7/11/26, Martin Vine Memorial Match, Lodden Lake, Gillingham.

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The mist and the gloom had returned to Dorset as I travelled home from Lodden Lakes, although not with same ‘heaviness’ as the morning journey. I carried in my belly the warm fuzziness of a job well done and successful day of fishing, particularly at a new venue. The warmth was slightly off-set by a sense of negativity that exists within the juniors.

It takes a lot to organise these events. A lot of time and personal commitment. Not only from myself and Jerry, but also from the team of coaches that freely give their time and knowledge. One word, or a sniff of negativity can erase everything good that happens to someone with my character.

Understand, I don’t mind creative criticism. I have never said that what we do is perfect or that I am perfect. Quite the opposite in fact. I am always striving to improve.

But we do our best and I believe our best is amazing to be honest.

My dad once said to me that, there is a very thin grey line between tact and ignorance, and that a person does not have to vocalise every inner thought they have.

Negativity is best kept to yourself unless it’s for the greater good.

Before I go on, I have an apology to make.

In one of the truly incredible and knowledge filled PDF’s that I send out last week, when writing about ground bait I used the word ‘light’ when I should have used the word ‘fine’.

The result was some people turned up with ground bait brighter than the midsummer sun. So bright that they could gently suntan the white bellies of the fish they were trying to catch…

At least two people looked at me with distain and disgust when I mentioned to them that I like to use dark ground baits at this time of year. Both individuals next sentences started with ‘But, you said….’

They were right, and I’m sorry.

What I meant was finely ground particles so as not to feed the fish too much. Not the nuclear blast brightly coloured products that they had purchased on my recommendation.

In summary,

Cold weather = clearer water.

Clear water = Fish in fear of their lives from predators.

Fish will not settle over a brightly coloured area in clear water because they can be easily seen.

Use darker ground baits in clear water.

Use dark finely milled ground baits in winter.

Within every mistake, there exists a lesson (or a second opinion!)

I had Walter (the car) fully lit with every light I had available to me on my way to Gillingham. I was thankful for the dawn light to be honest. I wouldn’t have fancied driving in that in the dark.

Last weeks dreamy atmos was replaced with an urge to survive, and I didn’t have chance to witness much to wax lyrical about. Suffice to say it was all there, I just couldn’t see it or didn’t dare look.

I thought this might be a good opportunity to pop into Todber Manor to see how the ‘water growing’ is coming along. With rain being ‘so last year’ now, the water levels have been rather low everywhere. I was confronted by Todber’s new ‘Otter fence and gate’.

This is a substantial piece of kit and got me thinking about just how big do the Otter’s get in Dorset? From the look of the fence, they come tooled up for the job. I wouldn’t want to meet one in a dark alley.

I decided to settle for a peek at Whitepost lake up the road. As was predicted, water was minimal, but not disastrous for match events. So, with a few weeks to go yet, I think our Christmas match will be safe.

If you are reading this (thank you), I will be opening the booking for the Xmas match very soon so I can give Todber some predicted numbers.

Onwards to Lodden then and I was greeted by Mark Harper who had kindly opened the gate at the lake. A quick chat with him told me not to put in peg 37, then it was on with the show.

The lake genuinely looked beautiful in the early morning mist, and all the coaches had the same look on their faces. I wish I was fishing today…

Your participants for today are:

Peg 1: Seth Hopkins

Peg 2: Austin Scott-Kennedy

Peg 3: Harry Cryer

Peg 4: Jayce Hardware

Peg 5: Mia Evans

Peg 6: Kenzie Toulson

Peg 7: Josh Roe

Two coaching juniors today were, George Ellis and Elliot Hill.

Your swarm (the correct collective noun for a group of 6 angling coaches) of coaches today were:

Graham Howard – Left Back (in the changing room)

Jerry Bracey – Tighthead Prop

John Evans – Silly Mid-off

Tim Broughton – Goal Attack

Si Wagner – Hole Set

Jon Bass – Middle Reliever

Peg One:

Seth Hopkins:

39lbs 3ozs, 1st place, 25-points:

Seth was one of two ‘End peg Charlies’ today, and I was keen to see what he would do with it. Early reports were that he had sharpened up peg one, added a bit of weight to it, and was using it very effectively against the rest of the field.

I was intrigued and headed down to see for myself.

I have never fished at Lodden before and the advice I had been given was that there are rarely bigger fish in the margins.

Seth had ignored this and was smashing it out of the ballpark no more than 2-metres from the bank! Bream after Bream fell to his single grain of corn and all was fine until a Carp turned up. To say that it was on for a while is an understatement.

Famously slow to grow facial hair, even I needed two shaves and a shower in the time it took to land it, and it wasn’t even all that big! There’s careful and there’s glacial…

But, the important thing is that he got it in, as well as another late on.

He didn’t need them in the end because his Bream alone would have won the day. All this whilst still nursing a nasty injury after Seth took on a tree at arm wrestling and lost.

Very, very, impressive young man.

Well done…

Peg Two:

Austin Scott-Kennedy:

22lbs 9ozs, 2nd place, 20-points:

Our champion elect was pegged next to his rival and had received the same advice as I had. Fair play to him, Austin followed the advice to the tee. But you can’t compete with an angler on form in a decent peg sometimes, and Austin had to settle for second place and another good helping of points. I’ll be honest, Austin will need a catastrophic disaster of a start to next year to not win the Championship from here, and he is so consistent a lot of the time. Tempting fate, it may be, but Seth has got a lot to do to catch Austin even if we get six matches in before the end of May.

