The Fishing Coach

Tuesday and Wednesday this week I was back at Frobury Fisheries, a venue I had not visited since last year due to lack of business from Reading e2e. I was booked by Paula Jones some months ago as a birthday present for her partner Nick for two days coaching for both of them with a hotel stay in-between. They live in Warminster and since Frobury is about half way between us, was an ideal venue. My partner Jan and I both agreed that Paula sounded like a lovely person on the phone so I was looking forward to the two days and the chance to meet her and her partner Nick.

The night before as I was packing my car and doing the usual preparation prior to a couple of days away I discovered that the clutch pedal on my Volvo had stopped working and could be pressed straight to the floor without effect. I phoned Les (who manages the private Surrey lake I sometimes fish) but he had injured his arm and was unable to travel. Roy Meincken, a very good friend of mine from way back, abandoned his just cooked supper to come over and have a go but was unable to fix it so I started phoning around to try and borrow some transport for two days, without success.

Being a Bank Holiday Monday I did not think I would be able to hire a vehicle at 7.30 at night and I reluctantly left a message on Paula’s mobile cancelling the two day trip. I felt really awful about this as I was looking forward to it as much as they were. I rang Chris Clark as a last resort, thinking he would surely be using his van but he would have been happy to lend it to me… had it not “died” the day before! Luckily though he called back within minutes and offered to ask his Dad, Max, if I could borrow his car. This was arranged and the trip was on again. What would we do without mates?

I met Paula and Nick in the village of Kingsclere in Berkshire the following morning as arranged and Jan and I were right. (I am always right, so she was on a fairly safe wicket agreeing with me. When will these women learn?) Paula has a bubbly personality as we had guessed and I knew she and Nick would be excellent company over the next few days. He had fished a little as a lad but Paula was an absolute novice and when we arrived at the fishery I soon found them to be very enthusiastic students. We fished my usual spot on the Match Lake and caught fish all day.

They caught small carp, tench, ordinary and golden rudd mostly on sweetcorn, starting with a whip, then progressing to a six metre elasticated pole and finally on to a rod and reel.

Halfway through the afternoon the skies opened up and it poured with rain. After sitting in our respective cars for half an hour we decided to call it a day and make an early start the next morning. We went back to the hotel I had booked, a Travelodge at Chievely services on the M4 and caused quite a stir making three trips through reception and upstairs to my room with armfuls of dripping wet fishing tackle. We all went out for a curry that night but I was in bed by 10pm, absolutely shattered.

We were back at Frobury before 7 the next morning to fish their specimen lake and were greeted with what us traditionalists call a “tenchfisher’s dawn”.

I put in lots of bait and it took a little while for the fish to switch on but soon they were both catching carp and tench of a better stamp than the day before.

Later in the day I managed to get the carp taking baits from the surface and both students were able to experience the frustrations of surface fishing for carp that have seen it all and got the t-shirts. They were able to catch a couple of the less experienced small carp but the bigger fish defied me too.

At the end of the day Paula caught a fish that I was unable to positively identify but I think it was a golden orfe.

This was one of the best two day coaching sessions I’ve ever done, due not only to the excellent fishery at Frobury but also to the companionship of kindred spirits.

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On Thursday Joe and I went to the Warren beat on the Wasing Estate. We were armed with lots of casters purchased from Davies Angling in Staines and a variety of pellets. I had established that a spare pair of waders that I had would just about fit him and I also purchased a new bait apron at the same time as the casters. Davies Angling sell frozen casters that are cheaper than fresh ones and are fine for loose feeding so the bait bill was not too bad as we only needed a couple of pints of fresh for the hook baits.

The day began early with a “big boy’s” breakfast at Max’s cafe on the A4 at Padworth and we were on the water by eight. I set up two float rods, both with centrepins, one loaded with six pound Drennan float fish line and the other with eight pound Fireline braid. I started Joe of with the rod with the mono and after feeding the swim with hemp and casters while I showed him how to work the reel, we waded out into the river and started to trot double caster under a one SSG loafer float in a fast glide no more than two and a half feet deep. The roach and dace were lined up waiting for the bait and “a fish a cast” was the order of the day for the first half hour. It is so much easier to teach float control and bait presentation when the local fish population are in a co-operative mood and Joe continued to learn quickly. I could see that he was really enjoying this learning experience so I played my trump card and switched him over to the rod with the braided mainline. He was pleasently surprised by the difference and found float control much easier, he also hit more bites.

