Fishwish Coaching & Education

21/05/2026

What do fish eat? Today we took a kick sample on the River Chew for a closer look. Freshwater shrimp, caddis larvae, mayfly and damsel nymphs, and a tiny bullhead fish. Tied a mayfly, practiced casting and caught a couple of wild brown trout.

29/04/2026

Not another angler on the match lake at Century Ponds this afternoon, despite the lovely sunshine. Far too windy to hold a pole steady, but plenty of fish caught using a 1/4oz tip and light bomb.

28/04/2026

The art of free lining made a mockery of drop shotting on a windy lake today. Almost quadruple the hook up ratio. Crucian, chub and tench. The perch didn’t read the script. Food for thought though.

11/03/2026

Counting the last few days of coarse fishing on the river after the wettest January floods I can remember. Brilliant to see coach Harry get a new PB. Obviously the law has to obeyed, but the closed season is an antiquated joke. Shame on the Environment Agency for wasting rod licence money on public consultation in 2019 and doing absolutely nothing in response to the overwhelming demand for changes.

The rivers and fish are far healthier now than they will be in July, August and September. Most responsible anglers don’t bother, but poachers fill up their buckets. The water utility companies and Environment Agency know full well that once winter flows fizzle out, our rivers return back to nutrient over loaded, oxygen choked, and flow depleted ecological tragedies. Year on year worsening. Less water, higher temperatures and more volatile algae and bacteria blooms. Destroying micro habitat and lowering biodiversity.

Dace, Perch and Pike already spawned. Chub and barbel still spawning in late June. You have to ask - why do we just accept it? There’s a river trust for every river catchment. Management plans for every river and stream within. How hard can it be to incorporate angling into these catchment plans?

08/03/2026

Sad to read how someone’s early journey into angling has been hampered by online bullying and ridicule on social media. Being an admin member of a Facebook group can require a lot of work and keeping bad apples out can be almost impossible. But…it would be great if the good and the bad Facebook groups could be more readily identifiable.

https://www.anglingtimes.co.uk/news/stories/fishing-changing-lives-for-those-with-autism/ #

Discover how angling is helping people with autism, and other neurotypes, build confidence, find calm and transform their lives through fishing.

04/03/2026

27/02/2026

13/02/2026

A welcome break in the rain today and the aim was to simply get some bend in the rod. With the river still too high and fast flowing for float fishing, the choice of method was the lightest feeder set up we could get away with - a 1/4oz tip Leeda bomb rod to a 20g flat based block end feeder with half the holes taped over to stop the maggots washing out too quickly. In all the years I’ve been fishing the River Chew, I don’t think I’ve see a fish as fine as this roach. Caught on double maggot on a size 20, weighing 1lb 8oz.

12/02/2026

Could there be a record dace lurking somewhere in the R.Chew? This one weighed 235g or just over 8oz in old money. Caught today on double maggot and touch feeder in Keynsham Memorial Park. Considerably bigger ones have been caught upstream in years gone by, including one estimated to comfortably over a pound. With the British record currently 1lb 5oz, it’s food for thought.

10/02/2026

A bed of chopped lobworms, corn and h**p convinced this chub to come out of the roots and tuck in. The best thing about the River Chew in Keynsham Memorial Park is that it’s always fishable - no matter how much rain we get. The dace were in the action too but couldn’t quite get their chops around the size 6 hook. A good way of separating the ravenous dace and roach from the bigger fish species. Been a while since I last saw a barbel from here but there must be some hiding away somewhere.