29.03.2024

Fly Fishing Tuition & Courses Reports, March 2019

The 2019 fishing season is now in full swing for us here in the Sportfish tuition team. We have run our fantastic spring salmon course up on the River Tyne, our increasingly popular pike fishing course on Bowood House Lake with David Wolsoncroft-Dodds and a really successful one-day stillwater course right here at home on Haywards Farm Lake.

One-day Stillwater Course

Our first stillwater course of the year was a great success with six new anglers joining us, all keen to try trout fishing and learn about the basics of fly fishing. We started the course with a look at the fly fishing tackle basics and followed this with a short casting demonstration before getting our new anglers out on the lawn to learn the art of fly casting!

As soon as the group had learned to safely manage a fly rod we rigged them up and headed out on the water. It didn’t take long before the first rods were bent and they were landing their very first fly-caught trout! These included a variety of different fish, including browns, rainbows, tigers and golden trout.

Several new fly fishers were born!

Kaouru Matsumoto Hobbs (R) with instructor JT, and one of the great rainbows she landed on her stillwater course

Sportfish instructor, Nick Clewlow, takes a look at some of the early season courses that the tuition department has already delivered and looks forward to what’s coming up…

We have also started filling up slots for our regular hourly lessons, with great interest from both new fly fishers looking to take their first steps and seasoned anglers keen to improve their skills.

Sportfish tuition team member, Nick Clewlow

Pike on the Fly Fishing Course

Our pike fishing courses at Bowood House Lake have really taken off this year and the fishing has been great, with plenty of good pike landed. These courses are run by David Wolsoncroft-Dodds who has a wealth of knowledge and is always eager to teach our new anglers the ins and outs of pike on the fly.

Our most recent trip was an incredibly successful one and although there had been a huge drop in the water level the night before, which presented our anglers with new and unforeseen challenges, plenty of fish were still caught ranging in size from a couple of pounds to double digit specimens!

This really is a wonderful way to fish and it’s easy to see why so many are giving our bigger predator species a go!

Chay Hedger with a terrific pike taken on one of our pike on the fly courses

Spring Salmon Fishing Course

Our spring salmon course up on the Tyne in February was a great learning experience for all our salmon anglers and although we didn’t manage to land fish this year we couldn’t have asked for better conditions to learn how to manage a double-hander.

We had wonderfully warm days with a river that was steadily dropping throughout the week, which gave our chaps plenty of different water levels to try, as well as different types of Spey cast to perfect. Fish were seen jumping and rolling on most days  and there were enough pulls on the line to keep everyone focused and enthusiastic!

Landing a salmon is always a challenge and never a given but even though we returned to the hotel each evening empty handed our guys were always in high spirits and keen for more. In fact many have already booked some of our other exciting courses later in the year!

Spring salmon tuition on the River Tyne

Next Adventures

We have numerous other trips and courses coming up this year with our next adventure taking place on the River Wharf at Bolton Abbey in early May. This will be followed by our hugely popular sea trout course at Abercothi and there will be several more day courses, including stillwater, pike and chalkstream days.

For further information check out our fly fishing tuition pages, contact us via email at: [email protected] or by telephone at: 0118 930 3860

We hope to see you on the water in the near future!

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