19/04/25 Junior Points Match #3, Charlottes Lake, Harbourbridge.

It was a moody day to be travelling anywhere, particularly the darkest parts of Chickerell. Chickerell, where time ends and begins simultaneously, and where horses all lay down at noon for a sleep.

The wind, which played carelessly with the springtime foliage, threatened to bring some more of the rain that it had delivered the previous night. I could feel the disappointment on the breeze because we have murdered our second toilet facility.

Yes, Bog tent, son of Bog tent is no more. I would like to take a minute to remember the good times we had with the son of Bog tent….Who can forget the time when it turned on Captain Chris and put him in a tree for his troubles, or the time it picked a fight with a particularly vicious Hawthorn bush. My favourite moment was at a sunny Silverlake when I shocked a parent (Tina Toulson) by telling them that the tent was far more transparent with the sun behind it than I realised when I bought it.

Good times…

Silverfish matches are about as pure as fishing gets for our juniors. The non-inclusion of greedy ‘Mud-Pigs’ forces the juniors to think differently about how and where they fish.

Tiny indications of the float telegraph a whole host of information that most of the juniors happily ignore. Allowing them to draw on the conclusion that, fishing for silvers is boring… But they’re wrong. It isn’t, and those that don’t do it even occasionally are missing out.

The weather was interesting today. As one can see from the title picture, the sky was ‘moody’ at best. A chilly south-easterly was broken up by the trees at the carpark end. But the wind looped down about halfway along the lake, making the far end rather choppy. This would naturally affect wardrobe choice. It was Milan in May at one end, and a moist day in Wigan at the other. A continental breakfast or a full bowl of Ready Brek. A light Hawaiian shirt or a ‘Gansey’. You get the picture….

The lead coach had more wardrobe changes than the London Fashion Week, and probably with less style. Everything from full waterproofs to polo shirts and tracksuit bottoms were on display. Fortunately, my ‘tracksuit bottom’ was securely under wraps.

THE SERIOUS BIT:

A subject that has been revisited often is that of dropping juniors off and leaving us to look after them. During their own fishing sessions, some of our juniors do get left to fish by themselves, and rightly so. Some are perfectly capable of looking after themselves without parental supervision. But….

This cannot happen during an organised junior event.

After lengthy consultation with the team of coaches, some of whom are vastly more experienced with safeguarding than I, we came to a unanimous decision not to allow drop offs.

As one of the coaches commented, “It’s all ok, until it’s not”.

If anyone wishes to discuss it further, then please contact me and I’ll take you through the decision. But, from now on and until the situation changes, the rule is that we are not a creche. No adult, No fishing’…

Your participating juniors today were:

Peg 1: Josiah ‘You can stuff your Cornflakes!’ Wells-Parkes.

Peg 2: Josh ‘Look at all my ‘snot green’ fishing tackle’ Roe.

Peg 3: Alfie ‘Grandad wouldn’t lend me his pole while he was away’ Ellis.

Peg 4: Jack ‘I’m actually really not all that well’ Copp.

Peg 5: Austin ‘I’m blocking the entire footpath. You shall not pass!’ Scott-Kennedy.

Peg 6: Alec ‘I think the Lead Coach is thick and can’t spell’ Campbell.

Peg 7: Alexander ‘Hasn’t seen the Vicar of Dibley yet’ Adey.

Peg 8: Mia ‘Where’s the flaming toilet tent?’ Evans.

Your Bimblesnatch (the correct collective noun for four Angling Coaches) today were a depleted bunch. Jerry was sick with throat gangrene, Chris Ward was still having his eyes French polished, Nigel was suffering with wooden leg syndrome, Chris Painter was having an implant/ an explant/an indoor plant/to be honest I can’t remember where Chris was, Wags was being coloured in by his grandson, Lloyd’s dog was taking him for a walk, Tim was fishing, working or both, Donna and Mark remain elusive, and I haven’t heard from Nick.

