When you run a cycle holiday business and you have clients booked for the day, the last thing you want to wake up to is the menacing roll of thunder and the sound of a monsoon rain drumming down on the roof. Cycling is not something you can take indoors, so Chris and I packed up the bikes and the rain gear and trundled off to Stockbridge to meet our clients, Christine and Graham who had booked a Cycle/Fishing Break hoping the weather gods would take pity on us. It was still raining lightly when we met our guests for breakfast at the Greyhound Inn. Two cups of coffee and a full English later, we stepped outside into a brisk breeze shredding the clouds into wisps and revealing a bright blue sky . The weather gods had smiled upon us, and soon we were on our merry way to Netherwallop where Christine and Graham would have a day’s fly-fishing tuition at the Fishing Breaks headquarters.
We rode through quiet country lanes, smelling of damp earth and fresh , clean air, fields beside us gently steaming in the warming sun. I love that smell, the world washed sweetly clean,with a bass note of damp salty asphalt as your tires hiss over the damp road surface. The route from Stockbridge to Nether wallop is fairly flat, a few undulating hills on the way, but nothing too challenging and in just over an hour we were at Fishing Breaks gate.
Christine and Graham were eager to start fishing and were impressed with the Fishing Breaks offices and headquarters just outside the tiny village of Netherwallop, Hampshire. Set in beautifully landscaped grounds Fishing Breaks features a ‘training pond’ stocked with rainbow trout and char , and a ‘casting platform’ for learning the art of ‘casting’, a necessary skill for successful fly fishing. Christine and Graham were greeted with a big smile and a friendly handshake by Allan Middleton, their guide and tutor for the day.
Allan took Christine and Graham to the casting platform armed with a rods and line and torrent of enthusiastic talk about ‘wrist’ and ‘line’ and ‘flick’. Chris and I found a bench in the sun, opened the thermos, poured ourselves a cup of coffee and settled in to observe the intricacies of casting for fish.
Fly fishing is a sport that is all about patience. You must be patient with yourself in the first place to get the hang of casting – throwing the fishing line off the rod and skipping it on the surface of the water. This takes time and practice, practice, practice until your body and your mind memorise exactly how it feels when the cast is perfect. Christine and Graham cast and flicked, cast and flicked , observed and encouraged and patiently instructed by Allan’s cheerful and humorous advice . I could see them both getting better and more fluid as the lesson went by, and by lunch time, they felt like they were making real progress. I broke out the Cycle Tours UK picnic and we sat in the sun and Allan kept us entertained with hilarious fishing stories – who knew fishing could be so funny?
As I watched Christine and Graham on the banks of the training pond after lunch, I could see how important it was to maintain a patient focused approach to the task. You couldn’t be thinking about the office, or a business deal, or the state of foreign policy in Afghanistan. Casting takes a quiet, precise concentration, each cast aiming to be better and more accurately focused on the flick of the fly and the fascination of the fish.
Graham and Christine were having a whale of a time in their quest for the perfect cast and the excitement of catching a fish. A ‘trout’ of a time doesn’t seem large enough to describe how excited Graham became when he got his first ‘bite’. Allan dashed to the bank with his net, and Graham played the fish, reeling him in until it came glistening out of the water and Allan scooped it into the net. Photos were taken of grinning fisherman and prize two and half pound rainbow trout. Christine declared she was not going home until she too had caught a fish, and upped her game, casting more fluidly and flicking with a more precise wrist. Within twenty minutes we were taking Christine’s photo with her trophy trout. Patience and persistence paid off to reel in the prize.
Lessons can be learned here. Companies looking for a unique team-building day for their employees will find a Cycle Tours UK corporate away day of cycling and fishing an excellent way for employees to strengthen and expand their skills in patience, persistence and concentration on a task . The day is spent out of doors, in the fresh air, combining the activity of a gentle cycle with the tranquil but focused lessons in fly fishing provided by Fishing Breaks professional guides.
Call Cycle Tours UK and let us help you organise a corporate away day that’s fun, active and provides employees with a valuable experience that will leave them refreshed, renewed and raring to reel in the deals!