Angling for success

It’s never too early to shape up for next season’s salmon and trout, and these top fishing schools are here to help

- Sarah Fitzpatrick

IT IS NOT unusual for guns to have a lesson before the start of the season to get their eye in, while gundogs and hunt horses might expect a little training to keep them performing at their peak but, surprisingly, anglers are often less inclined to call for professional assistance. It might be tempting to think that fishing is one of those things you can pick up as you go along and that one just has to get one’s line in the water. However, there is a little more to it than that.

I spent years thinking fishing was all pretty much luck – hearing tales of beginners catching a salmon in their first morning and passionate lifelong fishers not actually banking a fish for years or even decades – but the scales fell from my eyes when I started to notice that there were just a very few people who somehow managed to catch fish consistently. It wasn’t because of their kit or even necessarily because they spent longer on the water – though they’d always be in the most committed group. It was because they were better. Better at casting, reading the water, understanding the river and playing a fish once it was on, even if the reel fell off.

The range and quality of tuition available here means there is little excuse for slacking. For beginners, and even ‘compleat anglers’, the benefits of good instruction are huge. You might want to nail Spey casting at last, start tying your own flies or enjoy a family holiday where different generations can foster a shared passion, with appropriate guidance for all. “It’s one of the only things that you can do that crosses the generational divide; we get parent, grandparent and child groups,” enthuses Arabella Monro from The Arundell.