Igniting a spark

I became a father a couple of years ago, which, as most parents will attest, is a journey of exhaustion, elation, frustration and (most recently) half-finished apples strewn around the house. One of the aspects of parenthood I have always looked forward to is the opportunity to introduce my child(ren) to my passion for fishing.

I have already started introducing my son, Ted, to rivers, ponds and their inhabitants. The first steps were a handful of short fishing excursions with him in a rucksack on my back during a paternity-leave trip to New Zealand. He gurgled away behind me while I wandered happily up the river, spotting trout and even managing to catch a couple. He’s now two and a half and we’ve moved on to netting minnows and juvenile roach in a little stream not far from home, as well as some (very) brief float-fishing sessions for suicidal perch.

To try and maximise the chance that Ted will follow in my fishing footsteps, I’ve started to ask friends and