I will always remember my introduction to fly fishing. It was during 1942, I was not quite 12 years old, and I knew very little about fishing of any description.

We were living on Dol-y-Clochydd Farm alongside the River Mawddach. At that time, retired military men usually owned the fishing rights, and indeed many of the properties along the river. This meant that the general public were not allowed to fish these rivers except for small isolated rods as they were called.

The Mawddach was what I now call a very "fishy" river, with fast rocky sections, long slow glides and deep pools, shaded by willow and hazel trees. Fish were in abundance, mostly Salmon and Brown Trout as well as Sewin or Sea Trout at a certain time of the year. One early morning I saw two men on the pebble beach on the opposite side of the river, upstream from the farmhouse. Being young and inquisitive, I ran along the riverbank to opposite where one of them was fishing. This person was dressed in waders, a jacket full of pockets and a deerstalker hat festooned with brightly coloured, artificial flies.

The other man waved me back away from the riverbank, and when I was slow to understand him, he called out that if I came too close, I would frighten the fish. About 25 yards down stream from where the angler was wading in the river, was a large rock right in the middle of the river. My brother and I had named this rock Gibraltar. Why, I don't know, as due to its location in mid river it would have been more appropriate to name it Malta. Our father was away serving on Malta at that time, and both places featured frequently in the news.

A very large salmon could usually be seen on the downstream side of this large rock. This salmon had been there for a few weeks now, and when the light was at a certain angle, was clearly visible. With lazy sweeps of its tail, the fish maintained its position in the slightly turbulent water sweeping around the sides of the rock. After discovering the salmon by accident, I had made it part of my daily routine to go to a vantage point on the river bank some five yards from the rock. On this particular day I was annoyed and concerned to discover an angler casting his line in the vicinity of the rock - from where I was standing on the eastern side of the river I could just pick out the silhouette of the salmon through the tea coloured river water. This colouring was the result of a few hours of heavy rain, and often indicated that floodwater was imminent.

I was later to learn that such slightly coloured water could really have an influence on fish, and that it was the best time to go fishing.

I watched as the angler cast his fly line across, and slightly down stream. He then allowed the brightly coloured salmon fly to swing down river with the current, occasionally twitching the tip of the fly rod as it did so. In doing so the fly, which I was later to learn was a Jock Scotch pattern, would slide in below the rock, assisted by the angler sending a loop along the line. A couple of times the fly leader must have actually slid over the fish, although there was no visible response. The angler maintained his position in the river and continually allowed the fly to drift behind the rock. It appeared to me that he was either aware of the presence of the fish or expected one to be in that location. I remained silent, just watching what both the fish and the angler were doing.

A couple of times the fish moved sideways in the current to inspect the fly, however it returned each time to its station behind the rock. The next cast put the fly and leader well down below the rock and as the angler stripped in the line, the fly twitched past the salmon, this time, on the opposite side of the rock. The fish made an agitated movement and suddenly charged at the fly as if annoyed. The next instant, the water below the rock was a boiling maelstrom, and in its haste to get away from the thing that was sticking in its jaw the salmon actually slid over the rock.

As it did so it immediately turned downstream heading towards the deep pool lined with willow and hazel trees. I could hear the line screaming off the reel, and the angler stumbled over the rocky bed of the river, rod held high, at the same time trying to brake the fast, turning, reel with his cupped left hand. The fish reach the deep pool and immediately dived deep heading for the roots of the trees lining the edge of the pool. The angler, in an endeavour to turn the fish, quickly laid the fly rod over until it was parallel with the surface of the water.

Both the rod tip and the line were throbbing in unison with the powerful sweeps of the salmon's tail. Gradually, the fish turned until it was facing upstream. Apparently realizing that it could not reach the safety of the tree roots, the fish then made a frenzied dash up stream, leaping out of the water as it did so. One of its leaps caused it to land heavily on the rock, which had previously been its hiding place.

This seemed to take a lot of the energy out of the fish, which was then quickly netted by the angler's companion.

He held up the fish and announced that it must weigh some six pounds. The angler took the fish from his companion and waded across the river towards me. He held out the fish and asked if I would like to take it back to the farmhouse and give it to the farmer. He also asked if I was a fisherman, and I replied that I would like to be one.

On hearing that he let me hold the split can rod, and explained the function of the fly line and the cast and fly. Cutting the fly off the cast, he presented it to me, saying this is a Jock Scott pattern salmon fly; see if you can catch a fish with it. By the way do you have a fly rod?

On being told that I did not have any fishing equipment at all, he said that he would send his chauffer along with an old rod that he no longer used. True to his word, the next week the chauffeur arrived at the door of the farmhouse with a cedar fly rod, fly reel, line, some cat gut leaders, and a box of mixed dry and wet salmon and trout flies. That was 63 years ago, and I still enjoy my fishing.

To be on the river is what it is all about, I don't really mind if I don't catch any thing and even when I do, I always release the fish.

Dol-y-Clochydd Farm, which has had a number of owners in the past 60 years, is now a fishing lodge, and the present owner has confirmed that fish are still being caught at the rock.