The Fishing Coach

In the last seven years of coaching disadvantaged young people, I have become a little critical of our education system (not the teachers, although there are good, bad and indifferent ones, the same as in any profession) but it seems there is something wrong with the system itself.

But every now and then I meet a member of the teaching or caring profession who re-enforces my belief that despite the faults in the schools and the crazy bureaucracy, we can make a difference to these kids.

Working with these young people, like being a good copper, requires a special commitment and last Friday I was lucky enough to witness one such example. I was coaching a group of young lads about ten years old, all total beginners, and was accompanied by a teaching assistant.

All of the boys were very wary about maggots and terrified of fish but their teacher was even more afraid of both. With four students all catching fish at the same time I was rushed off my feet unhooking fish, rebaiting hooks and untying tangles. She quickly overcame her squeamishness over the maggots and was soon hooking them for her pupils whilst struggling bravely with her absolute terror of touching fish.

Everyone caught lots of fish, some caught as many as twenty and the joy and excitement was evident.

Despite being very busy I was able to watch Miss R___ struggling with her fear of fish and with a little encouragement she not only caught a fish herself but was able to hold it for the photograph. She did not make this massive effort for herself but to provide a good example for her pupils. I am not exaggerating, she showed great courage to overcome her tremendous fear and I am sure that her pupils will benefit from such an example. This is what makes some teachers special.

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Today I helped another lapsed angler, Jon DeCecco, to return to the fold. Like many of my students, Jon had fished a lot when he was younger but had not fished with any success for eight years. He has recently come to live in a house that backs on to Cemex’s Wraysbury two lake and with some fishing literally on his doorstep he decided to take it up again and purchased a permit. His background was in match fishing and after three outings all he had was a list of blanks, the dreaded comorants had got there first.

He contacted me via All things Piscatorial and asked for an introductory day so that he could re-familiarise himself with the sport. These days are quite challenging for me as I must rapidly assess the student’s knowledge in order to pitch my instruction at the appropriate level without the risk of insulting them. This was easy to do with Jon as he was honest about his lack of knowledge with not a pretentious bone in his body. He started float fishing with the new Skinz pellets and was rewarded with a fourteen and a half pound common carp. Nearly three times his previous best.

Before leaving home I found some frozen prawns in the freezer thatI had bought to use on another fishery and had refrozen some months ago. I put them in the bait bag never having used prawns at Twynersh and decided to give them a go. Jon caught all day on them, including one more ugly mirror carp and these two lovely male tench.

Most of the other fish he caught were perch and roach, including this fine specimen. The roach took soft hookable pellets fished just under the surface. A real test of the speed of his reactions.

Another great day in very pleasant company, his thirst for knowledge showed in his well thought out questions and the fish were a bonus.

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On Tuesday I was once again at Twynersh with two pupils from Slough and their teacher. This week we learned about waggler fishing but still used the five metre whips. I also introduced them to the uni knot but there is still much work to do on this knot.

All three, the teacher included, caught fish but not as many as last week and the bigger bream I had been hoping for failed to show. However we were invited by one of the carp fisherman to go and see a large mirror carp he had just caught, weighing in at twenty eight pounds.

The above photo will perhaps make up for the lack of trophy shots for my students.

Next week we will be starting to learn how to use rods and reels.

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Thursday was my second day with two young lads from Slough and once again I was able to secure my favourite swim at Twynersh. The first part of today’s lesson was to explain the problems we had experienced last time with the pole float being towed about by the wind catching the line between the rod tip and the float. They were introduced to the waggler float and it was explained how this would solve the problem. I then did my first knot tying lesson featuring the uni knot. The boys found this difficult and I think it will take a few more lessons to master it.

Once this part of the lesson was over the boys began fishing with the waggler floats but still using the five metre whips. Unfortunately the wind was not strong enough to demonstrate the true effectiveness of this method.

One student was still not ready to handle fish for photographs and so is not featured in this post. I hope this will encourage him to overcome his fear. His teacher was not so reluctant.

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Tuesday found me back in my favourite swim at Twynersh with two lads from Slough I had met last summer and a new teacher. These lads had already had the benefit of some coaching and after a brief assessment were soon catching fish.

As usual we started on five metre whips with maggot hook baits and a healthy sense of competition soon developed.

The boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves and were soon unhooking their own fish and baiting their own hooks. This took the pressure off me a little so their teacher was able to have a go.

All too soon it was time to end the day and I was once again able to think about just how lucky I am to be able to share my sport.

