Daddy Cool: "Number One Son landed two Rainbow Trout"

And now that my oldest son has been well and truly bitten by the fishing bug, I'm beginning to be cajoled into covering similar sorts of distances, rod and line baited and ready in the boot of the family charabanc.

He first showed an interest after a three-hour boat trip on rain-lashed Loch Earn in the summer. To everyone's surprise, junior caught two trout, but amid the general panic and hysteria on board, we failed to land either before they freed themselves and disappeared into the chilly depths.

Since then, he has become a sort of miniature Captain Ahab, although rather than questing after an albino leviathan, he's been after anything that dwells within a spinning cast of Newhaven and Granton harbours.

Until last weekend, we had failed dismally. While the faintly menacing feral local kids effortlessly landed mackerel after mackerel, gleefully bashing the life out of their finny spoils on the cold rock of the causeway, we stood for hours without so much as a bite. Day after day we'd try our luck, blaming the tides, the weather, the bait, the rods, before heading home, deflated.

Now there is only so much of this a man can take, and only so much disappointment an eight-year-old boy can be subjected to, before something radical has to be done. I knew I had reached that point, and I suspect my son had too.

So on Sunday we headed to Kailzie Fishery outside Peebles in a last ditch attempt to catch our dinner and salvage some pride. And after three hours of watching and waiting, baiting and casting – plus plenty of help and encouragement from fishery manager Jimmy Barrett – number one son had successfully landed two splendid rainbow trout.

Predictably, our sinister six-year-old son was even more interested in the unfortunate creatures after they'd breathed their last – "Can I squidge their eyes?" – but I guess it's all part of the pond-to-plate, circle-of-life lesson. And after Mummy Cool had gutted and cooked them, they tasted delicious.

I think you could say we're hooked.

• This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on October 10, 2010