01/08/26, Points Match/Coaching, Main Lake, Revels.

Before we start the mixture of silliness, moaning, desperation, and occasional fishing, I want to pause to wish our very own tame Wookie the very best of luck with his Angling Trust Level 2 coaching assessment next weekend. Jerry has booked his flights to Godalming, which was the nearest venue to Dorset, the forgotten county. Other venues included the Outer Hebrides, Los Angeles, Guadalajara, and somewhere just outside of Oslo. Jerry will face many challenges like, incompetence, impatience, something else that ends in ‘ence‘, and warm maggots. He even needs to buy a £15 day ticket, for Carp’s sake!

Good luck Mongo! Come home holding your certificate, or on it….

“Will this week ever end?”, I thought as my sleepy eyes peered through a bug spattered windscreen at the ribbon of road that runs through ‘The Piddles’.

Four events on the bounce are nothing on paper, and one of those was only hours long.

Two hours of fishing, yes. But, the prep, cleaning, planning, set up, and travel add at least two more hours to each session. Not to mention the fact that I don’t sleep well before-hand and, believe it or not, there are other things in life other than fishing.

I will be honest, the diagnosis of Mrs H’s heart condition, on top of everything else, has added weight to life even if weight is being lost elsewhere. Basically, there is not a lot that can be done, so we’re doing what we can to enjoy life together. That probably sounds way more dramatic than it is in reality but, life can be cruel sometimes and you never know what is lurking around the corner.

Driving in the morning sunshine felt mostly on auto pilot as I treated my ears to soothing tunes like, Blank Generation by Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Holidays in the sun by The Pistols, and New Rose by The Damned. Punk is my era, man, and is best served with attitude, volume, and a side orders of a safety pin with two fingers in a ‘V-shape’…

After frightening 11-miles of wildlife out of the way, including two cyclists and a rambler, I arrived in the quiet serenity of Revels with surprisingly lush vegetation considering the rain we haven’t had.

The main lake looked lush and fresh with early morning dew still waiting to be burned away by the seemingly endless summer sun. I wandered round to peg out the match on the spit which were up in numbers from last week at Orchard Lakes. 40% up as it happens seeing as we were expecting five whole juniors for this one.

Fishery owner, Jason, had warned me about some ground burrowing Wasps that had decided to set up home in a hole in the ground by peg 10. They had been treated to some Wasp cocaine (Wasp Powder) and were rather dopey in their motions. I leaned forward to peer down the hole, and I swear I heard some feint Reggae music from inside. At least they were having a good time.

I returned to peg 20 which would be my home for the early part of the day for my 5th taster session of the week. I think I have this coaching lark nailed down now and the patois just rolls off the tongue. Before the taster, I wanted to do a ‘Crap set up’ scenario, whereby I would set out my gear like a muppet. (A muppet by my own standards but, I have seen people fishing in total chaos more often than I think is acceptable.)

The coaching juniors were very good at pointing out the various errors like uneven seat box, rods on the floor, things out of reach, and trying to jam a feeder into a stem which did not fit it. The last one was real to be honest, but I was in no fit state too give an Owl’s worth of ‘Hoots’…

Your Match juniors today were:

Peg 1: Harry Cryer.

Peg 2: Alexander Adey.

Peg 3: Kenzie Toulson.

Peg 4: Austin Scott-Kennedy.

Peg 5: Josh Roe.

Coaching Juniors were:

Harriet, Lucas, Reuben, Haydon, Grayson, Benji, George, and the taster session today was James.

Your ‘Rash’ of coaches (the correct collective noun for a group of eight angling coaches) today were:

Graham Howard – The Tired one.

Jerry Bracey – The Learned one.

Tim Broughton – The Carpy one.

Jon Bass – The Sage one.

John Evans – The Fast one.

Chris Ward – The Pin-cushion one.

Si Wagner – The Golfy one.

Neil Haine – The Pretty one.

James Lewis was present for yet another (for me, not him) taster session with his dad, Mike. For a newbie, James did very well. Catching lots of small Perch and a nice Carp before the session end. They were both delightful company, and I look forward to fishing with them again soon.

Going round the lake with the coaching only juniors then and George was next to me on p21 trying to get to grips with a feeder rod. Casting is tricky to learn at the start, but George is going the right way about getting better. Practice, practice, practice... Haydon, Reuben and Grayson found themselves in permanent pegs 3, 4 & 5 respectively. I’m not sure about the numbers of fish that they caught but, the atmos looked to be pleasant enough.

Reuben and Haydon I had, from afar, seen catching a few during the early part of the session, but now we were in the Revels quiet time and things were slow.

From the rig I saw Reuben using, we need to talk about pole rigs a little more. With all the newbies we have, old topics will become more relevant again.

By the time I had got to Grayson (last 30-minutes), I think his concentration was on empty and terminal boredom had set in. I’m not entirely convinced that everything I said was going in. Making false bites by cranking the handle of the reel, doesn’t make Graham a happy boy. Especially as I fell for the ruse so easily and felt like a chump when I found out. Grayson is still very young and inexperienced. There is still plenty of time to mould him into an angler yet.

Round to Lucas and I found him under the expert gaze of a £99 richer, Jon Bass. Jon had recently managed to pocket the ‘Revels Silvers catch of the month’ award from the Tuesday Open matches. No wonder there was a smile beneath the whiskers…

I didn’t see them catch a fish, but rumour was they had a few bites and smiles are always proof of a good fishing day.

Harriet had been separated from her family for this one. Which sounds crueller than it was. Nice Bloke Tim was in charge today and I saw the landing net going in a number of times. Harriet needs to work on a couple of things to do for herself, and I think she’s ready for matches.

