15/11/25 - Martin Vine Memorial Match - Luckfield Lake, Broadmayne.

I pulled back the curtains on another dawn, and another chance to spend some time with ‘my other family’ in my happy place with the juniors. I’m sure people will understand but, the enthusiasm over the last few weeks has been difficult to find. It’s there, it just needs more encouragement these days.

My departure from the committee was swift to say the least. Even though I requested it to happen, it has still left me a little numb and deflated.

I know a lot of you are concerned that this is all coming to an end but please don’t worry.

There will be junior fishing activities in some shape or form, next year and the years following. I just don’t know what shape that will be yet. But I have worked too hard and put too much of myself into junior coaching to let it just fade away.

Let us see how it will pan out…

The dawn brought with it a shroud of mist that hung intermittently over the swooping hills and vales of Whitcombe and Broadmayne. The mist brought with it one of my pet peeves.

Fog lights…

I have bright red lights at the back of my car. If I can see bright red lights of the car in front of me, then it is safe assume that the person behind me can see my bright red lights. I do not see the need for even brighter red lights to show people that my bright red lights were not enough. ‘Look at me with my bright red lights! When I brake, I have even more bright red lights! I am RED NEON GOD!’

It's just silly…

I managed to navigate my way to Luckfield, despite the burnt retinas, to find a Jim Roper and a family of Roe’s already in the car park. Jim was there to negotiate with the visiting predatory wildlife, that Luckfield really isn’t the place for them and that they may like to find alternative accommodation elsewhere, and the Roe’s were there because they live 40-metres closer to the lake than I do…

The mist gave the pretty lake a mystical atmosphere. It looked like the legendary lake where King Arthur fly tipped a sword rather than handing it in during a knife amnesty. Apparently, it was caught by the ‘Lady of the Lake’ before she disappeared into the shimmering water forever. I did wonder if she might like to look for my brand-new Preston clicker that I launched into the lake by accident one day, as well as all the other gear that no doubt resides at the bottom of Luckfield.

There was a Lady of the Lake at one of our local fisheries once. She wasn’t so much legendary as she was ‘doing favours for cash’ amongst the local night fishing weirdos. But local legend is local legend I guess, and a girl’s got bills, bruv…

I was delighted that we were going to have a full lake today. All 10 pegs were in, even if one of them was a flying visit by the blonde micro junior, Alexander with his mum Charlie. He caught some fish and decided that he would use a keep net after all. But when a large mud-pig got hooked in the trousers and was lost after a fight lasting many minutes, he did what so many anglers would like to do in that situation. He thought ‘Stuff this, I’m going home’.

He promised me 90-minutes, but I only got 85…

He owes me 5-minutes…

Your Juniors for today were:

Peg 1: Jayce ‘I found some Bream’ Hardware.

Peg 2: Alfie ‘I didn’t’ Ellis.

Peg 3: Austin ‘Things aren’t as bad as they Bream’ Scott-Kennedy.

Peg 4: Freddie ‘I love slop!’ Campbell.

Peg 5: Owen ‘I lost a few stone(s) today’ Fowler.

Peg 6: Josh ‘Why has dad turned green?’ Roe.

Peg 7: Dougie ‘I would have won if wasn’t for these pesky Carp’ Francis.

Peg 8: Kenzie ‘Guess who’s back!’ Toulson.

Peg 9: Alexander ’85 is all you’re getting’ Adey.

Peg 10: Josiah ‘I can almost bend now; Wells-Parkes.

Your Stressball of coaches (The correct collective noun for group of 5 angling coaches) today were:

Graham Howard – Saving Private Ryan.

Tim Broughton – Waving at a lion.

Chris Ward – I really like to Iron.

Neil Haine – Please don’t call me Brian.

John Bass – Don’t shout because I’m trying’. Chris Painter - Just what the heck are you implying?'

At this point I’d like to dedicate the whole day to all those who have passed. Loved ones, friends, heroes and common folk. One common old folk in particular was my old mate, Martin Vine. A straight down the line all round nice guy that you would be hard pushed to find someone who didn’t like him. Generous, compassionate, cantankerous and kind, we ripped the mickey out of each other at every opportunity, and I loved him for it.

His passing hurt me as much as losing my own parents and I miss him terribly.

But he’s not gone because I/we celebrate him every year with this memorial match and, do you know what? I think he would have liked how this one panned out…

Thank you to Ann Vine for the kind boost to the prizes for this event.

