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Ray’s First Fish
What do we remember most in our life? Well I have to confess I was into my fortieth year before I did it. I know some of you are lucky and do it earlier in life but it’s no less exciting and gratifying when you are older. Size doesn’t matter as long as it is a Fish. My first was six pounds four ounces in old money, fresh from the sea and feisty.
In Ray’s case he was in his fifties. A long time friend of Charlie Whelan, Ray came up to Grantown-on-Spey for a break from the ‘Smoke’ and Charlie, who had only taken up salmon fishing a couple of years earlier, had Ray down the river quick as a sound bite. A speedy introduction to Spey casting and Ray was off.
Now I have to take Charlie’s word for it, he is after all well known for spinning, but the story goes that he took Ray to the casting platform on the Lurig where Ray deposited a pile of line into the river and to everyone’s surprise a salmon took the fly concealed in the spaghetti of fly line and decided to head seaward.
Sadly I missed the incident but I am told that the fish
decided to leave the pool. Charlie advised Ray that he shouldn’t let the
fish do this, by which time Ray was well into the backing. Against all odds
the fish stayed attached and in time it was landed! 15 pounds of salmon for
a first fish, most of us take a bit more time to get into double figures,
but Ray was in a hurry and congratulations from all quarters flowed
generously. 
I know Ray was chuffed with his first Fish as was Charlie when he took his first from the top of the Long Pool on his first fishing trip to the Spey. Your first salmon has to be indelibly imprinted on your mind.
When a Fish comes early, when you are a novice, the event may have ‘Keystone Cops’ connotations but even when you are an experienced angler, as I was with trout, the day a salmon takes is special and does have the effect that wisdom goes west!
You do not want to lose this fish, when you do, as I did, the sensation is so odd and stays with you for ever. One moment the rod is bent, you are on an adrenaline surge, you have a fish on – then nothing. Gone, gone for good and you piddle about with the rod searching for what you have lost. You can feel what was, mind body and adrenaline keeps the moment of contact alive. Flash backs happen for days, weeks and years.
How can I describe taking a first salmon? I cannot, you have to experience it. The smile on Ray’s face when I saw him could be canned and sold in supermarkets and ascribed to any Ray, Charlie or Ernie. It could have been the smile on the face of Izaac Walton, you today, or your sons and daughters of the future. The smile brought by taking your first fish is innate, part of your being and a pleasure worth repeating. A ray of sunshine!
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