Aidan's firs proper go.

9th July

The little bugger was in and waking me at 4:30, I'd hoped he'd sleep in and half forget that I'd promised to take him down the Thurne. No such look and he was dressed before I'd cleaned my teeth.

A quick flask knocked up and gear loaded into the car only to find my chest freezer has packed up. Fecking pain as it's full of chicken and fish, a bloody freezer full gone. It's going to stink like a Taliban cave this time of the year too, just my luck that I can't get rid of it for a fortnight, it was the grey bin yesterday. Anyway, I'll sort the freezer later, gear loaded and off we go.

I think he was surprised to see cars about and people walking dogs, he thought he'd have the world to himself at that time of day. We had the river to ourselves at 5:30. I set up around 4m of pole with the last two sections to hand, it's not a deep river. I had some groundbait that I'd taken out of the oven that used to be a freezer and dropped a couple of golf ball sized lumps in. Plumbed up and despite my best efforts to explain what I was doing he was in the maggots and really just wanted to get fishing. I slipped a single red maggot onto the size 20 (give me a 3/0 any day), dropped it in and passed him the pole.

First put and it's running down nice and easy before burying, he lifts nice and steady and his first roach, probably the size of his hand is in the net. "Easy isn't it dad" oh boy has he got a lot to learn! I know I'm biased, what dad isn't? but he handled the pole really well, no smacking against the water or hooks flying through the air, just nice steady and gentle, not a natural but pretty good given its his first go. Lots of roach, silvers and the occasional rudd followed and he was as good as gold, certainly took to it better than I did at 8. I reckon you can see from the picture that he's comfortable with the tackle and he's certainly concentrating, we are going to have so much fun over the coming years, mum will be pleased!

He wants to get something bigger than 6oz now, he's talking carp and tench! I may swap him for one of Geno's girls, he'll learn much more about this coarse fishing lark with the lump.