This month has been taken up with more visits to Longmoor Farm with various students. The venue never fails to produce lots of small tench and carp and has proved to be a real find. Many thanks to my mate Clive Williams who is a leading light in Taywood Angling Society for putting me on to it.

Jon with a longmoor tench

Paul with Longmoorh tench

On 11th May I went up to Yorkshire to help out at the Pickering Game Fair. Graham Walker and his wife Anne extended their kind hospitality to me for the weekend and I had a great time and was made to feel really welcome. The weather forecast had been terrible and I was prepared for a two day soaking but the rain held off except for Friday night, until just after we had packed up on the Sunday. Derek North and I were suposed to be giving demonstrations on a tiny, fish free pond but most of the time it was full of spaniels and labradors doing gun dog trials. I had intended to give a demonstration of Wallace casting and lure fishing but can you imagine the result of me fishing a surface jerk bait with all those gun dogs about?As a dog lover myself I daren’t even think about it.

Derek and I

As you can see from the picture we were not exactly overworked, being sited well away from the main arena.

I had two what I call returners courses this month, these are run for anglers who fished when they were young and then often discovered girls, a career or had a familly. They try to return to the sport, often twenty or so years later only to find everything has changed. I try to reintroduce these anglers back to the sport by showing them that very little has really changed, just some of the tackle and the associated terminology. It is often just a matter of confidence - a thing that sometimes plays a greater part in our sport than is realised.

Adam and a roach

Adam and a better roach

The pictures above show one such angler, Adam, who was able to catch a number of these roach from Lake one at Twynersh. It was a shame that a cold snap the night before had put the carp and tench down. The weather has been very changeable all month and so for the second course I abandoned my usual venue and the hope of bonus carp. I took Andrew to the match lake at Twynersh in the hope of some bream. After a period of reckless ground baiting with my favourite mix as we set up and then more careful feeding as he fished, he ended the day with fifteen bream to four pounds.

Andrew with a big bream

Andrew with a four pound ten ounce bream

I have fished Marsh Farm three times but due to the changeable weather conditions I was unable to time my visits with the feeding times of the big crucian carp but I did catch some smaller ones and some tench.

My good mate Les, known here as Weller of the yard, has finally moved to Northumberland where he tells me there is very little coarse fishing and so he has sold me two of his match poles and his Boss box. Another steep learning curve for me and Les will have to learn to “chuck fluff”.

My move to the Kennet valley seems to be going ahead, my house is under offer and the offer we have made on a house in the village of Kingsclere has been accepted, I found this delightful village a few years ago whilst looking for a fishery close to Newbury for coaching with E2E and over the last couple of years I have revisited Frobury Farm quite a few times. This will place me within fifteen minutes drive of the Wasing Estate. Roll on!

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