The Fishing Coach

Steve Gray who runs All Things Piscatorial (”Your one stop coaching site”) is the manager of a syndicate on the South Lake at Shepperton Marina and had convinced me to join this season. After the way he showed me up when I took him pike fishing he should have let me join for nothing…

Anyway, today was the opening day of the new season on the lake and was to be the first time I had fished it. I met Steve at the lake with Nigel Botherway (also a syndicate member) and we had a chat about the lake. I would liked to have stayed and chatted longer as I know Nigel from his days at Heathrow and there were many stories to re tell but I wanted to get fishing. I imitated a News of the World reporter and made my excuses and left.

The swim Steve had recommended was peg one and had a patch of lillies to the right and an overhanging tree on the left but I was surprised to find it was thirteen feet deep. I just managed to fish it with a 3AAA Drennan Tench waggler float rather than a sliding float. The stop knot would have caused problems passing through the small rod rings when casting with the centrepin reel I was using. I fed some hemp and trout pellet. I was trying some tinned hemp from BCUK that Dave from Oham Lakes had given me.

It smelled good and was very oily but today was not the day for a fair trial. The wind picked up soon after I arrived and then switched direction to come from the North, it was very cold and we were soon shivering in its blast. More like February than “Flaming June”.

I had my fist bite after an hour but as is so often the case it came when I was talking to a passing angler and I missed it. How do they know when you’re not looking? You watch the float all day and it doesn’t even twitch but you pour a cup of tea or look up at a singing bird and when you look back you see your float comming back up.

Shortly afterwards my second bite produced a hard fighting male tench of about three pounds that justified my decision to use six pound mainline. It tried to reach the lillies and when I turned it it went for the overhanging tree.

It’s always good to “break your ducrk” on a new water on the first outing. I will be spending a lot of time at Shepperton Marina this summer - there are problems to be solved due to the depth and my lack of knowledge of this water but I’m sure that this venue has great potential and I’m very much looking forward to it.

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Life is so full of coincidences! Last week I had a very sucessful day on the river Test fly fishing for trout then towards the end of the week I was telephoned by a future student who asked if I could give one of her relatives, who was visiting from Canada, a fly fishing lesson. Normally I would have recommended that he find a casting coach and get some casting lessons first but he was returning home in two days and would not have time. I gave the matter a little thought and after a telephone call to Syon Park I agreed to show him the basics.

On Sunday I met Steven at Syon Park and began my first fly fishing lesson. Steve had never cast a fly but after about twenty minutes, with a bit of wool on the leader instead of a fly, was doing a fair job of laying the fly on the grass about ten yards away. He was either a natural or I have a better casting action than I thought. He was still making a few mistakes with his technique but all he needed was practice.

I tied on an epoxy resin buzzer and explained how to fish it slowly.

Steve had already done quite a lot of fishing in Canada, catching walleye and perch, sometimes through a hole in the ice but nothing had prepared him for the sheer speed of a rainbow trout. He got a take right under the rod tip at the end of the retrieve and managed to hold onto the fish for about forty seconds. He almost had control of the fish when it surfaced and saw us, it turned and shot away at great speed catching him by surprise, pulling the rod down and parting the leader before he could let go of the line he was holding.

I don’t know who was more upset, him or me. He had one more take during the rest of the day but alas failed to hook the fish. His casting improved throughout the day but I suggested that if he intends to take up fly fishing he should get some more casting lessons. Money well spent!

He enjoyed the day as much as I did but I was disappointed not to have got him a fish. He certainly earned one.

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