We continued trotting with the braided line, up to our thighs in fast flowing water, with me feeding quite heavily with the hemp and caster in the hope of a big chub or even a barbel but no such luck. Nevetheless Joe is now a centrepin enthusiast and is looking for a river he can trot near to his home so that he can fit his new found pleasure in with his demanding work schedule and family ties.

I had forgotten to bring my camera but Joe had his camera phone and the pictures on this post are courtesy of him.

After lunch we changed swims to fish the one in the picture above that is slightly deeper, I was able to demonstrate the need for a different float and a shoting patern slightly more complex that the one we used in the shallow swim. The fishing was slower here and we soon changed to a feeder on a quiver tip rod so that I could explain the techniques of legering in fast flowing water. Joe was rewarded with a slightly larger chub than those he had been catching on the float but still no barbel.

Later that evening when I finally got home I received an email from Joe with the pictures on this post and the following kind words.

I just wanted to say a big thank you for the two days coaching, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I found trotting today using the centre pin especially satisfying; your coaching made something which can be very daunting straight-forward, easy to follow and enabled a complete novice like me to have a good crack at it. You can certainly call me a convert!

If you ever want to refer someone to me for an impartial view on whether coaching is worth the time and expense, please let me know and I’ll be happy to tell them what fun I had and all that I learnt.

Thanks again for some great and thoroughly enjoyable fishing and I hope to do it again soon.

Thanks Joe!

All in all a tiring week with very early starts and often long days with evenings of preparation in-between but read these words and look at the pictures on this and previous posts and you will see why it is all worthwhile.

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About this time last year I received an email from a man who wanted to polish his skills as he was already regularly fishing the river Thames and had been fishing since he was a lad. We tried to organise a day out together but as he works in the area of worldwide insurance, this last year with its natural calamities made this very difficult.

We finally got together this week and he booked two days, Wednesday and Thursday for our outings. He was having some problems leger fishing the Thames, getting his feeder rigs tangled and was worried about his casting accuracy. He told me by email that he had many other questions and so I decided to make Twynersh our first venue. I knew I could catch him some fish there and there was plenty of space for casting lessons.

We fished lake one and I demonstrated the method feeder in the hope of catching him a few trophy fish for photographs. I set this up on a bite alarm so that I could demonstate a couple of simple uncomplicated feeder rigs to cure his tangling problems. We also did a little casting practice and soon improved his accuracy by refining his casting techniques. Joe is an avid learner, he quickly grasped everthing I showed him, his enthusiastic questions demonstrated his rapid grasp of the concepts and made his instruction very challenging but all the more rewarding for me.

We were unable to get any worthwhile response to legered bait so I showed him how to use a polaris sliding float this has become a very popular method at Twynersh due to its extreme depth and although he hooked a small carp it became tangled in some underwater discarded line and the manager, Paul had to get a boat to release it. Very few carp or tench were caught on the whole lake and so we changed to float fishing with lighter tackle, fished very shallow.

I fed handfuls af small mixed pellets and Joe fished Dynamite Baits Swimstim Amino soft hooker pellets on a size sixteen hook. He began catching roach and rudd at every cast.

I would not like to estimate just how many fish he caught but he was more than pleased with the sport he was having and with what he had learnt.

I had already planned to take Joe on the river Kennet to teach him some river legering techniques and as he was enjoying float fishing, a technique he had not practiced much recently I decided to give him a real treat on the following day.

