Are you looking for the ideal Chistmas gift for a friend or relative who fishes? Tackle is a difficult choice as it can be very much a personal preference and buying an item of tackle that the angler already has can be embarassing (let’s be frank, I don’t even know what I’ve already got…).

So why not buy a year’s membership to the Angling Trust! This is the new, single organisation to represent all game, coarse and sea anglers in England. They will lobby government, campaign on environmental and angling issues and run national and international competitions. They will increase participation in angling by people of all ages and backgrounds. They will fight pollution, commercial over-fishing at sea, over-abstraction, poaching, unlawful navigation, local bans and a host of other threats to angling. You will not only show that you are thinking about them at the festive season but you will be helping them to make a real contribution to the sport that they love and helping the Angling trust at the same time. Any angler worth his salt should be a member.An excellent gift for the new angler as it will get them involved in their first angling community and give them a feeling of belonging.

Members get the following benefits all for just twenty pounds a year, the ideal present for any angler and if you pay by direct debit then the gift will be renewed each year. One less present to worry about each Christmas!

Menbership applications are here.

The trust says

The Angling Trust is here to represent you and to ensure the future of our sport. Help us to help you, stand up and be counted, join today. You can support the Angling Trust for less than 39p a week and get several great member benefits. Your subscription is important, it will make your voice heard. The more anglers who join, the louder our voice and the more we will achieve - for you the angler.

The following letter was recently sent to the Trust and gives us a glimmer of hope:

OPEN LETTER DATED AUGUST 10th 2009
ADDRESSED TO BOARD OF THE ANGLING TRUST

Dear Sirs

It is with deepest concern that we contact you regarding the development of the Angling Trust.

For far too long, anglers have needed a professionally run, representative body, and the launch of the Angling Trust in January 2009 was a major step forward towards greater unity in angling.

We believe the Angling Trust has provided an initial framework to the path of true representation and the merging board has created a valuable structure, but news of overspending combined with a failing business plan is extremely worrying although not that surprising.

Our concerns at this stage arise primarily from the continuing lack of engagement with AT members, and the angling community as a whole, particularly on sensitive issues. There is a wealth of first hand angling, industry and media experience that appears to have been largely ignored by the current board. Therefore, it is with this in mind, that we all offer our support services, without charge, to the Angling Trust as a “collective” advisory board. The absence of individuals that anglers recognise, trust and respect is clearly apparent at all levels of the Angling Trust.

In addition, there is obviously and immediate need to review the failing business plan currently in place. Once again, where applicable, we would like to offer our experience in business development, marketing and finance at no cost, to help secure the immediate continuation and sustainable development of the Angling Trust in the future.

We trust that the current AT board will be addressing these concerns and await your earliest response.

Signed by:

John Wilson, Keith Arthur, Danny Fairbrass, Martin Bowler, Ruth Lockwood, John Everard, Tim Norman

This group - who I will in future refer to as the M7 - are all very busy people and it was decided that an advisory panel of fifteen anglers from all disciplines, under the chairmanship of John Wilson, was needed to spread the workload. I needed to be on that panel so I started to make representations to everyone I could think of. I made a list of ideas collected from many sources and I understand this was referred to on the first meeting of the M7.

Notes on issues facing the Angling Trust, August 2009

Problem #1
The Trust failed to publicise both itself and its aims sufficiently to reach the sort of angler who does not read the angling press - the vast majority it would seem.

Suggested solutions

Put up posters at fisheries with picture of a “big name” angler on them.

AT stands at all major angling functions such as big matches, sales and shows, actively canvassing for members, perhaps with a big name to draw a crowd.

Problem #2
The Trust have relied and are still relying on anglers’ sense of duty to get members.

Suggested solutions

This will never work with the majority of our apathetic brethren as they will leave it to someone else. We need to make the Trust more of a community so that anglers want to join and be a part of it, using the same marketing techniques that cause them to buy an expensive piece of tackle or bait when a much cheaper one will do the job just as well. Publicity of their memberships by as many big names as possible will help also. Put a photo on the membership card to enhance the feeling of exclusivity.