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Last Saturday I travelled down to Whinwhistle Fishery near Romsey in Hampshire for the second All Things Piscatorial Roadshow. I had arranged to stay in a hotel overnight to attend the social evening and discussion the night before the match on the Sunday. Only Steve Gray and Ian Coates were there, along with their partners and as the journey took less than an hour I could have travelled down the following morning and saved myself £40. I spent a disturbed night in the hotel due to a long lasting wedding reception and arrived at the fishery in time for breakfast with the others. There were only seven coaches in attendance which was a disapointment as we were raising money for the The Teenage Cancer Trust. We had lots of raffle prizes, kindly donated by various people but no-one to sell the tickets to.

It was decided over breakfast not to count carp in the match, I am afraid I was responsible for this as I stated my reluctance to put carp into any kind of keep net and I hope this did not spoil the enjoyment for the others.

I am neither a match angler nor an expert with a pole but I enjoyed the element of competition and soon entered into the spirit of things.

I was pegged next to Steve Gray who proceeded to give me a right pasting, ending the match with nearly four times the weight I weighed in. He arranged for his wife Paula to distract me by constantly taking photographs of me, I hope she likes sweetcorn.

Steve has written a full report of the day, well worth a read. The day ended with Steve having his head shaved for the charity.

I understand that a lot of money was raised for the chosen charity but it was a shame that the event could not have been better supported by the other coaches. I do hope that there will be more support for the next one.

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On Thursday I picked up two lads in the 10-11 years age group from Slough, along with their teacher. I have worked with pupils from this school before and have long been an admirer of the great work the staff do.

Twynersh was the obvious choice of venue and we managed to get my favourite swim on the match lake. We started with the usual casting exercise which the boys found quite chalenging being absolute beginners but they both did very well and were soon fishing properly. I set them up with five metre whips without elastic so that they could really feel the fish I knew they would catch.

One lad was first of the mark with a little perch and while I was getting the camera ready he caught another. Not a massive brace of perch but one he will remember for the rest of his life as they were his first fish.

His fellow pupil soon caught his first but was unsure about holding it for the photo so was assisted by his teacher. Both boys caught more than a dozen fish each and were soon putting their own maggots on the hook and while the first lad was able to unhook most of his fish, the other could not quite bring himself to do so.

Nevertheless the day ended with a small victory for the second lad who began to get over his fear of fish and was able to touch one of the bigger perch he caught, spines and all. I am looking forward to working with these two again and anticipate further achievements for both.

I went straight from Slough to the Warren beat on the Wasing Estate and fished a few hours into dark in the hope of a barbel but without sucess. As is often the case, I met some interesting and pleasant fellow anglers which is one of the reasons I rejoin this syndicate every year.

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On Saturday I drove round the top of the M25 to Gilwell Park, the Scouts Activity Centre, to do some taster sessions with my new NFA colleagues. I got there early and found the security overwhelming but no-one seemed to be expecting us. I eventually found my way to the muddy puddle on which we were to fish but could find nowhere to park the car to unload my tackle. There was another coach there already and he had parked well away from the lake so I eventually parked in a campsite right next to the pond and started to set up. It started as a nice bright morning with no wind at all but after I had set up the rain arrived and a gale force wind sprang up making my chosen method, pole fishing, very difficult. I caught one fish and lost two in the weed all day and only delivered five taster sessions.

I make no apologies for not taking photographs as the weather would have made photography very difficult and the venue was such an eyesore it was not worth it.

There were very few children attending, just adult scout leaders and it was for these people that we were to provide the taster sessions. I have always had my doubts about the value of these short taster sessions but to deliver them to adults who will then pass the experience on, second hand to others, seemed a waste of time. The venue added nothing to the experience and I will be avoiding this event next year.

One bad experience in seven years of coaching will not diminish my joy in spreading the word of our wonderful sport nor will it reduce my enthusiasm for the rest of my work with the coaching bodies, be it NFA or PAA.

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Monday was the last day of the summer holidays for most kids and I was back at Twynersh with Nicola, her son Mathew and John and his son Nicholas. All had fished a little but their experience was so limited I decided to structure the lesson as if they were total beginners.

The casting exercise went down well as usual and both boys took an active part in the explanatory talk I give at the start of each lesson. I had got my usual swim on the match lake and the fish co-operated as always.

The fish fed throughout the lesson and everyone caught lots of fish but John was “reluctant” to have his photo taken with only small fish - perhaps next time, John!

A really good lesson with very pleasant people. They must have enjoyed it as much as I did since they booked another lesson before they left.