Peg One:

Jayce Hardware:

9lbs 6ozs, 3rd place:

Dad Jake was happy because Jayce had drawn the short walk to P1, and it’s not bad spot to be fair. Being a silverfish match, Jake had to choke back his extreme distain for pole fishing, particularly for the snotty Breams. Like everyone else, Jayce had a flurry of small fish at the start followed by a lull in proceedings by mid match. Something that was echoed around the lake. Talking of small fish, there is something I would like you to consider. On the very same day is this match took place, an old teammate of mine, Tim Watts, was fishing a match on the river Thames at Medley field. He won the match with 342 fish. What did he weigh? 2lbs 10ozs!!! That’s over 190 fish (fat Minnows) to the pound!!! Now those are small fish! (true story).

I believe Jayce did manage to snare a mud-pig (Carp) which was naturally returned un-weighed.

A couple of really ‘nice’ Bream did find their way into Jayce’s keep net, raising him up through the field to third place.

Well done kiddo!

Peg Two:

Alfie Ellis:

1lb, 8th place:

Right, before anyone reads this and thinks ‘One Pound? How did he fish at Luckfield’s peg two and only catch one pound???’ You need to know the facts…

Alfie was within striking distance of Josh Roe’s lead in the Silverfish championship and was keeping pace with Josh during the early stages of the match. But Josh’s successful change of tactics forced Alfie down a route that, on this occasion, left him hung out to dry a little bit. Alfie stuck to his guns knowing that his chances of the trophy were slipping away before his eyes. Considering that you can see everyone else on the lake, he could see all the Bream and Tench being caught elsewhere like nails being hammered into his own fate.

I do think it was slight overkill to tie his dad to a tree to prevent him from breaking his pole again, like a piglet stumbling around in a pen of dried spaghetti. He was only detained for four and a half short hours…

I don’t normally do this but, Alfie need not have worried about not winning a trophy this year. He has made steady progress throughout the year, and it has not gone unnoticed by yours truly. So, maybe for the last time, I name Alfie Ellis as the winner of the Revels Trophy for the Most Improved Newcomer for 2025.

Well done mate, thoroughly deserved…

Peg Three:

Austin Scott-Kennedy:

2lbs 11ozs, 7th place:

I know Austin was gutted after the Viaduct match. I think we all were. But that is in the past where it should stay. Today was a new day which, sadly, did not start too well for the Kennedy’s. I won’t go into details but, they did suffer a loss in the family on the morning of the match. I have no doubt that this will have had terrible effect on them all and I offer my sincerely condolences on behalf of everyone involved with the juniors.

Austin was on the back foot, but he had drawn a decent peg from which to build.

Like a few others, the better sized fish failed to turn up and he was left with a collection of small fish and better Perch. But for a too tightly set clutch there would have been another decent Perch. But it would have needed to be 1lbs 3ozs to make a difference. If it was that big or bigger, you could have been reading a different story right now.

Like Alfie, Austin’s main competitor was Josh. Unlike Alfie, Austin had some wiggle room in the main championship which I will go through at the end.

Overall, it’s been another consistent season for Austin. No other junior has been as consistent as he has, and all this over the last three years too. No other junior turns up with enthusiasm and a fizz for fishing like Austin does, even after a difficult match before. He may feel he deserved more than he ended up with. I might tend to agree with him. But that’s life and that’s fishing…

Well done fella…

Peg Four:

Freddie Campbell:

13ozs, 9th place:

I wandered around the lake to find a young lad with his chin on his chest, well and truly in a grump… Time for the lead coach to step up…we were a good two-hours into the match by now. Still time to potentially change his fortune.

I told him that, in fishing, there is no such thing as luck. You put your hand in the bag or bucket and draw out your peg. That’s not luck, that’s fate.

His float was doing nothing as it gently bumped against the side of his keep net surrounded by coils of line.

First, chin up. It’s just a fishing match. If you KNOW you’re not going to be competitive, change your mindset. Treat the day as an experiment or a training day. Try different things that you would be afraid to do if you were in the running.

We started again and a new line was replumbed, ground bait was mixed into two consistencies. One normal, one sloppy.

Normal first which resulted in some weird bites. I adjusted his rig, and he caught two or three fish. Still not good enough.

We shallowed his rig and tried the sloppy option (Cheeky!).

He caught a few more but it still wasn’t really happening for him. But that did not matter because the smile was back, and the grumps were well and truly banished.

Afterall, fun is the objective, catching fish is secondary.

Freddie knows he can fish, and he let the pressure get to him a bit. Once he had changed his view on the situation, everything became easier to manage, and the fun returned. Sometimes fishing isn’t about life or death, it’s far more important than that.