Scrap the Fish For Free promotion as most anglers either do not understand it or think it a cheap and worthless gimmick. Replace it with well-publicised discounts from major tackle and bait retailers and fisheries.

Install a regional network as soon as possible with regional organisers whose mission is to liaise with local tackle shops and fisheries to get them on side. Monthly regional, members-only meetings with suitable guest speakers could then be organised along with fish-ins and perhaps free tutorials, all to encourage the community aspect of the Trust. I believe that a functioning regional network is essential to the success of the Angling Trust and that the failure of the Trust to establish one before its launch was one of its major failings. Even a skeleton regional network would have been able to conduct surveys and research that would have had a massive influence on the business plan of the Angling Trust – it could have found out what the ground floor of the sport felt it needed from the Trust and of course publicised the Trust before its launch.

Make the AGM a big event, a whole day. Ask tackle manufacturers to attend to publicise their new products, get big names to give demonstrations and talks. There could even be stalls selling tackle with extra revenue for the Trust from the space rented to them.

Problem #3
Many anglers claim they cannot afford the membership fee, they say £20 is too much.

Suggested solutions:

Investigate monthly payments by standing order or direct debit, would running costs be prohibitive?

Reduce membership cost in the hope of encouraging more members, would running costs be prohibitive?
I personally believe that the membership fee is about right and a lower sum would be too expensive to administer.

Problem #4
The website has not got enough punch, too much text, it does not explain what the Trust does, has done or aims to do, in an easily readable manner. Many I spoke to did not read past the first page.

Suggested solutions

The site needs pictures of big names and short pithy paragraphs explaining its aims and purposes.

There needs to be a members only area with features and tips by big names and special offers from bait and tackle manufactures.

A members only forum is also needed to allow members to feel they are able to contribute to the running of the trust and be listened to by the Board. It will need to be carefully and closely moderated, possibly by non anglers, to prevent it from becoming a platform for peoples’ egos as many other forums have become and to prevent petty bickering. These moderators will need to be able to quickly refer any points made or questions asked to the relevant board member or a particular expert.

Problem #5
People, both on the FM forum and those I have spoken to, complain of lack of communication from the Trust and some have said “What about those of us who are not on the internet?

Suggested solutions

Anyone writing to or emailing a member of staff who is on holiday or off sick must receive a fast (automated) reply informing them of the fact and offering another member of staff to help. All letters and emails should receive a reply within 48hrs, if only to explain the reason for the delay in a full answer. It must be made clear to all staff that the members are paying their wages and must be treated accordingly.

A regular, cheaply-produced newsletter should be circulated to all members, perhaps monthly. The Trust should avoid the glossy expensive style as produced by the ACA as I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering about the expense, when the money could have been put to better use.
Significant advertising revenue could be generated from this as the membership grows and then its format improved upon.

Summary
Many mistakes have been made in the launching of our last chance to have a unified voice for angling, the greatest of which and the one most likely to prove fatal is the failure to consult with the angling public and find out what they want. Instead, the board have come up with a product that they, with all good intent, felt that angling needed.

Unfortunately this has little appeal to the vast majority of anglers and is, as it stands, doomed to fail.

We, as angling Trust members and enthusiasts, must change the format of the Trust to make it more appealing to potential members and I hope that some of the ideas I have put forward will suggest the direction it should take.
Anglers must want to belong to the Angling Trust.

I am delighted to announce that I have been offered a place on this panel and amongst other things will be looking at the Angling Development Board with Mick Watson from Get Hooked on Fishing.

This is my chance to help ensure that the Angling Trust does not fail and it is also your chance to make a contribution to the future of our wonderful sport.

Let me know what you want the Angling Trust to do, where you think it has gone wrong and how we can make it work for the benefit of angling in general.

