The Fishing Coach

You may have noticed that I have not written anything here since the beginning of March but I have been quite busy with coaching. To cap it all the hard drive on my computer packed up and had to be replaced. Fortunately my partner’s friend was able to recover most of my data but some pictures I was intending to publish here were lost.

We have also finally put our house on the market with a view to making the move to the Kennet valley I have long promised myself. This involved a bit of decorating at home and a lot of travelling to view potential new homes. Much has been achieved but there is still a lot to be done.

I have, as mentioned earlier, still been coaching with some great results and have started using two new fisheries. The Royal Berkshire Fisheries that provided me with a two pound roach this winter is the first to be included in my coaching stable. It is located much closer to Slough, where many of my students live and has a good head of small to medium sized roach, ideal for the less experienced anglers to develop their techniques on. These fish are rarely troubled by anglers, as most who frequent the fishery are only interested in the carp and are fairly easy to catch.

That is not to say that I have abandoned my old favourite venue Twynersh although its depth makes for difficult waggler fishing it has been producing some nice bream for my students.

I am not a fan of still water bream myself but they are great fish for my students to catch in that they are not likely to break lighter hook lengths and embarass anyone - also they look massive with a young lad stood behind them.

David caught this fish with an six meter take apart pole with a number eight elastic and a two and a half pound hook length. It weighed an ounce or so over seven pounds. Well done David!

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As part of the preparations for selling my house my tackle store and workshop needed to be tidied out and I asked my longest serving student Tayler Clark to help me. He has done so before and is a pleasure to work with and he left with a lot of tackle, the sort of stuff you don’t want to throw out due to sentimental reasons but never use anymore. I also promised him a day’s carp fishing, so a few days later I took him to Royal Berkshire Fisheries and whilst I float fished for some more big roach, he ledgered pellets for the carp. His casting is now so accurate that he was able to fish right up against an island and was catching fish all day.

I have also had a couple of days at Marsh Farm. The first day produced a couple of crucian carp to about two and a half pounds and three tench, the biggest being over six pounds.

The second day was a disaster, one decent bite from a good crucian which shed the hook and a few small rudd. That’s why we call it “fishing” and not “catching”.

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I mentioned that I was now using two new fisheries for coaching - the second is near Arborfield Garrison near Wokingham. The garrison has many memories for me as at the tender age of sixteen years I left home and joined the Army to start an engineering apprenticeship at the Apprentice College there. This monstrosity has since been torn down but the scars are still in my memory. I completed my training next door at the School of Electronic Engineering and revisited there on two more postings for courses during my thirteen years service. It was during one of these courses that I first fished my beloved river Kennet.

The new fishery is called Longmoor Farm and is located on the Nine Mile Ride. It is a small lake set in a woodland setting and is stocked with small tench and carp and when I say stocked I mean STOCKED! It’s fish soup.

Everyone I have taken there has caught lots of fish and they take almost anything you put on the hook. One of the lads even caught a tench with no bait, just a bare hook!

You are not going to trouble the angling press with your specimens from this venue and I don’t expect to bump into Terry Hearn or Chris Yates there any time soon but if you need to catch fish all day then this is the place for you. I usually set my students up with a short pole with a number eight elastic or a five metre whip with no elastic (preferably the latter) and a three pound hook length. They all love it!

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I have also held two courses at my old favourite venue Twynersh, one for a chap who fished as a lad and wanted to return to our beloved sport and one for a father and son duo, both beginners.

Paul Wiseman tried to return to fishing after twenty odd years and found he no longer “spoke the language” everything has changed so much since he last fished. He soon found that he had not forgotten as much as he had thought and I was soon able to bring him up to speed. I showed him most of the basic methods and he caught lots of roach and rudd. Unfortunately the previous night there had been a sharp drop in temperature and the carp and tench were less than enthusiastic about feeding. He did manage a couple of each but only small fish.

Paul Clabburn and his son Tom were both beginners and as usual I started with the pendulum exercise until they had learned about the mechanics of handling a fishing rod and then they fished with short poles with number eight elastics (I used the elsaticated rods rather than the whips in case of the larger bream). Dad was first off the mark.

Tom soon caught up and the element of competition between students that often produces such good results started to develop.

Tom finally topped his Dad with an unexpected pike which he was brave enought to hold for this picture.

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