Hooked on a new hobby

My local pub has a fishing club, they’ve been together for three years and I was persuaded to join. I’d never fished in my life before but I thought I would give it a go and now I am completely hooked.

The fishing club book different venues each time they have a match so that the club has a chance of catching different varieties in the lakes.

 
There are two females in the club and- for the first few times I went - I took it in turns to sit with one of them for the day and watch how it was done and ‘shared their peg’. I was slowly given the rod to hold when Sam had caught a fish and watched intently how to play the fish before landing it in the net, which the girls made me do on a number of occasions to gain confidence and experience, (at this point, though, I had only landed the fish I hadn’t touched it or taken the hook out - this was to come further down the line).

It took me a quite a while to get used to the basic’s I couldn’t grasp, at first, how to co-ordinate the fishing rod on the end of the line and the landing net at the same time to bring it in; however, after a few times, I did it, and now I do it without even thinking.

The way our club works with their match weekends is the one who catches the biggest weight, wins at the end of the season and gets their name engraved on the Match Cup, which proudly sits in our local, for everyone to see and admire.

I now go fishing with the club regularly and I sit on my own peg with all my own gear. I can now take the hook out and put the fish back in the pond myself. I’m learning the terminology and have caught some amazing common carp, mirror carp, ghost carp, bream, roach and tench and the biggest fish I’ve caught so far weighed in at 6lb 3oz.

As for the bait, I use fishmeal brown pellet on the hook - and of course - Haith’s , black rape and whole hemp.

The most I have caught in one day is seventeen - not bad for a newbie, even though I do say so myself.

Written by Chris Smith