Spread the word about the Trust amongst other anglers, clubs, fisheries and tackle shops - if enough of us are talking about it more people will join.

Please don’t just sit back and let it fail and then say “I knew it would”.

Do something positive for the future of your sport!

The latest newsletter is on the Angling Trust website and things are beginning to look up. Here’s a snippet:

Update from the Angling Trust and Fish Legal

Angling Access
We are increasingly concerned about the salami-slicing of angling access around the country. Our members have contacted us about angling being banned from several lakes, and about vehicle and parking restrictions preventing sea anglers getting to beaches they have fished for generations. We have written to the relevant councils to fight these bans at a local level, but we are keen to get a national picture. If you know of anywhere angling has been banned or restricted, or where such plans are being discussed please let us know.

If we can’t reach the river, lake or sea and if we can’t park longterm, then who needs to ban angling to stop it?

Membership on the up
Individual membership has reached 12,547 (including life and junior members) and we now have 1,174 member clubs. Riparian owner and fishery memberships are also increasing. Encourage all your friends to join up, we need them all on board.

Fundraising Appeal
Thank you to everyone who has already donated funds to match the donation of £20,000 from one of our members. Please help us reach our target so that our donor will repeat the gift in 2010 and 2011.

Angling Research
If you haven’t already completed the online survey being carried out into the benefits of angling, please click here. The results of this ongoing three year study could be very useful for the future of angling.

This is just some of the good work the Trust has already done for the benefit of anglers and the sport in general. Think what they could do if every angler was a member, they would have more money to work with but, more importantly, they would have greater pull in parliament. Two million members are a lot of votes for any political party to gain or lose. Join the Angling Trust online!

Finally, just in case you think that you don’t need the Angling Trust take a look at this site and don’t just laugh. The site is maintained by PeTA and although they are mostly active in the US, they have loads of money and big names behind them and it is only a matter of time before they look across the Atlantic again. They already have a UK office. Ask yourself who will speak for us anglers - your local politician, the guy who runs your favourite commercial fishery or the guy in the tackle shop?

PeTA can buy and sell all three!

But the great freedom of expression that enables me to publish this post is also available to fraudsters and extremists and allows the spreading of lies and propaganda without any accountability. You can read here about my catches but you have no way of authenticating what I write. I could be anyone in the world and although I do publish my telephone number, I could be practicing a great deception for my own purposes.

The dangers of this were brought home to me this week when I received a circular email from a friend for whom I have a great deal of respect.

Do you agree ?

Hit the nail on the head!

An incident occurred in a supermarket recently, when the following was witnessed:

A Muslim woman dressed in a Burkha (A black gown & face mask) was standing with her shopping in a queue at the checkout.

When it was her turn to be served, and as she reached the cashier, she made a loud remark about the English Flag lapel pin, which the female cashier was wearing on her blouse.

The cashier reached up and touched the pin and said, ‘Yes, I always wear it proudly. My son serves abroad with the forces and I wear it for him’.

The Muslim woman then asked the cashier when she was going to stop bombing and killing her countrymen, explaining that she was Iraqi.

At that point, a Gentleman standing in the queue stepped forward, and interrupted with a calm and gentle voice, and said to the Iraqi woman:

‘Excuse me, but hundreds of thousands of men and women, just like this ladies son have fought and sacrificed their lives so that people just like YOU can stand here, in England , which is MY country and allow you to blatantly accuse an innocent check-out cashier of bombing YOUR countrymen’.

‘It is my belief that if you were allowed to be as outspoken as that in Iraq , which you claim to be YOUR country, then we wouldn’t need to be fighting there today’.

‘However - now that you have learned how to speak out and criticise the English people who have afforded you the protection of MY country, I will gladly pay the cost of a ticket to help you pay your way back to Iraq ‘.

‘When you get there, and if you manage to survive for being as outspoken as what you are here in England , then you should be able to help straighten out the mess which YOUR Iraqi countrymen have got you into in the first place, which appears to be the reason that you have come to MY country to avoid.’

