Beginners learning to fly fish at Coltsfold Mill Fishery, Oxted, Surrey, UK

 

Well the weather has improved (that is it has stopped raining) and I have been able to get to the waters edge at last.  The occasion was an outing for Niel, Bryant and Malcolm, the three chaps I have been teaching to cast on grass.  Today was the big test, had they been listening, had they understood, had they remembered and if the answer to all those questions was YES, then could their brains make their muscles do the right thing!  Well the answer was both YES and NO!  Sometimes they got it right and the line went out reasonable well and sometimes the timing was wrong, too much effort was used, the wrist was broken and the result was dumping and knitting.  However, we had fun, enjoyed the venue and three large rainbow trout were caught.

 

The venue was Coltsfold Mill, near Oxted, Surrey, UK, a well managed trout fishery.  The bailiffs Neil and Paul were most friendly and helpful. 

 

The pictures can speak for themselves.

 

 Mill lake

 Niel with the biggest fish

 Malcolm with one of his two

 Bryant fishing the lower cascade

 Neil the helpful Fishery Manager

 

The gold headed daddy longlegs (complete with rubber legs) that proved very effective.



Fly Fishing Virgin Scores at Dever Springs Trout Fishery

My brother asked me to give a fly casting lesson to Jim, a business colleague, who had just retired, as a thank you present.  When Jim mentioned he lived near the famous Dever Springs Trout Fishery and as I had not fished there for many years I thought we should give it a try. 

 

 

Well it rained all day, but Dever is very well equipped, with a lovely lodge which was helpful. So we did the health and safety topics and the explanation of why it is called fly fishing in the dry out of the rain.  Jim explained to me he had tried teaching himself to cast a fly and had given up.  He also told me that the main outcome he wanted from the day was to learn to cast and that if he caught a fish that would be a bonus.  So we started on the grass, then graduated to the lake but with a piece of fluff on instead of a fly and went through all the basics. Fortunately, Jim was a quick learner and by listening, asking and then copying he was soon casting far enough to cover fish.  So we switched to a real fly and started fishing and the rain kept coming down. Jim hooked and lost a couple and finally failure could not cope with persistance and he landed his first rainbow trout weighing in at just over 4lb.

 

 

As you can see Jim was over the moon with his catch.  We fished on and Jim had a couple of other fish on but they got away.  Other anglers had caught a lot of fish earlier in the day obviously all the "easy" ones, so the fishing got harder and the rain wetter so we called it a day.