whats the first fish you've caught

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#1 Post by **Richie07** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 9:24 am

Have been fishing since I was an 8 year old chisler am now 39 :shock: ,anyway first fish landed was a 2lb pollock caught on feathers off Howth pier east back in 1974!.As a kid that was a great catch and was instantly hooked,and I still get the same buzz when the fish start biting.

RobertMcClean · #2 Post by **RobertMcClean** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 9:57 am

A 3lb Mullet from Howth pier aged 6, complete fluke when I think about it!

#3 Post by **m.b3** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:14 pm

a nice wild brownie on the river tolka. my first cast ever! pity this river is constantly allowed to go to ruin. even seen sea trout at drumcondra bridge before, and perch!

#4 Post by **Wes** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:43 pm

Wrasse from the Bailey, I was about 11. Wouldnt touch the thing, older brother told me their scales were poisonous to touch and they could whip their head around and take the finger clean off. :cry:

I'm bigger than him now :twisted:

#5 Post by **2Poc** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:58 pm

a nice wild brownie on the river tolka. my first cast ever! pity this river is constantly allowed to go to ruin. even seen sea trout at drumcondra bridge before, and perch!

My first fish was a Perch from the Royal canal but my first trout was from the tolka.

The state of it is a really pity & it is just getting worse. A 50,000 fish kill happened this year!

First sea fish would have been a pouting from dun laoighaire

#6 Post by **Richie07** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:02 pm

m.b3 wrote:a nice wild brownie on the river tolka. my first cast ever! pity this river is constantly allowed to go to ruin. even seen sea trout at drumcondra bridge before, and perch!

Nice one!,when I was about 10 I caught a lovely 2.5lb brown trout on the river Dodder on a minnow,beautiful fish the wild brown trout,never really got into river fishing though always liked the smell of the sea air :lol:

#7 Post by **m.b3** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:17 pm

the Tolka is a disgrace. to think the fisheries board used to be 2 minutes walk away...

i think my first seafish was a flounder from wexford harbour. caught em on a flounder spoon and a big ragbait. nice fish too, fought like a demon on an old salmon rod.

my mates were in the horrors with me for lettin it go too!! just coz they blanked...

i'm glad i didn't get one of those poisonous wrasse that ate fingers!!!

#8 Post by **Don** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:55 pm

First fish was a freshwater eel on a sweeping brush handle and line collected from overhanging bushes.

Needless to say the bite detection on the sweeping brush handle was amazing.

First sea fish was a mackeral in Mornington where the Boyne flows into the sea followed by about 40 others on the same evening.

Donal.

quarterflounder · #9 Post by **quarterflounder** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:05 pm

A small brownie on the Slaney at Scarawalsh. My dad was poncing around fly fishing (All the gear, net, waistcoat, pockets for everything,) Barbour Jacket man :D and my mum sent me out with him so he gave me an split cane fly rod that was about 4 or 5 foot long (its top was busted off) and the reel was an old fly reel. Well I caught this brownie 4- 6 oz at most with a worm and my Dad got the royal hump coz he always blanked!! :o :o :o
I don't remember it too well at this was 35 years ago and I was about 6 or 7 but the story was never forgotten.

#10 Post by **Read** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:15 pm

I'm not sure which came first but I suspect it was a roach in the Lough, or possibly a Perch near the dams on the Lee. I had a few incidents at the Lough also, including being hooked on a cast and falling in. I must have been no more than 6 years old at the time.My first sea fish was a mackeral at Rocky Bay near Roberts Cove at 8 years of age.

Doesn't all this nostalgia make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, not to mention ooooooooooold :cry: .

#11 Post by **Cooke** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:41 pm

My first fish on rod & line was an eel from the old pond in St Annes park in Raheny. We used to catch eels and rudd from it in the 60's.

My first sea fish was problably a mackerel from the Wooden Bridge but in those days we also used to get numbers of bass at Claremount (Hole in the Wall) and all along the wall between Dollymount and Sutton.

#12 Post by **m.b3** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:43 pm

was this before they built the bridge north of the bull wall bridge?? was the channel deeper then?

#13 Post by **Cooke** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:25 pm

All this good fishing was before what we still call the "new road" was built. We would walk from Raheny to the wooden bridge, spinning at high water with either a toby type lure or an old fashioned rubber eel and a green curved ( I think they were called Windex ) and take bass and mackerel at several spots. Ground fishing with crab brought more bass and some really good flounder - many well over two pounds. There was a strong flow of water all around the island and none of the silt that will eventually see the island join the mainland. I have copies of letters we wrote to politicians back in the late seventies complaining that the channel was silting up and reducing in flow since the road was built. Needless to say, the letters went unanswered.

RobertMcClean · #14 Post by **RobertMcClean** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:27 pm

Jesus Brian here was me thinking you were only 32!! :lol:

#15 Post by **alby** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:40 pm

My old man used to bring me to animoe in wicklow when i was a kid and catch "huge" rainbows,

My first real fish was a palm sized flounder on rag from the old Roadstone Plant directly accross from Kaats Strand in Wexford, thats where I cut my teeth as a young lad. One day I remember I caught a big eel and bass first cast then proceeded to get double shots of 1-2lb flounders for the day, apparently all i kept moaning about was "not another flattie".

#16 Post by **Bradan** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:03 pm

I was about 12 on a family holiday to the Gulf Coast in Florida (freebie, we weren't loaded!), boring as f*** sitting in the sun all day. Bought a $10 fishing outfit - 5' rod and plastic reel, real kiddies rod. Came with a silly-looking red metal lure. First cast in the brackish water channel beside the apartments and I had a run, nearly took all the line off. Took about 40 minutes but I got it in - a channel catfish about 8lbs. Saw these whiskers and thought they were sharp spines or something, didn't know what to do. Eventually an American guy who did a bit of fishing came over and unhooked the fish for me, but that was me hooked......

#17 Post by **Donagh** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:39 pm

I was around 11 when I got my first fish so thats around 20 years ago. Was got on lug off Wicklow pier on a 6 foot shakey spinning rod which bent over double with a 2lb fish. It was either a coaly or a pollack as I couldn't tell the difference then. Didn't start catching fish until I learnt to dig king rag a couple of years later.

Donagh

#18 Post by **m.b3** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:11 am

older and wiser now alby!

#19 Post by **pete** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:43 am

A 4inch brown trout from a hill lough when I was ten. First sea fish was a three inch scorpion fish from the Gunwell at Killybegs, incredibly strange looking thing to a young fella brought up on trout and of course highly poisionous! The inside of its mouth was blue which completely freaked me, not many trout with blue mouths.

#20 Post by **Steve** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:05 pm

Was visiting my sister in liverpool and managed to catch a bootlace eel in the Mersey estuary at age 6. Been hooked since.

Cooke - the old pond in St Annes was re-stocked about 10 years ago, and held a great stock of roach, tench, and even a couple of pike (and liberated goldfish). There was some lovely big tench there, up to 3-4 pounds in weight. There were only 4 pike I could ever see, 2 of which were under 3 pounds, one of about 5lbs, but the mother of them all was pushing 10lb's in weight.

Not what you would expect to find in your local (and tiny) park pond!

Unfortunately, and quite typically, the pond is now an absolute state, totally clogged up with weed (and traffic cones etc), and the fish are now long gone.