spent much of that summer catching Rainbow Trout. I use to get to the fishery at 7:30am and fish all the way through to the close at 10pm! Needless to say I was totally hooked by this stage. Over the next few years I fished all the major still waters and reservoirs in the local area many times. Taking rainbows to 14lb and many other double figure fish. I was regularly in the local paper on the Thursday fishing section. As a penniless student however I had to sell all the trout I caught to pay for the day tickets.

I still visited Scotland regularly taking Salmon to 25lb, Sea Trout to 14lb and brown trout to 8lb. I went to Inverness College and studied Aquaculture and fish farm management, the college had their own fish farm on the west coast at Kishorn and it was some of the best days of my life. The photo is me with a 15lb fresh run Atlantic Salmon from Loch Ness, the one below is a 16lb fresh run salmon.More about me

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