Apparently the queue cheered and applauded.

IF YOU AGREE… Pass this on to all of your proud English friends..
I just did……………!!!

Support Our Troops.

No mention was made of where or when it happened, no witnesses were named, it read like the old style “voluntary statements” attributed to suspects in the bad old days of the sixties by inexperienced young coppers. Weller of the yard will know what I mean!

I took a great deal of care in composing the following email in reply and I hope the people that read it will think more carefuly about the things they read, receive and forward on the web.

I have read this with some dismay, not expecting to receive such racist drivel from someone I respect as much as I do you.

The dialogue is too perfect to be true, no names or locations are mentioned and when, in this sort of discussion, was one speaker able to deliver such a precise monologue without interuption or abuse?

This has obviously been contrived, either wholly or in part just to encourage the racial distrust that is genetically programmed into each and every one of us but which, as civilised adults, we should strive to suppress. Even if it were true and the poor woman was misguided enough to believe her statement, what purpose is to be gained by broadcasting it on the internet, other than to foster racial hatred, thereby playing into the hands of the extremists on both sides?

This wonderful country of ours has always been a haven for migrants of one form or another, be they, as in our distant past, invaders or more recently as refugees. Over time they have been absorbed into this great nation of ours and have often been a great benefit, we have always been a nation of mongerels, absorbing the ideas and cultures of our guests and we have become stronger because of it.

Of course it is tragic that our forces are being killed in Afganistan and Iraq and as an ex regular soldier I feel the loss more than most but this is something to be taken up with the politicians and not held against those who have sought sanctuary in our country to escape from this violence.

I also served as a police officer in some of the most racially diverse areas of London, I am aware of the problems these people face and the vulnerability they suffer as strangers in a strange country having lost so much. This sort of story only fosters that feeling of isolation and may encourage beliefs such as those attributed to the Iraqi woman in this piece.

This sort of propaganda was one of the ways that hatred of the Jews was encouraged in pre war Germany and that resulted in the Holocaust.

I will always support our soldiers abroad but fostering racial distrust can only make their job more difficult and I will not be passing this on to anyone.

Martin

Remember before you pass any of these stories on to your friends that credibility is like virginity - it can only be lost once.

[1] This story has been seen in various forms on the internet for many a year, try searching for any part of the text, excluding the home nation since it is “reported” variously as stemming from the wearing of English, Scottish and British, Australian and undoubtedly other country flags.

Fishing is about much more than just catching a few fish. The angler, whether he realises it or not, is going back to his deepest roots when he ventures on to the river bank, seashore or lake side, he is dabbling with a world that in his not too distant past was full of mysteries. Many civilisations even worshiped water spirits and made votive offerings to their Gods by throwing valuable items into water. Only recently has science been able to explain what goes on beneath the surface of the water that covers seven tenths of our planet.

We rely even in these modern times on the water that is our rivers, lakes and seas, even now it is still a mater of life and death but in times gone by, without our knowledge of science you can see how water and the aquatic environment gained its air of mystery - and let us not forget that our most remote ancestors came from that same water. Myths and legends have grown up around almost every expanse of water from springs, to small streams, rivers, lakes and of course the sea. As fishing evolved from a means of feeding your familly to a sport it has encompassed this atmosphere of mythology and myths have become part of angling .Think how stories have grown around many fisheries about the huge fish that are purported to live in them - in my youth it was always pike but now huge carp or catfish have replaced them and how they devoured small dogs, even children, smashed tackle after fights lasting many hours and they seemed to live for ever. These stories often featured grandfathers who had seen these monsters as young boys and yet they were still said to inhabit the same waters fifty or sixty years later. Angling has never let science get in the way of a good story and even those of us who publicly laugh at these legends are intrigued by them and part of us wish they could be true.

Don’t we all hope to catch a fish much bigger than anything else the venue has produced, even if it is a recently dug and stocked commercial fishery? And for me, rivers have even more mystery as none one can say for sure what fish may be in front of me.