But most of the time it’s just fishing, and nothing else matters other than just existing.

Peg Five:

Owen Fowler:

3lbs 13ozs, 6th place:

One of our newer juniors has already settled nicely into the family. I remembered that I was supposed to find a new set of rollers for Owen, and I found some for him in the store. Upon inspection, they were broken, and I was in full ‘why do people donate broken things to the juniors’ mode. I had forgotten that The Roe’s on the next peg had donated them and I remembered the heads up about the broken bits when I heard ‘They’re josh’s old rollers’…

Oops…

Clearly more people than I thought were in earshot of my moan, and I apologise…

(I made a mental note to moan more quietly in the future (again, cheeky!)…

At the weigh in, I was assured that the 12 kilos of gravel hoofed into the net to weigh it down because it kept floating and not an attempt on the worst attempted cheating EVER! I am, of course, joking, and did give Owen some solid advice on the subject.

If you want your net to sink, put more fish in it!!!

I find Owen to be a really nice lad. Pleasant, quiet, and polite. Not only that but he looks like he really knows his stuff already to a large degree. I like the challenge of investigating what he knows so I can raise my level of coaching to meet his requirements, something that I’m looking forward to. We discussed Orchard Lakes and how much he is looking forward to going there in the future with the juniors. I get the impression he rather fancies his chances there…

Owen had managed to snare some better Roach and Perch along with the obligatory small fish..

A nice days fishing…Well done.

Peg Six:

Josh Roe:

5lbs 7ozs, 4th place:

I think it’s fair to say that, in the absence of the Copplet (Jack), most eyes were on Josh today, even if he drew a peg that he didn’t particularly want. He must have felt like a target in a shooting range because both his competitors for the championships were staring straight at him from two sides of the lake.

I confess to fearing for both Austin and Alfie’s chances when the first Tench went in the net. More so when the second one went in. But then it stopped…

Josh continued to pick off the odd small fish throughout the rest of the day, but I doubt he ever felt comfortable. The size of the Bream in Luckfield meant that if the other two landed one of the big ones, it would turn things around in an instant.

I can only imagine what went through Josh’s mind when Austins struck and a couple of metres of elastic came out. Fortunately, enough (for Josh), it kept coming out and it could only have been a Carp. The relief must have been palpable…

Whilst all this was happening, Martin was having a fight with a buzzy-stingy thing with stripes. It is unconfirmed as to which buzzy stingy thing it was, but Martin slapped it in the face, sending it inside his T-shirt. The buzzy stingy must have thought ‘I’m never going to eat all this! Have that instead! BOSH!’. I am jesting because Martin was pretty much ok at the end but was having some respiratory issues. Like Mrs H, it’s hard to tell if they’re ok or not!!

How would Josh’s 15-points effect the championship? It was too complicated to tell at this stage of the weigh in. But we now knew that we had a new Silverfish champion…

I will summarise the points situation at the end, but for now, congratulations on winning the Brian Copp cup for the Silverfish Championship… One down…

Peg Seven:

Dougie Francis:

9lbs 8ozs, 2nd place:

My eyes went wide as the numbers on the scales settled on 9,08 and people must have known it was close. It gave Dougie the jump on then leader, Jayce, by just two ounces!

Dougie had had a great day in a proven peg. His lack of knowledge of exactly where the margin Lilypad is usually located, led to a few snag ups which he was shown how to get out safely by the way (Foot over the elastic etc…) Dougie had a beautiful net of fish, including a clonking Roach...

Like Owen, Dougie has arrived to us with a decent amount of knowledge about fishing. There is always room for improvements, but he is quite a well formed and informed angler already.

Again, like Owen, Dougie is a lovely lad. Chatty and with a good sense of humour.

I’ve always said that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but I we came pretty close today. I was discussing our knockout matches on Revels stock pond. Telling them about the Goldfish that seemed to have sadly disappeared this year. I mentioned that Goldfish are vulnerable to predation, and in my mind, it was because of their colouring that ‘they cannot hide’…

Chris, Dougie’s dad, must have thought it was a physical attribute of the Goldfish that they couldn’t hide. In his defence, why wouldn’t you think that? Some Goldfish have all the swimming abilities of a tennis ball…

‘Why can’t they hide?’, said Chris.

‘Well, because they’re bright orange, innit?’, I replied in my best monotone voice.

Both mum Mel and I tried hard to stifle chuckles as Chris spluttered his way through a series of explanations…

I apologise.