Newbie, Benji, was next and he was fresh from a taster session with me on Thursday.

Like the others, Benji was having a struggle getting bites and a move to the coach’s gear in a familiar peg nabbed a Roach in the dying minutes.

Fishing is a sport with a difference. It pits the anglers’ wits against the natural instincts of wild animals, the changing conditions of the weather, and the decision process of both on the day. Few sessions are the same, and that’s what makes it such a challenge.

A venue like Revels is a challenge sometimes. Although it has been fishing well lately, most of the time the anglers catching the good weights are not inexperienced juniors like we had today. Austin struggled to reach his latest catch weights, and he is fast becoming a regular at Revels. So, it is little wonder that the catch rates were low.

But that is the thing. Fishing at Revels is proper fishing, not just catching from heavily populated lakes. You earn your fish at Revels you are gifted nothing.

With so many new juniors now, I will organise a casting session before the end of the holidays. Details coming soon.

Peg One:

Harry Cryer:

5lbs 13ozs, 4th place, 15-points.

I don’t like permanent peg 6 even though I fluked a second place in the DDAS Christmas match one year. It’s deep, snaggy, and awkward to fish sometimes. No wonder Harry looked a bit down cast. In fact, when I took his picture for this blog, I nearly cried because he looked so miserable. Rip van Winkle is rarely that miserable though, he’s a teenager. It’s his natural resting face. There was a lot of disturbance opposite from the coaching juniors too, which would not have helped his fishing. A low attendance means that Harry still walked away with some heavy points though.

Peg Two:

Alexander Adey:

3ozs, 5th place, 14-points.

Oh Alexander, what could have been?

Almost by coincidence as I was explaining to James about how the elastic in a pole works, a streak of white elastic poured from the end of Master Adey’s pole on the opposite bank.

Most people root for the lad when he’s fishing, and Charli was doing her best to encourage the Carp to come ‘this way’.

The ’swish’ of returning elastic is second only to a breaking pole in the ‘horrible sounds to hear when you’re fishing’ list. It swished and the fish was lost.

Alexander’s enthusiasm to fish was lost too and the micro angler was soon headed to the shop to walk off his frustrations…

There could be a list of excuses that Alexander could draw from, but at least he caught the world heaviest Perch. The heaviest, not the biggest. The scales showed 3ozs for a fish barely an ounce in weight. And they say that the scales don’t lie….

Peg Three:

Kenzie Toulson:

19lbs 2ozs, 1st place, 25-points.

The phrase ‘I want peg 8’ has been uttered by a few anglers over the years, anglers including myself I’ll have you know. Peg 8 was, for today only, known as peg 3 and it was Kenzie’s sticky mitt that it stuck to. I was difficult to tell if Kenzie was pleased with his draw today. I guess the flames left on the track by a speeding youth yelling ‘Coming through!’ might have been a clue. A sleepy Tina was left trudging behind looking more tired than I felt.

At one point I did wonder if thoughts of asking for more nets had crossed his mind. If it did, they were soon dispelled after a rush of inactivity which left others saying, ‘Even peg 8 isn’t fishing well’.

To win you only need to do slightly better than everyone else, and that is exactly what Kenzie did today. Well done kiddo!

Peg Four:

Austin Scott-Kennedy:

13lbs 9ozs, 2nd place, 20-points.

Long Tall Sally had drawn a reasonable peg on any other day at Revels. Let’s be honest, of everyone present today including the coaches, Austin is beginning to know Revels better than anyone else. I was looking him to gauge the level of the fishing today and it seemed to be on the slow side.

Austin likes to cut things as close to the knuckle with his casting as he possibly can, and I witnessed a bit of ‘Squirrel Fishing’ at least once today. But that’s what you must do here. The fish have been caught a thousand times (not accurate) and they hide in the deepest crevices and under the longest branches.

I squeezed Austin’s shoulders to give him some encouragement at one point, and I don’t know if you have ever pinched a cloth bag full of spanners before, but it felt very similar…

Get some meat on yer’ lad!

Peg Five:

Josh Roe:

12lbs 1oz, 3rd place, 17-points.

Fresh from some away trips, a sleepy Josh was full of Hay-fever and a myriad of other complaints before the match had started. With nest of coked up Wasps for company, Josh podded his way through the match without much show for his efforts. He finally got his eye in towards the end and winkled out some reluctant Carp, enough for third in the match.

Prizes aren’t massive for our matches, not compared to what anglers like Josh and Jack Copp have been aiming at lately. But, even so, it is heart warming to see sportsmanship within our little club. Alexander only caught one little Perch (The heaviest ever!), and Josh was generous enough to hand his voucher over.

Chapeau, my friend. Very noble…

When I got home, a very chesty Mrs H commented on how knackered I looked, which is always nice to hear. I had just started to think of how I was looking forward to a rest over the next four weeks, as she reminded me about the decorating that I need to do… I love her so much…

Mrs H, like everyone else that knows me, are all fully aware that once recovered I will be missing the juniors again. I give it about 5-days…

Big thanks to Jason at Revels for allowing us to use the Main Lake today.

My gratitude as always goes out to, Jerry, Tim, Si, Neil, Chris, Jon and John for their friendship, help, and support.

The next event is at Harbourbridge Lakes on the 29th of August for the Junior Pairs Match.

Some teams are starting to come in and a live update will be posted on Facebook every time new teams come in.

I’m unsure as to whether coaching will be offered for this event, but I will let you know in due course.

In the meantime, should any of the coaches venture out over the holidays, I will post it on WhatsApp so you can join us if you want, or are able to.

Until then, I have run out of bread slices!

Have a wonderful summer holiday.

G…