Carl Hiers – Sowing the seeds, childhood fishing memories

‘It was once a vibrant, active place, much loved by everyone who knew it. Now it was old, quiet, overgrown, had neglected it’s appearance, seemingly forgotten by a generation that had moved on with their own lives, with no time to visit a dear old friend.’

My earliest waterside memories involved dipping a net into local ponds. Walking to those ponds with two or three friends filled our summers in the early seventies. We were eight or nine years of age and shared a passion for the outdoors and exploration. So many days were spent walking the local hills.

Once found, each pond would be revisited regularly, particularly through the school holidays. All the ponds and their surrounding flora and fauna were so full of life. The water itself was always the jewel in the crown and below the surface always provided a myriad of creatures and plant life.

Stinkers Pond sat in a natural hollow, surrounded for half it’s perimeter by a hill ten or so metres high, giving a great view over the pond as we approached each time. It was the closest of all the ponds to where we lived. We would often sit at the top of the hill surveying the scene.

The dense areas of Canadian pond weed were easy to see, as were the clear areas between them – at it’s deepest this pond was only two to three feet deep. Here our net-dipping taught us about the remarkable caddis fly larvae. Building it’s very own home from small pieces of vegetation and tiny stones, creating a protective tube around its body and serving as camouflage against predators. Until, that is, the time came for it to emerge from the water, crawling up a plant stem and spreading it’s resplendent wings to rise into the air. Wow, this was magical stuff.

We asked so many questions of my father. How did this ‘grub’ manage to build the tube? How did it manage to join the pieces of debris together ? Then get into it and ensure a good ‘fit’ which meant it could crawl around the bottom of the pond without losing it’s hand-built home.

We pondered on the larvae having especially potent saliva that acted as glue, but all this went on under water. I have shared words about The Secret Pond previously, but it really was a special place. It’s remote location gave it it’s name. Some people believe ponds generate their own atmosphere. This one certainly did.

It was here that great crested newts frequently graced our nets. They really were our mini-dinosaurs, their bright orange bellies dazzled us as we stared at them, wide-eyed. Working our small nets into the mud under the Canadian pondweed and lifting upwards brought us so many wonders.

Tipping out those contents and staring into our jars provided us with our initial fascination for an underwater world. Varieties of beetles, snails, shrimps, all sorts of larvae, not to mention tadpoles, tiny frogs and toads, sticklebacks and newts. All creatures great and small were scooped up into our nets. Ferocious dragonfly larvae and great diving beetles were particularly prized, even more so than great crested newts.

The Water Itself Was Always The Jewel In The Crown

We were lucky to have discovered a number of ponds, some a thirty minute walk away, some more than two hours. They varied between the 30m x 10m Frog Pond, a natural pond in the hills above our town, to the much larger Nicholas’s Pond, so-called due to the farm adjacent to it. This was clearly a man-made water, with a stone bank forming a dam of sorts, the three other sides sloped gently into the approximately fifty metre square pond (a lake to a ten year old).

This pond was the only one to provide us with stone loach on our basic net-dipping escapades. Three to four inches long, their prominent ‘whiskers’ providing a good reference point in The Collins Book of British Freshwater Fish when I arrived home. (We weren’t familiar with the term ‘barbules’ at the time).

My dad, a friend and I were walking home from this pond when my future relationship with the natural world and particularly fishing, would change forever. A concrete road linked the farm to the outskirts of our town. We only ever saw occasional farm-related traffic use the road. We never saw anyone walking the route. We were fifteen minutes away from the farm and pond, and even further away from any other buildings or people.

It was a bright, breezy day and there, right in front of us, a ten pound note blew across the road. My father picked it up, dumb-founded. He then spent the next ten minutes looking in every direction, looking over the hills either side of the road, convinced someone must have dropped it. This was the early nineteen seventies and to us and my dad, this was a lot of money. Having found no-one and finally accepting that it appeared to be ours, my dad decreed that my friend and I should have the princely sum of five pounds each.

