Without wishing to wax lyrical there comes a incident you experience that always stays with you.  So much so you can see it again years later in minute detail. I had one such experience. must be 40 years ago now.

I was coarse fishing on the Wye opposite Luggs Mouth probably for chub -before the pesky barbel arrived.

I had just experienced a really heavy thunderstorm which under the umbrella was a bad enough experience in itself.

However it eventually passed over and the sun was starting to peek out.   In from of me the sky was a s black as pitch as the storm retreated in front of me and as the sun started to show a magnificent rainbow formed against the black background.

At that moment a Kingfisher flew upstream , stopped and hovered in front of me about six above the surface.    Lit up by the shaft of sunlight, under the rainbow and against the blackness it shone and shimmered for a few seconds like something magical its colours picked out in superb detail..  It then dived to the surface took a small fish in a splash of spray, probably a bleak, and flew on its way.

One of those moment never to be forgotten or repeated.

Had several land on my rod tip from time to time and saw them most days on the upper Wye but that experience was something else.

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Thanks to Peter Hickman for the below.

My first salmon

  It was 1990 and I had only been salmon fishing for about 5 years. This consisted of an annual week on the Spey at Grantown. It was not really serious fishing as I didn't really have much of a clue. I could not fly fish then and it did not really appeal to me. Spinning was easier. Static worming like the locals was even easier!

  We had been fishing the Glen Morriston estate for a week. 3 days fishing the hill lochs for wild brownies and 3 days fishing the river Morriston for salmon. Our ghillie had told us that the best place for catching a salmon was above Dundreggan dam where there was a slight weir. Fish directly above it he said. If you want to catch a salmon, you will catch one there. He said it was an easy place to find if we followed his instructions. Well for three days we searched for this magical place but to no avail. 

  On the last night we had just finished our meal in the pub and my brother asked me if I wanted to go back out for another hours fishing. I said yes and we set off to the river. Low and behold we found the magical place. I was set up with a brand new 20g gold toby attached to the end of my line.

 On the first cast of retrieving my lure, I noticed that it was covered in weed. I cleaned all the weed off the treble hook and noticed that I had not taken off the rubber tubing that covered the hook points. (When you bought a new toby in those days all the hook points were covered in protective tubing to stop getting the lures tangled up). I cast out again and immediately got the toby caught on some more weed. After alot of thrashing about in the water, I finally managed to free the lure. After cleaning the hook again I cast out my third cast in roughly the same  spot as previously when wallop, something had grabbed my lure. Having never hooked a salmon before, I was unsure what to do, but I read in a book somewhere that the best thing to do was get in front of the fish and walk it down the river like a dog on a lead. So I did. I found a nice single bank and after about 5 minutes I had landed my first salmon. It was a hen fish between 6 and 7lbs. After that we took it back to the pub to celebrate!! 

  The ghillie was in there. I thought he would be pleased. He was not. He said that after 5pm there was no fishing on the river. I thought he was joking. He wasn't but he let me keep my first fish.