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Tuesday was the first day off I have had for some time with no urgent preparation to do for the following day and I awoke that morning with a feeling that something was missing. I went to my bait storage fridge and freezers to do a stock take and found that I had several small quantities of various baits left over from coaching sessions, some frozen, some in the fridge.

It seemed to me that it has been a long time since I had a day to myself where I can do what I like. As much as I enjoy coaching I still like fishing more. I decided that a day on the Predator Lake would use up some of my frozen dead baits left over from last season, the lake had only just re-opened on the 1st September. I started to look for a heavy spinning rod to use in conjunction with a multiplier reel to “wobble” a dead bait over the weed beds that would still be left from the summer. During my search I found a rod that I forgotten I had, not as strange as it sounds when you are a tackle tart like me.

Last year when visiting The Tackle Exchange in Walton-on-Thames I had seen a second hand Italian made match rod with a very fine tip which I thought might be ideal for very light lines. I was not able to test the rod in the shop as it was quite busy and I was unable to put a reel on it and run the line through it. When I got it home and tested it properly I found it was very “floppy” and the logos and decals on the butt section were horribly garish.

The rod had only cost me £20 so I cut off the butt section just above the handle and removed all the guides. I then removed the bottom cork of the handle and pushed the butt section up through the handle until the ferrule just protruded, I packed it in position with some pieces cut from the wide end of the blank and araldited it in position. (Don’t try this at home, sometimes the result is a disaster!)

I ended up with a short (10ft 5ins) trotting rod which at the time I was a little disapointed with as it seemed rather stiff and unforgiving, so I put it up on a shelf and forgot about it. Yesterday when I set it up again it did not seem so bad and I decided to give it a trial run on the river Kennet while I was on the Wasing Estate. I found a couple of pints of Dynamite Frenzied Hemp and a pint of fresh(ish) casters in the fridge, some frozen casters and frozen Dynamite Frenzied Tares in the freezer and with two centrepins, my favourite Harrison GTI match rod and my new found “designer” rod I was on my way to the Kennet by mid morning. I also took the heavy spinning rod, multiplier reel and some frozen roach dead baits for the evening.

Before midday I was thigh deep in the Kennet having set up both rods and fed some hemp and casters, I started with the Harrison and a stick float (one of the few swims on the Wasing Estate where you can use a stick float) with casters on the hook. I was into fish straight away, roach and dace every cast, so I introduced some tares into my loose feed.

The new rod was then put through its paces with 2lb mono main line and a size twenty hook to a pound and three quarter hook length, firstly with a single caster and then with a size sixteen wide gape hook with a tare on it. All my reservations disappeared, the rod had a fast crisp action similar to my Drennan Superstick rod but being shorter was suitable for swims with overhead cover as often found on the Warren Beat. It handled good fish on light tackle and I was delighted with this new found tool in my armoury.

The rod in question can be seen in the above photo but the floats are too heavy for the swim in question. The roach is about a pound but well on his way to becoming a big fish.

I fished for about four hours on and off, changing rods and baits regularly, I caught a fish nearly every cast with good quality roach and dace mixed in with smaller fish and little chub. Tares seemed to catch the better stamp of fish but as always were difficult to keep on the hook and only gave one chance to hit the bite. This is always a problem when dace fishing but the fast action of the new rod helped greatly with this and more dace were hooked with this rod than with the Harrison.

At about 6pm I packed away my float rods (none too soon, I was beginning to ache) and went to the Predator lake to try and catch a pike or two. The tackle was a heavy spinning rod with a multiplier reel with fifty pound braid. I always use very heavy breaking strains when pike fishing with braid as the lack of stretch can cause the line to break with a sudden shock particularly when casting big baits. The lake was still heavily weeded and I was only able to work the roach dead bait in the top foot or so and then only in the places where the weed did not reach the surface. I tried all along the road bank and was rewarded with one take only to have the fish come off as soon as I applied any pressure. These are always small fish, aren’t they?

A great day on my favourite river - I am so lucky not to have to work for a living anymore!

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I have just returned from a morning’s coaching at the Surrey tench lake I have mentioned here several times. I was to take the Morris boys, Jack and Alex on their second lesson. Unfortunately their Dad was unable to come so Grandad came instead but did not fish.

The weather had not been kind over the previous two days, the temperature having dropped quite a lot and the tench and carp were not feeding very enthusiastically. We still managed a few bites for both the boys but only Jack managed to connect.

He caught this nice tench which gave a spirited fight. He followed it with a good rudd. The bait for both fish was prawns.

Both lads fished very hard but Jack being older than his brother had the edge in concentration and hand eye co-ordination and managed to hit two bites on a difficult day. Perhaps it will be Alex’s turn next time.

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