The Fishing Coach

Today I had been given permission to take Kieran from Slough to the Predator Lake on the Wasing Estate for a pike handling course. He has been fishing with me twice already and after losing a small roach to a pike at Twynersh has been keen to catch our largest native predator. He even disrupted his whole family to be ready for me to pick him up at 7 am. And it was tipping with rain.

We drove down to the Kennet valley and stopped at Max’s cafe in Padworth for a bacon sandwich. As we arrived at the lake the rain stopped and the sun came out. I thought we had used up our daily ration of luck and did not anticipate the day’s fishing that followed. I set up the first rod and cast out a still frozen sardine.Three more rods were then baited with a variety of other dead baits and we had just sat down when the bite indicator on the first rod went off. The bait must still have been partially frozen - perhaps the pike like sardine flavoured ice lollies. Kieran was into his first fish that pulled back at him and did very well to learn fish playing skills as he went. The pike weighed eleven pound four ounces.

Shortly afterwards the same rod produced anothe fish of twelve pounds fifteen ounces, again to a partially frozen sardine.

Our last two sardines accounted for two more large pike - one weighed fouteen pounds six ounces:

…and the fourth weighed a massive fifteen pounds ten ounces.

While he was playing this fish one of the other bite indicators went off and I banked a pike just under ten pounds which I managed to land, unhook and return safely whilst he was still playing his fish. As I struck into this fish and a later one under similar circumstances I dreaded it being a real monster but my luck held in both instances, each fish being about the same size.

Kieran ended the day with six fish, his remaining two being just under ten pounds. The biggest four had taken sardines and the smallest four had taken roach. Only the half herring failed to produce a bite. How do you convince a twelve year old beginner that pike fishing is not always like this?

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This last couple of weeks have seen the arrival of Autumn with a vengeance - the leaves have turned from green into all the wonderful shades of red, brown, yellow and orange and have started to fall. The weather has taken a marked turn towards Winter with dropping temperatures, heavy rain and gales. The rivers are getting their first flush through of the year with the heavy rain we have had and I anticipate some good sport when they start to fine down. I like this time of year!

Coaching work is beginning to dry up as few people are as enthusiastic about this weather as I am but I am still getting a couple of jobs a week with Slough BSS. and I have even met a few new students. It is unfortunate that I am unable to show the pictures I have taken due to concerns about child protection but Twynersh has been producing some nice roach up to nearly a pound. The pike handling courses have also produced some nice fish, including this fish of just over ten pounds. Excuse the sinister nature of this picture but I must hide the identity of the young people concerned.

I have been surprised about the way most of the students have dealt with the bad weather and I have had few complaints - perhaps the younger generation are not as soft as we thought.

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A couple of years ago my friends and I spent a lot of time each winter fishing for grayling on the river Itchen but then low summer flows and an algal bloom caused a massive fish kill and most of the big grayling were lost. Last winter it was difficult to catch grayling at all.

Last week I was in the Davies Angling shop in Staines to buy some bait and got talking to Phil Leach the new owner. He mentioned that he had just had a great day’s grayling fishing on the river Itchen and explained that he had fished the Lower Itchen Fishery. I was delighted that the river had recovered so quickly and bought some extra red maggots for a trip down there the following day. As this is the first year in the last five years that I have not renewed my season ticket for the fishery, I telephoned the bailiff Jon Hall and the owner Lyndsey Farmiloe to book a day ticket and I was pleased that they remembered me.

Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. I was at the fishery as it opened and it was great to be back. I now own a Toyota 4x4 so the track along the riverside no longer holds any fears and I drove down to the top end of the coarse fishing stretch. Parking right by the riverside and fishing with my back against the front bumper of my car is a luxury I have missed and I was soon playing a spirited brown trout. About the third trot down I hooked my first grayling and was reminded of how well they fight. It was only about ten ounces, much smaller than they used to be, but I was very pleased to see it.

I am still using four pound Fireline braid for trotting and the lack of stretch in this line amplifies the fight, as well as making it easier to hook fish at long range. I am also experimenting with some new hooks that were given to me by Dave Higham on my last visit to his fishery at Oham Lakes. These are made by Kensaki and are quite fine in the wire but Dave promised me they were very strong.

I used them in size eighteen tied to a two and three quarters pound hook length and, as I had hoped, they dealt with trout up to nearly three pounds as well as grayling to a pound and three quarters very well. They are just the right size and shape for my favourite double red maggot hook bait.

Just after lunch I was trotting on a long straight stretch of river, down past the remains of a weed bed behind which I have found the grayling sheltering in the past. At the end of the trot I always hold the float back hard to make the bait rise up in the water, this often provokes a take that is often felt rather than seen on the float. On this occasion I felt a sharp tap and struck into what felt like a small fish, as I started to gain line the rod slammed over and the fish tore off down stream. It was a similar feeling to hooking a small roach or dace on the river Kennet and having it taken by a big pike and at first I thought that this was what had happened.

