Fishing for schools Coach, Kevin Durman, updates us on our sessions with students at Learning Opportunities, a specialist school in East Kent:
Five students took part in four Fishing for Schools sessions, none of whom had fished before.
Our first session was at Cottington Lakes on the match lake. Its a lovely snake shaped lake with plenty of fish. We started on whips, catching lots of small roach, rudd, bream, perch and gudgeon. So, first lesson, fish identification of our native species.
A switch for some to the method feeder got the rods hooping over with nice carp. And more fish ID as the students got to tell the difference between mirror and common carp. We also discussed leather carp in case they caught one (carp with no scales at all).
And then my fish of the trip, a lovely tench - always a joy to see them, especially for me as they are my favourite species.
Our second session proved a treat, as we had a boat trip out of Ramagate for some sea fishing. This was their first trip out on the sea for all students. We caught plenty of dogfish and two bonus smoothounds which were big enough to eat. The skipper of the boat showed the pupils how to fillet their fish, which they got to take home and eat.
Weeks 3 and 4 were back at Cottington Lakes – this time on Windsor Lake. Here I gave the pupils the option to use whichever method they wanted. The boys wanted to try for bigger fish on the feeder rods whilst the girls chose to use 3m whips with floats and maggots.
Being a larger lake, we had plenty of casting practice and caught some lovely Bream to 5lb and Carp to 8lb. The girls kept themselves busy catching loads of little fish on the whips, I gave them counters so they could keep track of their catch. Both girls catching almost 80 fish each.
In summary a lovely few weeks working with a school I’ve had the pleasure of working with before; both pupils and teachers engaging with the program and wanting to come back for more next year.