That just left a floundering Jon Bass who, even before he’d said good morning, exclaimed that he would be “staying downwind of me today”…

I remarked that I’d had a shower that very morning. Then realised that he might just like the aroma of my L’Oreal shower gel that he liked. To be honest, anything is possible with Jon after he told me to ‘Chill’ the other day! The bubble was burst when I looked at him and saw that he may be less than well himself.

Martin had stuff going on, and John was…well, just John….

Peg One:

Josiah Wells-Parkes:

11lbs 14ozs, 2nd place:

James had decided that there should be no distractions from the task in today’s match. Without any breakfast, rods and reels were left at home to concentrate Jo’s focus on the task in hand. Since there wasn’t any breakfast involved, was all about pole fishing, waggler float just would not cut the mustard against the speed of a pole.

Under the guidance of an ailing Jon Bass (who probably had partaken in a breakfast of some kind), Jo hurled himself into the task of emptying the lake of all it’s smaller inhabitants. Breakfast aside (which it was), Jo steadily caught fish throughout despite occasional quiet spells. Who knows what Jo would have caught if he had consumed the most important meal of the day? Two more fish could have tipped the balance in Jo’s favour, but without the necessary energy gained from eating a hearty breakfast, maybe he just ran out of steam…

Well done Jo…. (Did I mention that he had a fall out with his dad for not wanting breakfast? Not that I’m taking sides or ‘owt).

Peg Two:

Josh Roe:

12lbs 2ozs, 1st place:

Josh, despite being a cheeky little monkey, was having a cracking season so far. He certainly looks the part in his snot sponsored equipment. Talking the talk, is not the same as walking the walk and, in his usual casual manner, Josh even had a bit of down time during the match to go for a walk to look for his dad who had strayed too far away. But you must only win by a little bit to still win, so it didn’t matter that much at the end of the day.

Josh also managed to find some hefty looking Rudd. The biggest, at a smidge over a pound, had tattoos, and growled at me when I weighed it. A proper bruiser.

It wasn’t just the Rudd that were heavy today. There was a very heavy weight on shoulders of such a small chap. I know personally how heavy this can get, and he did everyone proud today by winning his second match of the year.

I don’t want to go into details too much. But let’s just end it there by saying, this one is for Grandad…

Peg Three:

Alfie Ellis:

7lbs 6ozs:

Alfie was already fishing when I got a chance to speak to him properly. I noticed that he was not using his usual pole. When I asked about this, he said his Grandad was away on a trip around Spain or somewhere. ‘Didn’t he leave his Middy pole to use?’ I asked.

Apparently, it would be a cold day in hell before that happened! (The truth is, Alfie just said no…)

Alfie had captured the interests of a few Bweems as well as the now familiar Rodney Rudds. He probably finished a little further down the order than he might have wanted to, but thirteen points is thirteen points at the end of the day.

I apologise for not having the chat about social media that I promised him. My peanut sized brain doesn’t cope well sometimes, and I clean forgot…next time..

Peg Four:

Jack Copp:

7lbs 14ozs:

If you know Jack and you’re reading this thinking ‘Why such a low weigh by Jack’s standards?’

Even I thought it was all about who was going to finish in second place. But Jack had arrived looking like a troublesome flannel and sounding like a mis-firing Norton Commando. I painted both Jack and Jon with a red cross and told them to keep away from me…

During the day, there were flashes of what Jack could have possibly achieved, but the lurgy had taken hold of him and, by the end, he looked like someone who had just eaten the last bit of a banana which I am informed tastes like ‘Satan’s Bottom’.

Plagued by F1’s, Jack was ready to wave the white flag at the 4 hour mark. But he lasted another 45-minutes before tackle was being packed away with 15 to go.

With so much fishing done in the last few weeks, maybe Jack and Dave were suffering from a bit of mild ‘burn out’? It was a brutal view into the world of high-level fishing where Jack is heading.

Home could not come fast enough, and I hope they both feel better soon.

Peg Five:

Austin Scott-Kennedy:

9lbs 12ozs:

The newly crowned champion had brought with him the always lovely Glamour Gran, Alison and the owner of the ‘Fun and Laughter tent’ mum Amy. Austin grassed them both up as soon as he could get his voice to carry from the car by announcing loudly that ‘We got lost on the way here!’

