The Fishing Coach

I have just started to try and dry out all my pike fishing tackle after the first of this season’s pike handling courses, ready for tomorrow and another course.

I took four lads from PAYP Reading to the predator lake on the Wasing Estate near Aldermaston with the kind permission of the management and it rained all day. There was even a gale force wind for good measure and on our arrival at the fishery I thought perhaps nature was trying to tell us something.

I set up the first rod to leger a small herring and attached the drop-off bite indicator after casting it out just beyond the marginal shelf. I explained to the lad who was going to use the rod what to do and started setting up the other rods when he yelled and I saw that the line was peeling out. I told him to strike and the rod hooped over. He did very well for a twelve year old and we soon netted a thirteen pound pike in perfect condition.

In the next three hours four more pike took our legered dead baits, two of them larger than the first at fourteen and seventeen pounds. The last fish even tail-walked before it lodged itself into a weed bed.

You will have noticed that I have not posted for a while. This is because I have sprained my right wrist and have not been fishing much. The wrist has just started to heal and I was able to cast their baits out for the lads but pulling the big fish out of the weeds was really painful. I couldn’t leave it to one of the lads as it requires a certain technique and the fish could not be left where it was. So I could be back to square one with three more days of coaching this week.

The great thing about catching so many fish, apart from the obvious, is that I was able to demonstrate safe handling and unhooking techniques time and time again. Everyone was able to get some hands on experience without messing one fish about too much.

All the way home I tried to convince them that pike fishing isn’t always like this!

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