The Fishing Coach

It is ten years this month since I completed my PAA coaching course at Brooksby College in Leicestershire and I have been thinking back over those years and how my coaching has developed. I have been very lucky to have been able to turn my lifelong hobby (some would say obsession) into a business and another career was the last thing I was looking for when I retired from the Police but I am now working five days a week, often weekends as well.

The coaching now falls into three categories - taster days usually for the Environment Agency; Local Government work and private work, often through my website. I would like to share some examples with you over the next few posts and I will start here in reverse order.

My private work is funded by the students concerned (or their parents if they are minors) and usually is the result of enquiries through the website, although sometimes by recommendation from tackle shops. These students fall into three categories - beginners who have never fished before; returners who maybe fished when they were younger and for some reason left the sport and the more experienced angler who wants to learn a new skill or fish a new venue.

One of my favourite courses is to teach young people and their parents together and I recently taught a father and son, Colin and Joe, on a fishery very local to me. Frobury Farm is a little over a mile as the crow flies from my home and a nice change from my usual one hour drive to “work”

They were able to learn together with just a little competetive edge but encouraging and helping each other at the same time.

This sport is perfect for a father and son to share and hopefully Colin will be able to share it with his grandchildren as well.

A very enjoyable day and I wonder if Joe realises what a great dad he has.

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Local Government work can be very challenging as it often involves young people with problems but recently I am getting more and more schools using my courses as a reward for good behavior with all the other pupils. Sometimes I have just one student at a time and sometimes a small group of up to four. In the latter case, when not everyone likes to handle maggots or fish, I am often rushing about all day unhooking fish and re-baiting hooks. This is particularly true if they are all catching lots of fish and I choose my venues very carefuly to try and ensure they do.

One of my favourite venues is Royal Berkshire Fisheries in Winkfield near Windsor. This is a series of three lakes full of fish and coveniently close to Slough where a lot of my Local Government work is currently located.

These photos show that the venue has a good head of roach, sometimes a single young angler can catch twenty or thirty as well as some big perch.

The fishery sometimes produces a really nice rudd and carp are always on the cards, but beware, the cafe in the background is closed on Mondays.

I also did some work (I can’t help laughing every time I use that word) with a school from Wallingford in Oxfordshire at a new venue Orchid Lakes where I was ably assisted by Nick Watkins.

Few fish were caught by the eight students and I was disappointed with the fishery as I was assured by the manager when I visited it a month before that it was full of silver fish. On top of being charged £10 per student there was another cost. It mentions on the website that…

As an added service to anglers, transport is made available to take you and your tackle to your chosen swim

…but it doesn’t mention that it costs £3 per angler, nor was it mentioned on my first visit.

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Taster days are designed to introduce new anglers to the sport and are organised on a fishery by the owners or controlling club and are usually well publicised in the local press. They are funded by the Environment Agency and organised by the old (now defunct) NFA but it is hoped that the Angling Development Board will take over soon. A group of coaches set up around the fishery and are sent a member of the public or two for a period of twenty minutes free coaching.

They can be very hectic but great fun and a chance to fish new venues or old favourites. One recent one was held at Sparsholt Agricultural College near Winchester where their Fisheries Studies Department have created their own lake and stocked it generously. This is only normally fished by the students and their guests and is an opportunity not to miss. I managed to get a place on both days this year and took my assistant Tayler Clark.

He caught his first stillwater barbel as well as a thirteen pound carp on a float.

I even managed a carp on the float using a centrepin as well as a lot of bream.

One of the other coaches brought a young lad who caught the first golden tench I had ever seen in the wild - I would have swapped that for my carp any day of the week!

The days are really for the public and that is really where the rewards are, look at the size of these roach.

Unfortunately this lad didn’t want to hold his carp so some old publicity hound held it for him.

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