Can you blame the angler, immersed in this mythical world, who exaggerates the size of the fish he lost or adds a few ounces to the weight of one that he caught?

Now before my regular readers begin to wonder if I have lost the plot or gone all mystical I will tell you why I have written the above. Something strange happened to me in the wilds of Essex a couple of weeks ago when I was doing some coaching for Nick Watkins on one of the taster days he organised, that may well have been considered a myth had there not been a couple of professional coaches and a number of members of the public as witnesses.

I was demonstating to a student how to hit bites on eight metres of pole and for once I was holding the pole. I was fishing with an eight millimetre soft pellet on a size fourteen hook when the float dipped and I struck into what I thought was one small fish.

As my quarry came to the surface I saw not one but two fish so I carefully netted them and called to Nick who was nearby.

You can see on this picture that the hook length goes through the lip of the small mirror carp and the hook is securely lodged in the lip of the bigger brown goldfish. Two fish on the same hook at the same time, first time in forty eight years of angling.

My explanation is as follows. The mirror carp took the pellet and while it was between in its lips the brown goldfish used its size to snatch the bait. The small fish must have been already hooked at this time, with the hook point outside its mouth and the larger fish pulled the hook through the lip of the smaller one only to have it lodged in his own lip.

Perhaps in twenty or thirty years time my grandson Oliver or his brother William will tell the story of how their grandad once caught two fish on the same hook at the same time. A myth… but we know better, don’t we?

All you anglers (and many non anglers) are worriers and are always ready to complain about what ever it is that worries you. Get a couple of anglers together and the complaints will start - the immigrants/cormorants/crayfish are eating all our fish, there are too many/not enough silver fish or carp, or the carp in such and such place are dying from some disease or other. The list is endless.

I was once told by a man I respected greatly, in an organisation whose initials are AA and has nothing to do with motoring, that worries should be dealt with in the following way. He said,“There are two categories of things that people worry about: things that they can do nothing about, in which case, why worry about them and things they can do something about, in which case, stop worrying about them and do something to solve the problem.” I have tried to follow this axim over the last few years and whilst it has not stopped me worrying it has given me a measure of “peace of mind”.

It is a difficult way to live, it is so much easier to complain about the way things are and how someone should do something rather than get your bum off your seatbox and actually do something or empower someone who has the required skills to force some change or other.

I pointed out to my readers their chance to take such action in my post on the 18th January about the formation of the new Angling Trust and I said all anglers needed to join this organisation to give us a combined voice to protect the future of our sport.

Well, the majority of the apathetic anglers in this country didn’t bother to put their hands in their pockets and join because someone else would do it and everything would be alright! Now we are in danger of losing our last chance, we have burned our boats by combining all the failing angling groups into one and that is about to fail too. Not because of political pressure or the difficulty of the task but purely because Joe Angling Public could not be bothered and didn’t care enough about the future of his/her sport. Neither did the tackle trade or the clubs or the Angling Press, every one just thought they didn’t need to get involved someone else would do it for them.

Perhaps I am being unfair, maybe the launch of the Angling Trust and its purpose and value to the sport was not well publicised but in a number of my tirades in tackle shops and on the river bank (yes I am a bit of an Angling Trust evangelist) I have been told, after my argument in favour of joining proved too strong, “I’ll wait and see how it goes before I join”. The fact that I haven’t slapped anyone is only because of my advancing years and the fact that most of them are bigger than me!

As you may have seen in the angling press the Angling Trust is in trouble due to the shortage of members.

Angling Trust announces restructuring

The Angling Trust has announced a number of cuts to its central operations in Nottingham and Leominster. Despite widespread publicity and the distribution of half a million membership leaflets, the level of recruitment has to date, fallen below expectations. This shortfall, along with higher than expected costs, is threatening the viability of the Trust.