I will say nothing of this other than, ‘Oh Come ON??’

Things were going swimmingly for the champ until 45 minutes from the end when two fat blokes wanted to get by with the scales. Austin’s ‘arrangement’ of tackle and the F & L tent had completely blocked the way past, so we needed to go over instead.

During this, and I don’t quite know how, the No.3 section of Austin’s pole decided to go for a swim. Pole sections always sink too fast to grab them and slowly enough that you remember every millisecond of the process.

Groping around with a landing net wasn’t going to help his fishing either and the section is still swimming to this day…

Oops…

Austin had the consolation prize of another 1lb 1oz Rudd to match that of Josh. Fine fish by any standard.

Peg Six:

Alec Campbell:

11lbs 7ozs, 3rd place:

The silverfish champ was in his element fishing for the smaller species. But it seemed that the larger fish wanted to be ‘with the wind’ and the size of fish caught diminished as the scales progressed down the lake. The same number of fish caught from the other end could have gone 15lbs or more because Alec had caught loads! The size of the fish just wasn’t there though.

I’d sent out a PDF earlier in the week that gave the juniors a chance to name some fish species. Alec revealed my ability for being a Muppet by pointing out that I’d got the number of boxes wrong compared to the words being written in them. It’s that level of smarta$$ery that could make me find a way of penalising certain juniors at matches…

He was right though, and I must find a way of dealing with that without spiteful revenge.

Alec is proving to be a consistent pain in my….very consistent silverfish angler and someone to watch at events like this. Good job.

Peg Seven:

Alexander Adey:

3lbs 7ozs:

The micro junior is very small for his second match, but who am I to say no?

The lad wanted to have a go so I thought, why not…

With limited gear compared to the others, Alexander used his spare time well by jumping in the big puddle behind his seat left by the night rain.

There is not a person there who could have thought for a second that it didn’t look great fun. It just reminded me of the famous scene from tv’s ‘Vicar of Dibley’ where Dawn French disappeared up to her neck in a deep muddy puddle.

Under the guidance of John, Alexander did make it to the end of a full 5-hour match, a lifetime for someone with a lifetime ahead of them!

There is no one as cute on the bank as this little man. Well done for making it to the end!

Peg Eight:

Mia Evans:

6lbs 7ozs:

I started the day at Mia’s peg, hoping to install a little urgency into Mia’s fishing. I hope this worked to a degree because she was out of the traps early and was catching well.

At the end of the lake where Mia was fishing, the margins are very steeply sloped making it tricky to fish in as close as she wanted to. To go out further made her rigs quite short and pushed her float uncomfortably close to the pole tip.

She may have been distracted by my choice of lunch, which apparently contained all her favourite things (So why aren’t I as skinny as her then?), and by the arrival of Annamama, who had come to say ‘Hi’ to everyone. But to Mia in particular.

Long quiet spells kept Mia’s weight lower than it might have been, but she only finished a matter of ounces from bigger points and arguably more experienced anglers.

There are definitely things to work on and, once sorted, she will soon be trouble me for some vouchers.

Well done, Princess…

Well done to our winners today and a nice close match that we all enjoy.

Not only did I forget the vouchers forcing me to give out cash to the parents, but I also forgot the winner’s banner! (D-minus, must try harder)

I might give out cash more often though, the fights that ensued between the parents and their offspring was most entertaining!

Thank you to Jim Roper for allowing us to use Charlottes Lake today. What a great little fishery this has become.

Thank you to Martin, Jon and John for their coaching assistance today.

Our next match sees us go east to Whitemoor on the 3rd of May.

The second round of the Revels Stock Pond Float only knockout (RSPFoKO) is on the 9th of May.

Our first Carp focussed coaching session is at Luckfield on the 17th May.

The 31st May sees the juniors go Todber for the first time this year. I am still trying to get a guest coach for that one. If not, you’ll have to make do with a half blind old fat bloke instead!

Aka…

Juniors Sec…