First Lesson 09/04/2009

Today was the day of my first fly fishing lesson. I met up with my teacher Peter (Lagoon bait and tackle in hove) at 10.00am at Brick farm lakes fishery. Brick Farm is near Herstmonceaux in East Sussex and is a 2 lake trout fishery that is very reasonably priced for this sport. The owner met us and we had a brief chat and during the chat he said there were'nt many fish left as they hadn't restocked but would be putting loads of fish in the lakes at lunch time. I have never seen this and at about 12pm a lorry turned up with a big container on the back and the driver put loads of fish in the lake with a net.

I Paid £15 for a 2 fish ticket (this means that I can take home 2 fish that I catch) and made my way to the top lake for the lesson. I had booked Peter for a half day.

Peter's half day lesson included checking my gear to make sure it was usable and the lines, reels and rods matched, check the rest of my gear including fly selection. Casting lessons, tackle setup, tying flies to leaders, leader info and practice. Amongst all of this was a constant feeding of information so by the end of the half day I have a much better understanding of the sport.

Unfortunately for me the first rod, reel, line gear I had bought was rubbish, I don't mind as it was dirt cheap but it did teach me to take advice from now on when buying gear. The rod was a leeda streamfly II with a cheap reel and line. Basically it was almost impossible to cast with it. Peter lent me one of his training rods (Cortland rod with a Leeda reel and Scientific anglers floating line, all low cost items), this demonstrated the difference straight away and in no time I was able to cast (1 in 10 good dropping to 1 in 5 good casts after about an hour) across the lake. I continued practicing on his set up for a couple of hours until Peter decided that I should try for a fish or two. So we put on a fly (Dawl bach) and I then cast around the lake trying to catch. As a beginner I missed loads of Bite (pulls or takes) and even caught a few trout only to lose them in battle. Then it went quiet. I asked Peter if I could try my lightwieght set up (snowbee 8' 4 weight rod, Greys GTX 4 weight reel and Fullers Mill 4 weight intermediate line), and he said yes and then put a cats whisker trout lure on it.

Almost immediately I hooked a rainbow trout of just under 2 lbs and off it went like a train, after a tustle lasting a few minutes I landed it. Wow what fun i'm now hooked on this if you will excuse the pun. Once I had sorted that one out I then spent some time casting and again was rewarded with another rainbow of just under 2lbs in weight, this one really fought and Peter had set the drag on the reel for me and I was able to play it using the reel. Usually you play the fish using the rod and line but he wanted me to see how the drag on the reel worked. Again stupid grin on face.

That was my first lesson over, many thanks to Peter for his patience and help, I cant wait for my next lesson.

I took the fish to my girlfriend's house and cleaned them, froze one and my girlfriend then did a beautiful meal with the other. She stuffed the fish with mushrooms, herbs, orange zest and juice of the orange and some lime juice, covered it with seasoning and herbs and baked it in the oven. Wow what a delicious fish and many thanks to my girlfriend for cooking it.

Fly fishing is probably the hardest thing I have ever done as it is very technical and there are so many things to think about let alone the complexities of flies, fish behaviour etc. However its the most fun I have ever had, by the end of my lesson I was the happiest man alive, its so much fun.

Anyway must go but I will put some info about the gear I use on this and some pictures when I have some I have attached some pictures of the fish from the day. When I next go to the lake I will take some pictures of the surroundings and post them here.