After twenty yards of line had been stipped from my reel at great speed I realised that this was not a pike and as I only load my centrepins with forty yards of line to prevent it bedding in, I decided it was time to get up off my ar*e and give chase. I eventually managed to get downstream of the fish and turn it into the current. I then realised that my landing net was thirty yards away and was too small anyway. The fish turned down stream again and I lost the twenty yards of line I had just won back in one very powerful run and again I had to run to get below it. In doing so I passed another very understanding angler who had a larger net and followed me. The fish eventually rolled into the net and I had caught my first salmon, a seven pound cock fish who was very coloured and had been in the river some time. Shame it was the wrong time of the year and I didn’t have a salmon license but it would have gone back anyway.

I had always hoped that my first salmon would be caught on a fly and not on double red maggot on a size eighteen match hook to a two and three quarters pound hook length. Still, beggars can’t be choosers and I wouldn’t have missed that fight for anything. I ended the day with several trout and a dozen grayling to a pound and three quarters, the sidestream was, alas, unfishable due to the floating leaves but it was wonderful to see that the river is recovering.

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Last week I had three courses, two with BSS Slough and one private course with Richard and his son Edmund. The venue was as usual the Match lake at Twynersh but as my normal swim was taken on the first day we tried the other end of the lake.

Not as many fish were caught but the roach that my students did catch were of a much better stamp, so we used that swim for the rest of the week.

On the Saturday course Edmund caught the first fish and gave his Dad a good ribbing as a result.

Richard soon caught up with this unorthordox specimen.

In the end Dad caught a real fish but not as big as his son’s.

Both are now hooked on angling but the lesson finished early at their request due to the cold. I am looking forward to seeing these two in the Spring.

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On Friday I was able to take Paul from Slough back to the Wasing Estate to sample the pike fishing on the predator lake. I was able to organise this at the last minute thanks to the cooperation of the head Bailiff John Butler. Once again legered dead bait was the sucessful method, although Paul did a bit of lure fishing as well.

He caught three pike but unfortunately all were under ten pounds.

He enjoyed his day and although the sport was a little slow he showed no signs of boredom as I would expect of a lad of his age. His thirst for knowledge of our sport is almost intimidating and I’m looking forward to our next outing.

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A few weeks ago I had taken Andrew on an introduction course at Twynersh and during the lesson he had expressed an interest in pike fishing. I’d promised him a day on the predator lake on the Wasing Estate and we had booked the 1st of November. As I had already got a guest ticket for him I was determined to fulfill my obligation and as my fever had broken and my digestive system had become a little less disorderly, I picked him up from his home as arranged (he lives quite close to me).

We drove to Padworth and went into Max’s cafe but I was unable to face a cooked breakfast and so just settled for a cup of tea (to those of you who know me that will be a measure of just how ill I had been.)

The plan for the day was to introduce Andrew to pike fishing by demonstrating and explaining the principle of both dead baiting and lure fishing. Once a pike was caught I would then cover safe handling and unhooking. The previous few nights had been the coldest of the autumn and despite both our efforts the pike were uninterested in lures. Andrew learned the basics of fishing with lures, improved his casting techniques and kept warm with the exercise until the autumn sun melted the ground frost.

After we had been lure fishing for about an hour a pike found one of our legered dead baits and Andrew landed his first pike.

He ended the day with four fish, the biggest weighing just under fourteen pounds and I was able to demonstrate how to unhook a pike safely, several times.

Although he enjoyed his day Andrew was not too impressed with the fight of still water pike and found the sport less than fast and furious.

The photo below will demonstrate how fast winter is approaching, I was fortunate to be able to share a little of the last few hours of the life of this beautiful creature, once an agile, fast moving, flying predator now become sluggish due to lack of food.

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On Sunday the 22nd of October I started to feel the symptoms of what I thought was going to be a cold but I still went to Twynersh the next day for a coaching session with the Brown family. Leila and her children Alex and Fiona had already attended one of my basic courses in the summer and I was looking forward to working with them again. I think they had a good day but I was feeling progressively worse as the day went on.

As can be seen from the photos, all caught fish but with the temperature dropping at the onset of autumn the fish were not feeding as well as they had been.

I really enjoy working with families like this but I was glad when the lesson ended as I was beginning to feel really ill. I hope this did not spoil their enjoyment of the lesson. I will try and make it up to them in the spring.

The next nine days seem a bit blured, the “cold” turned into flu and a chest infection along with what I can only assume was a mild case of gastro entiritis. I had to cancel two coaching sessions, both involving young people, which I did with great reluctance but I did not want to pass this illness on to others even if I had been physically able to do the lessons. My students pay for my time and are entitled to my best efforts.

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