If Austin wins, it’s well deserved. Being one of the most consistent anglers we have ever had in the juniors, he will have earned it.

Good job…

Peg Three:

Harry Cryer:

14lbs 15ozs, 4th place, 15-points.

Harry has been unable to attend many of the events this year due to parental work commitments. It’s a shame really because he is usually there, or there abouts.

A dearth of Bream meant that Harry needed to do something to keep popping fish into his net, so he spent his time wishing that some of the tiny fish he was regularly catching from beneath a bush to his left were a bit bigger. They weren’t and some were going 30 to the pound. You need A LOT of those to compete with Bream. But I don’t mind seeing that. He kept himself busy and was adding weight all the time. It is easy to lose interest by going for the big stuff, especially when they don’t arrive.

Harry missed out on a prize by just 6ozs in the end.

Maybe not quite enough small fish?

Good job…

Peg 4:

Jayce Hardware:

3lbs 8ozs, 6th place 13-points:

Jayce is another that has been missed a lot this year, but it was good to see him and Jake fishing with us again. I got the feeling that, at the end, Silvers fishing just isn’t Jayce’s wheelhouse, and that he may have preferred more Carp to go for. Jay got fidgety and his concentration had dwindled to ‘I’m not bothered anymore today’. But it can’t all be mud-pig fishing and silvers skills have their part to play in an anglers’ armoury.

Like Harry, it was good to see Jayce and Jake again.

Well done…

Peg Five:

Mia Evans:

15lbs 5ozs, 3rd place, 17-points:

Yet another welcome return to the juniors and another sorely missed. Mia had been away baton twirling, or stick throwing, or fire eating. One of the three is correct. Whichever it is, she’s that good at it that she’s been on the news/telly/crime watch because of it. So, well done/stay low...

You could tell it had been a while since she’d been because she was still using summer rigs…

I soon binned that old thing off and went looking for a rig that a real expert had tied for her to use. I couldn’t find one, so I gave her one that I’d tied.

We plumbed up, shortened the rig, and got her feeding patterns sorted. This part would have been easier if they had remembered ALL their equipment. No cupping kit makes feeding a lot of bait quite tricky.

Pretty soon the elastic ripped out the end of her pole and something substantial was on the line. Mia prayed that it might be a long sought after Tench, a fish she is still yet to catch. Sadly, it wasn’t to be Tench time because a slender Pike had swum into her line and snared itself on her hook.

She played it very well and I slid the landing beneath a fish that caused quite a stir along the bank. I noticed its nose poking through the mesh and, before I could do anything other than put it down, it had slid through and onto the ground.

It was dusted off (none the worst for the experience I might add), weighed, photographed, and safely returned.

And none of it mattered because they don’t count in matches! I checked and the idiot writing the rules had singled them out for exclusion.

Mia did managed a good run of Bream towards the end of the match weighing enough to grab her third place.

There may be more girls coming to join JJAC soon, so the lads may need to sharpen up a bit!

Well done Princess…

Peg Six:

Kenzie Toulson:

2lbs 3ozs, 7th place, 12-points:

Once a championship contender until ‘other hobbies’ got in the way…

Have you ever heard such nonsense? Other hobbies…Surely none are more important than fishing? It’s not everything in life, it’s more important than that!

Whatever the ridiculous excuses are, it is always good to see the Toulson’s fishing with us. Even if the fish didn’t seem to care.

It was a struggle today and, maybe, there was more than one Pike sitting in the area. (They run to 20lbs in Lodden Lake by the way…)

Kenzie has developed into a decent angler who, given time, will improve to being more than just decent. I met them again at Todber after the match and they were buying stuff to make rigs with…This makes a coach very happy.

Well done…

Peg Seven:

Josh Roe:

12lbs 12ozs, 5th place, 14-points:

Mr Sleepy head had the shortest walk and it’s probably just as well because he might not have made it to peg six! There was enough residual energy to unfold the mobile tackle shop that follows him around.

From reports, the second ‘bowl’ on the lake was the place to be and a good angler in a good spot is a problem for everyone else.

I didn’t see him doing that much wrong but, for whatever reason, the fish just didn’t show up. Josh had a few Bream in the net, but sadly they didn’t weigh as much as he was hoping for. Certainly not as much as he told me he and others that he had caught!

It’s easily done. I’ve done it before, and fish always seem to shrink in the keep net.

At least they do in mine!

Not the showing that Josh had hoped for today but well done anyway.

The two lads coaching at the top end of the lake had been treated to seeing a Pike, as well as a few decent specimens of their own. George and Elliot, like all the other juniors, were treated to a yawn inducing tutorial from me about tying loops.

Even I yawned twice.

I have been approached by the M.O.D about using my tutorials as psychological warfare in the event of invasion. But sadly, I was fishing on the day of the meeting.

Who needs seven billion pounds sterling anyway?

Mia’s 7lbs 8oz Pike worked out at only 15% of the British record. So, Alexanders 1lb 12oz Perch (28%) from the river Stour is still in the lead for that award in May.

Your Championship is down to two realistic competitors,

Austin on 159-points and Seth on 120-points.

The Silvers Championship is led by Seth with 50lbs 2ozs with a big lead over Austin with 31lbs 1oz. Which could also be unassailable depending on where we go between January and the end of May.

If you want me to continue the winter league planned for the first three months of 2027, then please let me know officially and, if we get enough participants, we will go ahead with it.

The Christmas match will go live very soon, so get booked in for that early, please.

If you are local and keen enough, I am considering hosting some home classes at Chateaux Howard this winter. Again, if you are interested, let me know.