New Coach Information

New Coach’s-Introduction

NO QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED! Just experienced anglers! 

I wanted to give you the new coach’s a brief introduction to how you’ll be spending your days with us.  

Firstly to get directions, please download the venue details from our website, under Information/Venues. The map will give you the location and post code, and we put up signs at the fishery entrance. Please be with us by 7.30am if you can. Students start arriving about 9am. Park as compactly as possible please, once they all arrive the car parks can be quite full. Make you way round to the lake and you’ll see where we’ve set up the meet point. Bring your own chair please, an unhooking mat too if possible, but there are spares for both.

Every new coach will be paired with another more experienced volunteer, you’ll set up in adjacent swims so he’s there for advice and help. I’ll email everyone nearer the time with the details. Collect your name badge from the table to pin on, (existing coaches too please!) then find the person you’re paired with. I’ll hand you a sheet showing the details of the students you’ll all have and advise where you’ll be fishing.

Your partner will show you to collect a float rod and ledger rod for every student plus a 4 metre whip if they are newcomers, then there’s a whole line of everything else you’ll need of tackle boxes (one for every student)), rod-rests, a whole variety of baits, everything you’ll need in fact. There’s large carrier bags available to put all these in. Make you way round to the allocated swims and start making sense of it all, setting up ready for the students. Future events might be the students have to set the rods up themselves, there might be keepnets for a match that time, we ring the changes.

Back to the student handout for a moment. It will include personal details of the students such as health issues that you need to be aware of, this is confidential but you need to know this. Under the Data Protection Act it must be kept confidential, the easiest way to ensure sheets are handed back in is to use the sheet to record any notable captures on the back, hand these in to Colin at the end so he’s got the details for the website fish capture photos. Send any photos to Colin Presland either by the website  https://anglingcoachinginitiative.co.uk/Useful links/Upload Photos, or email aci.info@anglingcoachinginitiative.co.ukwith student name/s & fish weights i.e. Joe Carter 4lb 2oz bream.  

Complete newcomers start on the 4 metre whip to get some fish coming, and for those that need lots of action too, perhaps stay on the whip for the interest value. A waggler rod and learning to cast is next, but you can do the casting itself to start with. Finale option is a method feeder but preferably only the last hour or so, it’s too easy to chuck out anywhere and wait for the tip to shoot round, self-hooked!

Also on the handout sheets you’ll see against every name where they are on the CAST scheme, which tracks their angling learning curve, so for instance a new angler will have really easy tasks like name four fish they’ve seen, Level 1 might be they can set up a rod, Level 2 accurate baiting-there’s a full list attached, so it shows items you can concentrate on, but follow whatever seems appropriate with them. L2 coaches test them on these in due course.

About 8.45am you’ll hear a whistle, please come to the base area for a coach briefing. That’s followed at 9am for a student briefing, often that is repeated for different arrival times of students. As soon as you have your allocated people go off to your swims with your partner coach to start fishing! Official times for this are 10am-2pm, but fine to start when ready.

During the events both Graham (fellow Level 2 lead coach) and I will be coming round during the day to see how everyone is fairing. Also other Level 2’s are Simon, Colin, Kevin and another Chris.  

Now Covid. I’ll update this as Government plans and guidance change, but it could well be we choose to keep the 2 metre social distancing. PPE is provided.

On all aspects of our coaching, if there’s anything happening that you’re concerned about, ask for advice from your partner coach or speak to a Level 2 coach, there will be a number of us at every event.  

2pm the whistle goes to finish fishing, meet up back at the base point with the students and parents to have a short conversation about the day. There’ll be some small tackle prizes handed out, CAST certificates, plus we’re going to start giving away some second-hand rods and reels to the more advanced ones, to encourage them to go fishing by themselves.

Lastly, help please on packing it all away! Bring it all back to base, note all rods normally get packed away made up ready to use next time, please see how we do this so they go away damage free. Then some help carrying back to the car is appreciated, but if you need to get away promptly on occasion that’s fine.

There’s much more to get used to but this at least gives you a brief outline. Most importantly all the students need to catch and we all need enjoy themselves!