All Things Piscatorial

The canal is a branch off the Grand Union Canal, that runs from just north of Thorney/West Drayton west into Slough, it like most canals has long been used for recreation and is totally unlike its original state when working boats plied up and down carrying cargo.

This part of the canal appears to be used by few local anglers only, which is surprising as it is full of fish, even with the additional canal boats present giving visitors rides down towards Slough to a turning basin and back! These passed in both directions often at the same time directly in front of the coaches.

But still the fish kept coming!

The festival being within the town area ensured we had a constant flow of passing visitors on the towpath, most stopped to look and listen to the coaches and many returning to have a try at fishing, on both days the booking in register was closed before mid-day – we only started at 11.00am when the show opened, Such was the popularity of the fishing and the coaches, this was highlighted on the Sunday when we were greeted with ‘we are back to have another go’ or we are back today because we could not get booked in yesterday’ I personally had one family return just to say thank you for spending time with then and to ask if we will be back again soon.

To the coaches in the region I would say you have a very large untapped market here! I only wish that I lived closer.

To give the public some idea what the canal has to offer, the EA lads had a portable fish pond, in which the coaches supplied a variety of fish mainly Roach; Rudd; Perch, small Bream and Tench were also caught, due to the coaching activity Pike were also evident, which slowed the bites up, but every one caught several fish and it was only the last few on the Sunday who struggled for a bite, all this even with the boats chugging up and down all day long.
 

Again the big surprise was the number a ladies who sat down and tried! From young girls to Mums! And many after the initial shock of being confronted with boxes of wriggling maggots, pinkies and squatts, were soon baiting up themselves!

As for many of the anglers who stopped, these asked question like we don’t fish here is there anything worth catching, that question was usually answered when the next fish was landed, but the strangest was where did we get the bait from? We cannot get Squatts only maggot and pinkies?

All in all another busy couple of days for the coaches present and another successful event where we had over two hundred smiling faces, double that it you count the parents who asked all the right questions, like how do we get into fishing, where can we go how much does it cost and where can we get the tackle and bait etc etc. Next year the EA are to ask for a slightly different location on the towpath, it will not affect the amount of boats but will allow for more coaches, so that all the disappointed people can become ‘Smiling Faces’

My thanks to Kevin Pestell, Mark Jennings and Mike Smith who gave up their time to assist with making this another great success.

Our next event and the last organised event by the London and South East Team (for 2006), is the Countryside Live Show on Thursday and Friday September 21^st & 22^nd at the county showground near Waltham Cross, I will not be there as I will hopefully be trying to catch Tarpon at the time! But the coaches present would be pleased to speak with you if you can attend.

Tight lines – Alan Sandom, Senior Coach – London & South East Region