It wasn’t a daft question, really it wasn’t.

But it was funny…

With a third and second place under his belt in consecutive matches, do we dare pencil in Dougie for the Christmas match trophy? I guess we’ll find out…

Well done Dougie, beautiful bag of fish and well fished second place. Good job!

Peg Eight:

Kenzie Toulson:

14lbs 10ozs, 1st place:

Of all the juniors we have, there is no doubt that Kenzie and his family have suffered a tough year. I know Kenzie has been keen to get back to the juniors, but the time had to be right and that time was today. Apart from the newer juniors, most will know that Kenzie lost his dad only a matter of weeks ago really. Alex was a regular at the junior matches with Kenzie, although not an angler himself.

I was happy to see the sparkle had returned to Kenzie’s blue eyes, and even happier to give Tina a cuddle for their return.

Kenzie is rare breed of junior. From experience, finding a junior that will listen to advice can be a rare thing. Particularly one that has been with us for a while. (Maybe they realise that we know jack, and that we’re making it all up as we go along! Did I write that out loud?).

But Kenzie did listen, we do know what we’re on about, and we don’t (always) make it up as we go along.

Tina is looking well which is probably down to her multitude of ‘Wee Walks’ which I promised I wouldn’t mention. So, I won’t.

I also won’t say that I told her that she might like to see about getting her prostate looked at, expecting the usual smile or laugh when that comment is directed at a female.

The laugh didn’t come. Only a look of concerned confusion. So much so that, rightly or wrongly, I felt the need to explain the prostate subject. But I can’t write about this because I promised I wouldn’t. Let’s just keep between us, shall we?

The screech that Tina sent up when I read the weight from the scales is still echoing around Broadmayne, and rightfully so. No one deserved this win more than Kenzie and no one present would deny that.

I wanted to say it at the time, but I didn’t know if it was right to do so.

But, what the heck…

Well done sunshine, your dad would have loved it. It was fitting that it was a memorial match too, because it wasn’t only Martin that was watching today. Somewhere there is a proud star shining just a little brighter tonight…

Mrs H and I could not be happier for you. Well done, Kenzie…

Peg Ten:

Josiah Wells-Parkes:

5lbs 1oz, 5th place:

Stumpy Jo was still hobbling around after tearing some important bits in his knee, albeit without crutches this time. Jo had drawn the restricted P10. A great spot for someone with limited movement.

In their excitement, both Jo and Jim had found themselves in P8 looking for the usual white peg numbers. Great for someone with limited movement! I wonder how far they would have got, or how many laps they would have done if they hadn’t realised?

I am now picturing the moaning competitors as they both squeezed past multiple times over a period of five-hours!!

After such a promising start to the season, Jo’s health has kicked him in the squishies a few times this year. So, he hasn’t truly reached his potential. But he knuckled down to grab a Bream and a half along with some silvers to end up with a half decent weight.

I’m covering him in bubble wrap and expanding foam over the winter to see if he can return fully match fit next year…

Well done mate…

Congratulations to Kenzie for winning his first junior match...

The Championship:

It’s fair to say that both juniors competing for the title this year are deserving winners.

Reigning champion Austin has been by far the most consistent junior we have ever had according to the results, and he’s had some seriously good opposition.

Josh went away and reinvented himself after a year out and bolstered his talents by spending time with Callum Dicks and fishing in some matches containing some very talented juniors.

We have never had a tie for the championship before and after 12 fishing matches, both Austin and Josh finished with 198-points. So, we go to count back (Match wins).

Austin, despite his consistency, chalked up two match wins.

Josh’s tally stands at four wins.

Therefore, your Points Champion and your Silverfish Champion for 2025 is…

Josh Roe…

I want to thank everyone for their kind words and support today. It has been a difficult time, and everyone’s support and kindness has bolstered me immensely.

I had a lovely chat with Captain Chris at the end when everyone had gone. I confess to not being in full control of my emotions all the way home, and I still have the Christmas match to do yet!!!

Thank you to Neil Haine, Tim Broughton, Chris Ward, Chris Painter, and Jon Bass. As always, a sterling job, gentlemen…Thank you.

The next match is on the 29th of November at Todber Manor for our Xmas match. Fees for this event are £20 to help recover some of the cost of the prizes along with a donation from the club.

The match will be from 10am to 2pm due to the shorter days and long journeys home for some.

After a troublesome year, let’s go out with a bang, not too many tears, and let’s dream it all up again next year. This is not an end to it all…

Graham Howard, Lead Coach…