There are many reasons why travellers like to visit Amsterdam - the history, the culture, arts and music, the tinny or "coffee" shops and some even like to study red lights. But who goes there for the fishing?
Well, one would be surprised at the fishing to be found in the main river which flows through the city to the sea. It is wide and brown, and as the main thoroughfare it carries a continuous stream of long, flat barges packed with coal, oil, petrol and other materials which feed the pulse of western Europe.
So when the younger generation revealed that my Father's Day gift was a trip out with a local professional fishing guide it was with considerable trepidation that we stepped on to a sleek aluminium boat about 5m long. It was well set up, with an electric motor on the bow, a 60-horsepower four-stroke on the stern and a couple of plastic seats on high pedestals for the anglers.
"You know vertical jigging?" asked our guide, Tjeerd, as we bounced in the wash of a passing barge. As this happens every few minutes you soon ignore the wavelets. Like a mother duck with her brood, the barges were trailed by craft that resembled the pages of a book on marine designs over a hundred years all suddenly come to life. And as it was a sunny Saturday with the mercury nudging 32C the occupants sported shorts, bikinis and occasionally a gentleman with cravat and captain's insignia. It seemed as if the maritime history of this great country was on display.
And so we dropped braid lines on slender carbon-fibre rods with tiny spin reels. On the business end a length of mono ended with a pencil-shaped lead weight, and a single hook about 40cm above it was tied directly to the trace. Our guide produced boxes and boxes of what looked like soft baits. "Lots of lures," he quipped. It is the same the world over. You have a thousand lures, but usually only use a couple of the tried and true.