This unexpected windfall was to allow the purchase of my very first fishing rod. A six foot white glass-fibre spinning rod with crimson whippings, together with a fixed spool reel, a spool of line and two spinners, all became mine. A beginner’s kit by Daiwa. This was to open up a whole new world of adventure and opportunity.

The Frog Pond saw our first attempts with rod and line and as such, it holds a very special place in my angling archive. Revisiting the Frog Pond forty years later, it seemed to have aged just like a close member of the family. It was once a vibrant, active place, much loved by everyone who knew it. Now it was old, quiet, overgrown, had neglected it’s appearance, seemingly forgotten by a generation that had moved on with their own lives, with no time to visit a dear old friend. I sat forlornly and stared into the shallow water, now overwhelmed by Canadian pondweed.

Thick surrounding brambles seemed to be slowly suffocating the ever-decreasing area of water. Even if I’d brought a rod, there was no clear area to place a bait. Two crows called noisily from the top of the old oak tree on the opposite bank. They seemed to be shouting a clear message – this was now their place, not mine. The tree had once grown resplendent, casting long shadows over the clear water below. As children we’d climbed it many times, thinking we’d glimpse monster fish from a higher vantage point. We never did.

Years of dangling our baits there had shown it’s residents to be the humble but beautiful gudgeon and lots of pristine roach, the largest we ever caught was less than a pound, but nevertheless, they were wonderful prizes to a ten year old child.

A Dear Old Friend

On one occasion I remember as if it was yesterday, I caught two small perch in consecutive casts. Everyone gathered round, open-mouthed, aghast. We had not caught, or even seen a perch before that day. In the many visits we’d paid to the pond, we had only ever caught gudgeon and roach, whether we fished with bread or worm (these were the only options we ever had – even sweetcorn had not arrived on our bait radar in those early days).

Despite often fishing with small bloodworms or larger pieces of lobworm, never had the striped Sergeants shown themselves, until that day. Like everything else we caught, they were duly returned fighting fit. Remarkably, we never again caught a perch there, despite three or four of us fishing there almost every week for months on end.

Other memorable highlights from our endeavours at the Frog Pond included using my first fly rod. On long summer evenings when flying ants had hatched in their thousands, the roach loved them. A small red ant pattern never failed to tempt the pristine red-fins, great fun on a light fly rod, bought for £3.25 in Woolworths. It was summer evening roach fishing that helped my introduction to the basics in fly casting, alongside my early attempts to fool trout on our local river.

Around this time Dad became friends with a wonderful man who just happened to be Chairman of the local angling club. Mr. Thompson lived on the same estate as us, only five minutes away. When my dad mentioned my young friends and I were trying to fish local ponds, he was always encouraging us and providing helpful advice.

I didn’t realise how lucky I was at the time but he generously gave me a fly-tying vice and various basic materials. My dad and I would sit in the front room of his house on Sunday afternoons, where he would first show us how to tie certain flies, (I distinctly remember Blue Duns and March Browns), then watch and help as we attempted to replicate his very proficient imitations.

Those times undoubtedly sowed the seeds for a lifetime of waterside endeavours. On some occasions, when I knew where Mr. Thompson would be fishing on our local river, I would walk the bank, without any rod, just to watch. I learned so much. He would sometimes fish with a worm, at other times with a wet fly. I saw him catch trout in runs, seams and trickles that I would have ignored. It was always a fascinating eye-opener watching him fish. Where to quietly wade, with heron-like stealth and concentration, a short under-arm cast of a worm, hold the line gently, feel for any interest at the other end as the worm followed the current.

He knew all the likely lies and would consistently winkle out a fish from most places, turning to me with a knowing smile saying, “I knew he was there”, as he released the fish back to it’s home. A twelve inch trout was a good fish from the river and he would generally find the better fish.

