On the first day of my college career, I visited the academic programs abroad office and immediately signed up to study abroad. I did not know where I was going or exactly when. I just knew that it was something that I had to do before graduating. I have been travelling all over North America since I was young. However a trip to Argentina changed my entire perspective on travel. This two-week period during my senior year had completely redefined the meaning of the word “vacation”. Vacation was no longer a time to unwind and let your brain go numb. On the contrary travelling to me became a precious opportunity to expand the mind in ways that no book can do. Don’t get me wrong: you can learn much about a place through reading, but actually living and breathing in that place makes all the difference.

Florida As much as many of us thrive on our deepest, darkest, winter fishing, and indeed it can be a time to catch some quality fish, of course the rain and grey skies sometimes frustrate even the hardiest souls. So now be honest with yourself for a second : have you ever dreamt of spending the chillier months somewhere slightly warmer ? And if that answer is yes, then how many really have either the chance or the guts to do it ? Whatever the answer, nobody could deny that spending the winter months somewhere as warm and as fish-filled as the Florida Keys is not sorely tempting.

51 year old Rodney Goodship is your typical fishing nut : we all know the story. Start fishing at a young age, move heavily into sea fishing when location and travel possibilities combine, and then look to fishing further afield as perhaps circumstances allow. But how come he now spends six months plus of the year living down in the Keys, with his own boat, and welcoming travelling Brits to come and stay and fish for some very accessible prices ?

Boats have for many years been a very serious part of Rodney's life; coarse fishing the local ponds in his youth (with and without licenses, sometimes !!) first gave him the fishing bug, but when his family moved to the Brighton area, so he and his mates would row solid wooden clinker-built rowing boats a couple of miles offshore and fish for species such as bass and bream, plus the local piers and rivers gave good chances to chase further species.

I was really interested to hear about many teenage holidays spent with various relations over in Norway. With this country now quite rightly attracting great publicity over their staggering cod fishing, Rodney has nothing but fond memories of boat fishing in various fjords for decent cod and coalfish. If only we had but a small percentage of Norway's cod stocks over here, but that sadly is another story......

Working as a civil engineer eventually took him to the wilds of Scotland and now a chance really to indulge in his growing love for sea fishing. Whereas many of us anglers seem to have some kind of inbuilt desire to access the remotest parts of our coastline via good old leg power, Rodney decided that (quite sensibly I might add !!) boat fishing was going to give him the key to Scotland's rugged west coast. Together with his wife Helen they then ran a restaurant near Stranraer for a few years and in his spare time he would take small guided trips for tope and other such species.