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Having had Sunday off, I was back on the bankside on Monday and Tuesday coaching with my new NFA hat on. I am now both a PAA and NFA licensed coach. The venue was Beale Park at Pangbourne, Berkshire, a wildlife and gardens park where the EA had organised a two day event for the public to come and try their hand at fishing. There were about a dozen NFA coaches and we were quite busy, spending about fifteen minutes with each person or small group. Everyone caught fish, primarily bleak, the lake is linked to the river Thames, but some were lucky to catch small bream, roach and perch.

Sometimes it was one parent and their child, other times it was a whole family of young people.

I remain unconvinced as to the value of these short taster sessions to the sport in general but the participants certainly enjoyed themselves.

The EA also ran “pond dipping”sessions where visitors were able, with the aid of a net, to glimpse the wonders of the underwater environment. I was fascinated to see the small fish, insects and other invertibrates that were caught and I was very surprised to see a bullhead.

I have not seen one of these for years. They are also known as the Millers Thumb.

Just before the end of the second day a young lad, admittedly not an absolute beginner, caught the best fish from the swim I had been allocated.

Beale park is not far from Junction 12 of the M4 motorway, I have seen it sign posted for many years on my way to my beloved river Kennet and wondered what it was. Now I know.

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On Saturday I was working with the EA who had organised some taster coaching sessions for Farnham Angling Society on their centenary open day. It was held at Kings Pond on their Badshot Lea Complex and the public were encouraged to have a go at fishing with one of us coaches. There were five of us and we had sixty customers during the day, all of whom caught fish, many more than one in the fifteen or so minutes they were allotted. The fish fed all day and most were caught on whips with maggots as bait.

Kings Pond was only dug a couple of years ago, with financial help from the EA. It is intended as a coaching pond and has been stocked with roach, tench, bream and crucian carp. It’s only five feet deep with man made fishing stations and is an ideal coaching venue. I hope the club is able to use it to its full potential.

It was an opportunity to renew my aquaintance with Dr Alan Butterworth who was coaching in the next swim. It’s good to see that even the senior managers in the EA are committed to introducing young people into the sport.

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As a result of a comment by Joe Perdoni on a previous post, I’ve decided to put my one of my theories, previously only spoken of to close friends, down in print.

Joe says: “Why is it that fish always decide to bite when you’re not looking or are in the middle of doing something; you can have hours of no action but as soon as you turn your back……….! “

All anglers have experienced this many times, too often to be a coincidence. Many years ago whilst “a serving of Her Majesty the Queen” in the British Army of the Rhine I did a bit of match fishing on the army match circuit and I expressed the same sentiment to a long serving Sergeant Major and I added that it seemed as though the fish knew when we were concentrating on catching them. He told me of certain soldiers who, even when in simulated field combat situations, could tell when they were being watched and often say from which direction.

When the subject came up again on another occasion, in different company, a fellow angler who had done a lot of deer stalking said he was always being told by professional gillies never to look directly at a deer until he was ready to pull the trigger. Apparently the deer can sense the hunters presence, become restless and often move out of shot.

If these two examples are true then why should fish not have this extra sense and be aware of the anglers presence in the same way, abstaining from feeding through fear until the anglers attention wanders.

Consider this if you will, the next time you are sitting there having missed the only bite of the day, as the hot tea you were about to drink soaks slowly into your groin.

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I have just got home from a very gruelling day at Twynersh Fishing Complex. I’m forcing myself to write it up now as I have another day’s coaching tomorrow and just like when I was in the police, it doesn’t pay to get behind with the paperwork!

I arrived at the fishery just before 7 a.m. as I was expecting a mother and her son and daughter for a four hour beginners lesson at 8. Leila arrived right on time with Alex and Fiona all as keen as mustard. Both children had been sold one of those dreadful beginners kits and were quite disappointed when I told them they were vitually useless.

The lesson was going well with mum and kids catching fish despite the intermittent, often heavy, showers.

During the lesson I received a ‘phone call from Kevin from Kenya who is here visiting a friend Peter in Weybridge asking if I could run a course for them this afternoon as they would like to bring their sons too. I agreed and bang went my afternoon off.

Meanwhile I carried on with the morning session and all three students continued catching fish.

