The Fishing Coach

I have just got back from a day’s coaching at Black Park in Slough. The day was funded and organised by the Environment Agency and was open to the public who were given half an hour of free coaching with one of the five coaches who attended.

The fishing was hard, with very few bites. My first student was an Asian lady who fished instead of her daughter who refused to have anything to do with the sport due to a fear of electric eels. Her mum had one bite which resulted in twenty feet of elastic being pulled out of my pole before the hook length parted.

The rest of the day continued in a downhill direction until my last student, a young lady named Lauren, who hooked and landed a fine 4lb male Tench, with a little help from me.

Lauren and her 4lb male Tench

My gratitude goes to fellow coach Kevin, who not only netted the fish for us but took this excellent photo as well.

Update:
I had a lovely email from Stewart, Lauren’s dad earlier today and he has kindly agreed to let me post it here, along with additional photos from Matt Hart at the Environment Agency:

Here are the pictures of you and Lauren at Black Park yesterday afternoon.

Lauren and her “fish of a lifetime”!

Thank you for your patience and expertise, she loved the experience as you can tell by the photos.

Please do feel free to use them as you wish, but do send me the link of your blog, so as we can show all of our friends!

Thank you again for making a little girl, very very happy.

Stewart also forwarded an email from Matt Hart, Technical Officer (Fisheries) from the Environment Agency who hosted the event (and took the two photos above). Here’s a snippet:

As I mentioned yesterday, Lauren’s tench really is a fish of a lifetime. I’ve never caught a tench that big and a number of my colleagues that are really keen coarse anglers are now planning trips to Black Park to catch some tench.

It’s when you get days like yesterday, meet people like Stewart and Lauren and receive such positive feedback that make the early mornings and long drives worth every minute.

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The Angling Trust are asking anglers to complete a survey to gather information about angling participation, I have filled it in and it only took me ten minutes.

There is also another survey this time for the Environment Agency but it is not very well publicised and is a little difficult to access as you have to register with the EA, which I am at the moment I am having trouble doing. They say

The law that governs fish removal, particularly of coarse fish, is unclear and limited. We want to hear your views on proposed new byelaws to regulate what fish can be removed under what circumstances.

This is a very important subject and well worth contributing to, so I will persevere.

Remember if you don’t say owt you can’t complain no one listens!

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I have never made a secret of the fact that I’m a tackle tart and although I have been lucky with some of my purchases on ebay, it is very satisfying to own something very special and personal.

I am always praising the quality of rods made on blanks from Harrison Advanced Rods of Liverpool and have been fortunate to find some real bargins second hand as I have mentioned on this blog. The thirteen foot spliced tip match rod I mentioned had a very scruffy cork handle and worn sliding reel fittings so I decided to have a screw on reel fitting fitted and the butt rebuilt when I had the time to organise it.

One of the other Harrison rods I found on eBay was the two pound test curve Torrix which I bought as a barbel flood rod but caught me my first catfish. I was so impressed with this rod that I decided to get a slightly lighter version for my normal barbel fishing.

To kill two birds with one stone I went to a rod builder I have used once before to re-ring another of my Harrison rods, Chris Ward. He is a craftsman of some distinction and I am more than pleased with the results.

This is my new toy, a 12 foot Harrison one and three quarter pound test curve Torrix, beautifully made and totally original.

Both rods were delivered just before the start of the river season and the busy coaching schedule that has enabled me to afford such luxuries has also denied me the chance to use either of them so far.

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