Bryan Clay on his passion for fishing

Olympic decathlon champion Bryan Clay may be the best all round athlete on the planet but he still has time to fit in a bit of fishing – his main passion away from the track. spikesmag.com found out more…

“Fishing is probably one of my favourite things to do in the world. I love to go fishing. There is nothing like going out on the lake, standing there casting, just having a good time. You are not looking at your watch, not waiting for your phone to ring... you are just out there having fun.

"I grew up mostly off-shore fishing in Hawaii, although my wife is from Seattle and when we go up there we go out salmon and trout finishing. The salmon fishing is great because we usually bring them home and cook them up. If we ever move to Seattle, I want to buy my own boat and do some crabbing.

"I remember fishing with my brother when we were younger. I wasn’t the best kid growing up so I’d get into a lot of trouble, but when I got into a lot of trouble there would always be a place where I could go out fishing. We knew a section where we would catch barracuda. I remember going out as a little kid, me and my little kid brother, Nicholas, hanging out, catching fish all day. There used to be a lot of chickens about, so we used to run around and try and catch those. I miss those days, they were a lot of fun.

"Every time we had a free second when we were young we were fishing, that’s how we killed time. We would keep salt water tanks and we would put the eels in the tanks and all kind of fun stuff.

"My father and I went up to Alaska and we did some fishing. That was a blast. We were standing out on this little sand bar in the middle of the river fishing at 11 o’clock at night, worrying about bears because you can see the bear tracks everywhere. I get a kick out of that stuff. Standing out at 11 o’clock fishing... that’s heaven for me.

"Why do I like fishing? I guess I enjoy the quiet. It is peaceful and it is calming.”