Species Fishing Blog: Waggler Coaching

My first ever fishing coaching session in the UK. Decided to fish an Essex commercial fishery knowing that it would be a great place to learn as I had caught several carp and a some decent fish on previous session this year. The plan was to teach my trainee how to fish the waggler, the easiest and most enjoyable way to coarse fish. I got to the fishery a little earlier, and had bought a little 4m whip the night before, so I rigged it up and had a few small roach and roach and then a good bream before before my guest arrived and I had to get down to business. The weather was on and off showers and a little windy.

Knowing that my guest had only ever caught tiddlers with his bare hands many years ago, I knew that I had start from basics, this is a rod, a reel, a waggler, a hook... 2 BBs is the same as a AAA ... etc.

With this new found knowlege, we plumbed up and were ready to bait up and cast. The float went down several times, but he couldn't connect to the fish. Finally got it spot on, but the strike was a little too hard and the poor little roach became a flying fish. Finally success, we had a nice little 2oz roach in the net. After a few more roach we decided to use corn and he hooked into a nice roach, which weighed in at 12oz. Next fish was a beauty, hooking into a nice little Crucian carp. Now able to waggler fish, I was determined to catch some fish but only managed to get a nice roach of about 10oz. I missed a take which was almost definely a good bream. The next cast, hooked into a good fish, and a bream of about 5lb breached clear out of the water and the impact of the fish on the water put so much strain on the line that it broke my favourite waggler in half. It was the first waggler I had ever bought in the UK and have caught hundreds of fish on it. I was not able to recover the tip to reglue it. You always feel some sort of attachment to some of your fishing equipment, but I did break it on a good fish, and would probably have been the biggest bream I had ever hooked. The weather got worse and my guest had to leave. I persevered but only managed another good roach.

Overall a good day with my guest out fishing me.