The lesson ended at noon and I quickly set an extra set of tackle and made a few running repairs to the rigs we had been using. I was then able to have a quiet half hour to myself and a little fishing.

The new students arrived at 1.30 p.m. and the lesson started in the middle of a heavy shower. All had fished before but not in the UK and even the adults were enthusiastic about the techniques of British coarse fishing.

Every one caught lots of fish and although I enjoyed the coaching, this time the coversation was even more interesting than usual, because of the background of both the dads and their experiences in Africa.

I think I will be seeing more of both groups, a very enjoyable but tiring day’s coaching.

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Yesterday I fished the private lake in Surrey I have spoken about before. I’d been invited by Weller of the Yard (who manages the estate) to provide a short period of coaching for the son of a friend of the owner. The offer of some of their fresh eggs and an opportunity to practice my newly learned pole techniques was too much to turn down. My student, Lewis, was a confident young man, keen to learn and he was soon catching rudd and roach to half a pound with a bonus tench towards the end of the short session.

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I chose the wrong swim to fish with a pole, too many lilly pads in which I managed to lose every carp I hooked despite stepping up to a sixteen elastic with an eight pound hook length. I caught several tench up to about four pounds, mostly after I switched to a rod and centrepin. By this time the carp were totally spooked and had stopped feeding.

This pole fishing is a very steep learning curve, the pole is not the tool to control carp to double figures in a confined space.

During the day two of the lads from the Molesey Anglers Curry Club arrived. They’re both named John which adds a surreal element to any curry club conversation as there is at least one other member called John. They fished the far corner of the lake and just before I packed up, the one we refer to as “Big John” for obvious reasons, came up to me to complain that a fish had just pulled in his rod and taken his front bank stick and bite indicator with it. Presumably his reel was not switched to “bait runner” mode and he did not hear his bite alarm.

It would seem that he had been legering with two rods with bite indicators and when he stripped one rod down to change to float fishing, the other rod was pulled in when he was not watching. He managed to hook the line with his other rod and even landed the carp but the rod and reel were firmly lodged in a patch of lilly pads.

Les the estate manager arrived with his breast waders and was able to retrieve not only the rod and reel but the missing bite alarm and bankstick as well. On checking the bite alarm it was found that it did not work, only to be expected after a total immersion in the lake. Les took it back to his workshop to dry it out with a compressed air hose. When he opened it he found it did not have a battery fitted!

It would seem that Fox do not make a solar powered bite alarm after all!

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Yesterday I was back at Twynersh Fishing Complex expecting two mums and their sons for one of my beginners courses. Anne and her son Yiannis are here on holiday from Athens and Caroline and her son Hugo live in a house on the river Thames in Weybridge (a home visit may well be on the cards). Caroline also brought her daughter, Hannah along who claimed to have no interest in fishing (I love a challenge!).

Both families had been treated badly by the tackle trade and both boys were the owners of one of those dreadful seven foot spinning rods that tackle dealers are so fond of dumping on any young person who enters their shop. Why are the tackle trade not interested in young up and coming anglers?

I had persuaded both mums to take part in the lesson as it will be six or seven years before they would be able to let their sons go fishing on their own and if they are going fishing with their sons anyway, they might as well share the experience.

Both mums caught their first fish and seemed to enjoy every minute, really entering into the spirit of the lesson and the boys were soon baiting their own hooks and unhooking their own fish.

One of the mums has some work to do on her maggot handling (you know who you are!) but everyone had a great time and, of course, Hannah caught some fish too.

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Last Thursday I was back at Twynersh Fisheries for a full day of coaching. I had a normal beginners’ course at 10 a.m. and a special two hour course at 4 p.m. The morning course was with Dad Terry, his son Charlie and his friend Daniel. All were virtual beginners and were started off with whips after the casting exercise.

As usual everyone caught lots of fish, including a bream caught by Charlie who had a natural ability but Daniel worked very hard to keep up with him and both boys learned very quickly.

Terry was reluctant to have his fish photographed after Charlie’s bream but he caught his share, although his main interest was the boys’ sport. If I had been that selfless years ago then maybe my two sons would be fishing today.

