Last weekend Cliff Culbert took Marzena and seven students coarse fishing at a private pond at Kingsey, near Thame.
Coarse fishing is the most popular participant activity in England, with between 3 & 4 million taking part each year. There are three basic branches of this fishing a) Pleasure anglers, b) Match fishermen & c) Specimen hunters. All anglers use various rod and line arrangements to enable them to catch fish. For most fishermen, it is not only about catching fish, it is about enjoying the environment in which you fish, observing the environment and in some cases, building and improving the environment. It is a peaceful time to reflect upon your own life and to pass on any skills you have learnt in fishing to anyone who wants to learn about angling.
For CAS, students develop the basic skills in pole fishing for coarse fish, which includes, learning how to put bait on hooks, how to observe bites, how to land and unhook fish and how to return them safely to the water. The activity would be described as a pleasure fisherman activity, which is probably the most popular part of the hobby.
The students who took part were:
Evgeniya Marder, Emilija Berzanskaite, Kinga Kwolek, Victoria Geska, Liviu Stefan Mihalcescu, Wenkum He, Rassul Murat. All students caught fish, and they managed to catch 4 different types of species of fish including roach, rudd, perch and carp.
I believe Emilija and Evgeniya caught the biggest fish, which was a common carp of about one and a half kilos. Wenkum caught the most fish; 14 roach, rudd and perch. He also lost a big carp that snapped his line. Kinga and Victoria had a successful day and caught 16 fish together, whilst Liviu and Rassul eventually gained success after moving fishing spots three times. We were lucky with the weather as we only had a few spots of rain.