Happy pupil = happy Russ!

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16
Aug
2010

Russ' series is nearly finished

Bury Hill Fisheries' Russ Evans is an angling coach, fishing event organiser and runs a tackle shop. He's a match angler, competing up and down the country and, when he's not match fishing, likes to target Crucian Carp and Perch. He writes for numerous angling publications and has offered angling advice on TV. In his blog, Russ shares with us the running of a busy fishery, his angling highs and lows and his coaching tips.

"One of the caps I wear at Bury Hill is my coaching cap and just recently I have held two one on one lessons with Jeremy Gamble from Fulham and young Bradley Gibbons from Berkshire. My lesson with Jeremy I touched on briefly in my last blog, but since then Jeremy has sent me a photo or two of our lesson plus a write up from his point of view of how the day went and what he gained from our lesson.

Jeremy’s point of view

"Six am is rarely welcomed as a time to be rising – unless you are going fishing! Meeting Bury Hills coach Russ Evans at 7.30am, we quickly headed down to Milton Lake to target tench and crucian carp for a lesson Jeremy’s wife had booked. Jeremy is a life long angler who had drifted away having spent over twenty years in the TA and was keen to bring his rather rusty skills back up to speed and date. After setting up in Russ’s favoured peg 20, Russ quickly demonstrated how to accurately plumb the depth for the two lines that was to be fished. Then the float was set to register a mere 1/8th of an inch above the surface with a no eight shot set two inches from the hook and resting on the bottom as a telltale.

Russ then revealed the baits to be used and demonstrated to me how expander pellets could be rapidly changed with the help of a bait pump from being hard and unappealing to soft and irresistible to the fish to be targeted. As change baits we had plenty of choice with sweet corn, worms and red maggots.

We quickly got into fish with two tench hitting the bait hard within minutes of setting up – one male and a scrappy female. Then the float started quivering, dipping and gently rose before sliding under the surface – a crucian carp -, which revealed its golden sides after a minute or two’s fight before sliding into the net. All the while Russ was passing on pearls of wisdom and discussion ranged from the merits of various floats and types of presentation of the bait. It was too easy to forget there was a float in the water and just soak up Russ’s experience and wealth of knowledge.

Having thought all was going well and that fishing was to be renamed catching I was reminded why I was there by failing to hit bite after bite – very embarrassing under Russ’s sharp eye. With considerable diplomacy he stepped in “to find out what the fish were doing” and (I am glad to report missed one bite himself) before quickly assessing the fault – the bottom shot had shifted. Job done and the rod was handed back for the lesson to continue.

As well the tench and crucians we caught bream, golden rudd, perch and roach. The roach were taking the bait on the drop and spotting how the float registered this happened as another valuable lesson learnt.

What did I learn:

- Simple is best, plumb your swim accurately, shot the float down – right down – the importance of float tip colour – and so much more.
- Having pottered along with a bit of help from TV programmes, books and magazines I found that there is no substitute for “hands on” help, my bad habits were quickly remedied and new advanced skills absorbed almost without notice. Jeremy Gamble."

My turn in the limelight

My next fishing session will be this Wednesday 18th August when I will be doing my stuff in front of the Match Fishing magazine cameras on the River Rother in Sussex at Newbridge. I have reported in my blogs that I have been in amongst the eels of late and have developed a method to catch a few bonus fish. I put this method back in action the Sunday before last when I helped my domestic club Holland Anglers to win the 50th annual renewal of the Holland Cup against Clive Vale. I had six more eels to come fourth overall narrowly missing out by 1lbs odd from winning the match, tight pegging put paid to that but having caught eels in between two close up and local rivals confirmed that my method really does work especially as they were saying that they had not seen an eel from this stretch of the Rother for years. So on Wednesday I get my chance to do it in front of the photographic cameras but the week after that I will be back at Newbridge in front of rolling cameras for the next part of The Obsessed Angler series.

The Obsessed Angler

I am pleased to announce that the first part of The Obsessed Angler series, “Spring Bream” will be released in the next few days as I am waiting for the hard copies to arrive back from the manufacturers. The plan is to send off a copy to a few TV companies as a couple of channels have already shown interest in the series but a few limited dvds will be on offer to buy. The fact that The Obsessed Angler series can be produced as a complete package to any prospective channel and ready to go, must be a good selling point? Well I hope so. Matt Fuller who has been working with me on the series has been doing some fantastic work with the filming and editing plus the time and effort we have both put in and will continue to put in as the project is still ongoing will hopefully come to fruition. As well as this blog more details can be viewed on my angling website www.anglingfeatures.com look out for The Obsessed Angler link.

With young Bradley’s match at Bury Hill on Wednesday plus my date with the magazine and more going’s on at the fishery and more I will have plenty more to report in my next blog.

Tight Lines
Russ."