I had arrived at the fishery at 7.30 a.m. to get my favourite swim and to get the tackle set up well before the first course. By mid afternoon I was already quite tired, coaching three beginners involves a lot of running about, baiting hooks, unhooking fish and untangling tackle. At the end of the lesson I had an hour and a half to make running repairs to the rigs before Julia was due to arrive with her family.

The second session was of a type I have never attempted before as two of the boys were five years old and the third was only seven. This is below my usual eight years old lower limit but Julia had communicated their enthusiasm so well in her telephone call I deided to make an exception. Due to their age we had decided to limit the course to two hours as children this young tend to have shorter attention spans.

Many of the techniques I have used in the past with older students failed to work with these youngsters and I had to develop new ones “on the hoof” as we went along. The boys were not the only ones on a steep learning curve. Nevertheless it went well and once again everyone caught fish.

Lots of fish were caught and I was run ragged between the three youngsters, anglers so young have more problems than their older counterparts and much more for the coach to deal with. I enjoyed the new experience immensely but was not all that sorry when the end of the lesson came.

I will have to think some more about running shorter lessons for younger students, this one was so much fun.

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Back in the spring when I was still suffering with two sprained wrists, one of my students volunteered to help me sort out my fishing tackle ready for the new coaching season. Taylor Clarke has developed into a very capable young angler since his first lesson with me and he spent two days working very hard helping me with the lifting that my wrists made difficult.

As a reward I gave him two old carp rods that Gordon Scott had built which was fitting as Taylor had been taught by Gordon just before he died. Both rods bore Gordon’s name on a customised label that he always put on his rods.

Last week during our stay with Dave and Annie up in Lincolnshire I was sitting in a very nice Chinese restaurant at about 8 p.m. when my mobile phone rang. It was Taylor ringing to tell me that he had just doubled his personal best carp with a fish from Cemex’s Thorpe Lea fishery that weighed sixteen pounds “caught on one of Gordon’s rods”. Gordon would have been chuffed, as was I and very proud that Taylor had thought to share this with me. Mobile phones have their good side!

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The work I will be doing over the next year with the Behavior Support Service in Slough will involve using angling as a means to improve literacy and numeracy amongst young people. Dave and Annie Higham of Oham Lakes have been doing something similar with their local education authoriity for some time now so I rang Dave to pick his brains. The result was an invitation to go up to Lincolnshire for a couple of days to see what they did. There was an empty caravan for the rest of the week and Jan and the dog were invited too.

On Wednesday morning I packed my pole fishing gear (Dave is an excellent pole angler and I never miss the chance for some good coaching, even at my age) and we drove up to the East Midlands. We were met with a wonderful welcome and the caravan was an angler’s dream.

The view from the caravan

The lakes hold most species of coarse fish with exception of pike, catfish and zander and I was able to fish ten yards from the caravan door and leave my box set up on the peg all the time we were there. All I had to do was get the ready set up pole sections out of the car and start fishing.

I picked up some good tips on fishing with paste in very shallow water from Dave and caught a few of his carp.

I also caught lots of good quality roach to about a pound, some rudd and their amazing bionic bream. These fish were bronze bream up to about two pounds in weight that as soon as they were hooked leapt clear of the water by at least eighteen inches, landed on their sides and then went jumping across the surface of the lake like marlin for at least fifteen feet. Nearly frightened Jan to death when she hooked one.

I was able to discuss their teaching syllabus with Annie and I came away with some excellent ideas to share with the team at Slough in the new term.

There is also a very well stocked tackle shop on the site with a comprehensive range of tackle on sale as well as bait and on Friday morning I was invited to accompany Dave to the maggot farm to replenish their stock. This was to be the most appalling experience I have had since leaving the Police. The smell still lingers in my nostrils as I write. I have a strong stomach but I could not stay inside this place and this photograph was taken by Dave.

Next time I hear someone complaining about the price of maggots they are liable to get the full story!

We stayed until late Saturday and had a wonderful stress free break, ending the holiday with a fish and chip supper on the beach with the family.

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