FREE tuition days a huge success! - 22 08 2008

Over the past week or so the fishery held some free short tuition classes courtesy of Russ Evans and Chris Maltby who together with Eric Bailey and Rob Hawkins form part of the BHF Tutor team. The new free tuition taster series kicked off with a class on the feeder on the Old Lake with Russ and here is his account of the three classes he took.

I was pleased to see a dozen or so people attend the opening class on peg 2 along the front bank and after some recent heavy rain it was slow going to start off with and to be honest, I was glad of that fact as it gave me the opportunity to show those attending that by continual feeding and accurate casting it was possible to trigger the fish into feeding. It took a good 1 hour and 20 minutes before the first fish was hooked, a nice bream weighing around 4lb, which was my target fish and by choosing to fish with hard pellets and lasoo rigs, the small cage feeder method picked out the bigger stamp of fish, which is what I intended. Once the fish turned on, it was steady action all the way and by mid way through the course, a nice 15lbs mirror carp made an appearance which took at least 25 minutes to land on balanced tackle. It was a very good session and the feedback was excellent from those that attended with a number of those present grabbing the rod and having a go for themselves. Whilst these sessions, are not all about weight, it was pleasing to see so many bream caught as well as the bonus carp.

However, the proof of a good lesson is about teaching those attending new skills and Maury Vickery is a great example of this returning 2 days later armed with his feeder rod and identical baits and rigs as I used having his best day by far catching 19 bream to 6lbs 3oz for close to 100lb. Maurie said “I did not lose a single fish using the methods that Russ demonstrated and had my best day ever at Bury Hill, I can’t wait to return and repeat another good catch”

The following day in awful weather I took my second class on Milton Lake where fishing in the margin was the chosen method to demonstrate. Using a long rod and a running light pole rig, I caught 10 good crucians up to 2lbs, a big roach, 4lbs tench and a hard fighting carp of 4lbs during the 3 hour lesson using big soft ringers pellet over a small bed of 3mm micro feed pellet. As with Maurie, Keith, one of the attendees returned to Milton the following day and his best day on the lake adopting the methods shown in the class.

The final class was back on the Old Lake but this time it was the turn of the waggler, which I fished on a 12’ float rod. Peg 35 was the chosen peg and by casting four-rod lengths out over the small ledge that runs around the entire lake I caught plenty of bream to 5lbs and loads of small skimmers for an estimated 65lbs in just 3 hours. Soft pellets on a size 14 hook were the way to go feeding small micro pellets via a strong catapult. There was quite a tow on the lake so it was important to have a bit of bulk shot down the line and fish at least a foot over depth to try and pin the hook bait on the bottom, which is how the big bream like it.

Due to the success of the classes, we will be running some more next year whilst later this year Eric Bailey will be running a couple of FREE Predator classes as well, dates to be confirmed.