Membership shortfall
Of 4 million anglers less than 1% have joined the Trust – many more were expected to have signed up and, despite thousands of further members of former organisations due to renew in the remaining months of the year, the Board was not confident the organisation could continue to provide sufficient service to members without making savings.

This shortfall, added to difficulties created by the merger, presented a difficult situation which could only be rectified by reducing the overheads of the organisation. Consequently deep cuts have been made and a number of staff have been made redundant.

“Angling needs the Angling Trust” - Chairman

“These measures are necessary to balance the Angling Trust’s books. It is difficult to conceal the board’s disappointment in the response we have had from anglers. However, we expect to be able to continue at a satisfactory level of service.” said Dr Stephen Marsh-Smith, the Trust’s chairman.

“More than ever before, angling needs representation at national level to continue the fight against pollution, inadequate legislation, illegal canoeing, poaching, predation and all the other threats facing angling today.

Angling needs to have a strong body to promote our unique sport, increase participation and ensure that the whole business flourishes. For only £20 per angler, this can easily be done, but we need every individual angler to join as a member themselves, as well as their clubs and sponsorship from all those who benefit from the £3billion angling business.

Anyone can join the Trust today and ensure the sport is represented at a national and international level by completing an application form, visiting www.anglingtrust.net or calling 0844 7700616.” he continued.

Chief Executive Mark Lloyd stated:
“Anglers need to imagine what the future might look like without a national body to represent their needs, and join the Angling Trust now. We have worked very hard before and after the merger to develop the national body but it seems that too many anglers think that others will support the cause for them. Anglers have to realise that having a central body representing their interests, protecting their angling and campaigning to ensure we can all go fishing tomorrow does require a commitment from everyone today.”

Latest development

The following letter has just been sent to the Trust and gives us a glimmer of hope:

OPEN LETTER DATED AUGUST 10th 2009
ADDRESSED TO BOARD OF THE ANGLING TRUST

Dear Sirs

It is with deepest concern that we contact you regarding the development of the Angling Trust.
For far too long, anglers have needed a professionally run, representative body, and the launch of the Angling Trust in January 2009 was a major step forward towards greater unity in angling.

We believe the Angling Trust has provided an initial framework to the path of true representation and the merging board has created a valuable structure, but news of overspending combined with a failing business plan is extremely worrying although not that surprising.

Our concerns at this stage arise primarily from the continuing lack of engagement with AT members, and the angling community as a whole, particularly on sensitive issues. There is a wealth of first hand angling, industry and media experience that appears to have been largely ignored by the current board. Therefore, it is with this in mind, that we all offer our support services, without charge, to the Angling Trust as a “collective” advisory board. The absence of individuals that anglers recognise, trust and respect is clearly apparent at all levels of the Angling Trust.

In addition, there is obviously and immediate need to review the failing business plan currently in place. Once again, where applicable, we would like to offer our experience in business development, marketing and finance at no cost, to help secure the immediate continuation and sustainable development of the Angling Trust in the future.

We trust that the current AT board will be addressing these concerns and await your earliest response.

Signed by:
John Wilson, Keith Arthur, Danny Fairbrass, Martin Bowler, Ruth Lockwood, John Everard, Tim Norman

Well there you have it, a challenge. If you have bothered to read this far then you care about our sport and presumably already belong to the Trust but there is more you can do. Convince other anglers to join too, ask your local tackle shop, club and fishery if they are members and if not, ask them why, if they depend on the sport for their income, they have not joined.

The reason I have not posted here since the middle of July is that, along with a number of other Angling Trust registered coaches all over the country, I have been working hard to introduce more people to our sport on various functions. These efforts and those of years gone by, along with all the other hard work done by the Angling Trust board members and their predecessors, will all be wasted if our sport goes into decline, as it will, without our voices being heard in the corridors of power.

Anglers out there happily pay £10 for a day on their chosen commercial fishery, two days would buy them an Angling Trust membership and safeguard the future of their sport.

If our sport is to decline all anglers need to do is NOTHING!

Let’s show we care about our sport.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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”

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