I like to think that everyone remembers the first fish they ever caught. I am referring to a person’s first fish in a very personal way and not in a generic way, like the first fish that Mark Kurlansky wrote about in “Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.” Kurlansky detailed how the early railroads used codfish from our East Coast waters to sustain their workers and the people from the towns and villages that sprung up along the railroad. (Today, the stocks of codfish are dangerously diminished from overharvesting).

But I am thinking of the first fish that you caught yourself. My earliest recollection of a fish, other than those that were served on a plate, was when my father brought home a gigantic carp that he had caught in Baisley’s pond. He filled the bathtub with water and put this giant carp in it where it seemed to be quite content and delighted my mother and brothers and sister. I was not privy to the ultimate fate of the carp, but somehow I doubt it was catch and release back in the late 1940s.

My own first fish was several years later, and I caught it on the simplest of rigs: a cane pole, braided black nylon line, red-and-white bobber and a long-shanked, snelled snapper hook. It was a day in late summer (just about this time of year), and we fished off the dock at Unqua Point, Long Island. We caught lots of fish that day. My first fish was lost to posterity forever in a bucket of small bluefish (snappers) destined for an amazing fish fry later that day. I was hooked.

It was also a recent September day when my granddaughter, Emma Rose (age five), caught her first fish on a fly rod, as pictured here. She posed with the fish but apparently would not touch it, so it was up to her father Josh (a true fly-rod master) to both hold the fish and photograph it. Emma became bolder later in the day when she caught her first bass, a wee one that she was confident enough to hold for the picture herself. I had the opportunity to interview Emma about her first fish and she told me, “It fought real hard. And it jumped, and it ran. I had to take my hand off the reel handle to let it run or the line would have snapped. The fish later did a second run a little shorter, but I also let it run. It was a very brightly colored peacock bass. I released it!”

The peacock bass was Emma’s first fish on a fly rod. Curiously enough, she used a fly tied by Delaware River regular, Mauro Giuffrida. Mauro likes to buy hooks at flea markets, often seeking to buy a thousand hooks for $2. I don’t think these hooks are very sturdy, but they were fine for catching a peacock bass. Mauro may correct me, but I believe it may be the first fish ever caught on a Giuffrida fly in 20 years.

Not every first fish is a “wee” one. You can see in the photo here, a fine fish recently caught by new fly-rodder Steffi. Perhaps this released Delaware rainbow will encourage her to pursue fly fishing with the same exuberance that Emma now has for fly fishing. After a half century plus of cultivating roses, my own mother landed her first fish on a fly rod at age 90. So for the rest of those between the ages of five and 90, there is still time and opportunity to get your first fish on a fly rod.