With a wet fly, his rod became a magic wand. Why is he fishing there? I would think, only for him to produce another butter-bellied brown trout. I doubt that my father or I would have progressed so far on our piscatorial journey without the influence and guidance of Mr. Thompson. Within a few months, my dad’s enthusiasm resulted in him becoming a member of the angling club’s committee.

Having a six foot glass spinning rod and a dad active in the local angling club meant our fishing horizons were broadened. I was around eleven years old when we first attempted to dangle a line in our hometown river, the Taff. I had already helped with the annual stocking of brown trout along the eight mile stretch owned by our local club. Well, perhaps there was more watching than helping on my part but it was a fabulous experience.

Clambering down the banks with the plastic bins full of 8 – 10 inch trout. Seeing them released into their new home, a week or so before the season would start on 3rd March, was just wonderful. A convoy of cars (generally committee members) would follow the lorry from the trout farm between ‘drops’. Oxygenated tanks on the lorry had kept the fish fighting fit on their long journey from Chirk in North Wales.

My dad and I would ride with Mr. Thompson (we didn’t have our own car). A mix of narrow mountain streams, urban stretches and calmer meadow-surrounded glides, the river offered many opportunities to enhance my Piscatorial apprenticeship. I learned about adipose fins, about fishing in moving water and soon became aware that the fish could roam wherever they wished. Having only fished a pond with a float for roach and gudgeon, we adapted our methods and took advice from others far more experienced than us in fishing a river. Reading the water became quite an obsession. So many pools, runs, falls, large rocks, deeper glides. Where on earth would the fish be?

In many angler’s eyes, fishing for trout with a worm is not the most refined of pastimes. I, on the other hand, loved it. A small split shot (or two, dependent on water levels) would gently roll along the stoney bottom. At first, I would often think a tap of the light weight on a stone could have been a delicate bite? I was wrong. The jagged, ferocious ‘grab’ of the bait that was my first contact with an eight inch brown trout will never be forgotten.

Fishing A River Was A Very Different Challenge

I like to think that my dad and I rose to the challenge of fishing in running water, an environment so much more changeable than a pond. I would wander for hours and in the years to come I would be able to tempt hundreds of trout each season, either with worm or fly. Getting to know the different areas of river intimately, at different times of the year, in different weather conditions, was a big part of the enjoyment. Looking at a particular run and letting your worm run at a depth and pace that was ‘just right’. It was so rewarding when a lively trout would be in residence.

Even at eleven years old, it’s fair to say that within six months of regularly walking and fishing the half-mile stretch closest to where I lived (I could walk there from my parents’ house), I knew exactly where I would see the dippers, the wagtails and, if lucky, the kingfisher. It could be described as an urban waterway, but I knew which stones to lift to see a bullhead. I knew the shallow margins that were home to shoals of minnows and small freshwater shrimps (both could be deadly baits) and more importantly, I knew where the trout would be. 

The river took us to another level of angling ability and experience but the years growing up in the company of all our ponds provided the beginning of something special. They all hold so many special memories. Some of the ponds remain today. Some are sadly long gone. Having the privilege of watching them and their surroundings change through the seasons undoubtedly gave us a very real appreciation of the natural world, long before any of us had held a fishing rod.  Those ponds have a nostalgia all of their own. Each had their individual character. They fascinated, captivated and enthralled us. No other places compare in my childhood memories.

I’m absolutely sure these ponds were responsible for casting a spell on me all those years ago. I didn’t realise it at the time but they undeniably sent me on a path of waterside fascination, contentment and escapism. Aside from an understandable interlude due to work and young family commitments, time spent pursuing fish has always given me solitude and balance.

Angling continues to provide much needed respite and time for reflection. Reading about it is enjoyable, talking about it with others is wonderful, watching videos of it can be entertaining but there is no substitute for doing it.

I have my childhood ponds to thank for so many precious waterside times over the years.

All Writing & Images – Carl Hier, March 2023