30/08/25 - Two Methods/Junior Pairs/Junior Points match - Hillview Lake, Todber Manor.

Where has all the water gone?

Oh wait, here it is…

This edition of the Mud-Slinger must start with a confession.

On the Thursday before the junior event, Jon and I hosted a coaching session for two lads from the Justice Service at Harbourbridge. The session went very well, and the two participants were delightful. It is at home where the offence happened.

I tucked my creaking bones into bed on Thursday night and as the veil of sleep was pulled across my eyes I thought, ‘Did I put the maggots in the fridge?’

I spooled back through the days highlights and decided that I had…

I hadn’t…

Preparation for junior events is very regimented affair in order that I get everything sorted and that nothing is missed out. Along with laying out my clothing, the cooler bag that had been sitting in my hallway is one of the last things to be organised.

The 2-pint pot of little red soldiers had been swimming in their own sweat and filth for the best part of 33-hours, and some of the smaller ones had gained freedom through the holes in the lid. Fortunately, they had been contained by the closed zip of the cooler bag, but they were free, and they were many…

I gagged as the pungent smell of 1000 school changing rooms and festering rancid feet reached my nostrils, but slammed the lid closed before the aroma reached the nose of Mrs H…

Scurrying into the kitchen like a guilty child, I washed the escapees down the kitchen sink and Domestos’d the bejaysus out of the cooler bag. The maggots were covered with corn flour to dry them out and treated to a late-night riddle before being hastily shoved in the fridge where they should have been all along…

The real kicker was when I thought that I had got them all, I checked in the folds of the zip. It sprang down and flicked some of the little Houdini’s across the kitchen floor. There may have been some swearing...

I got them all, of course, but it was a comedy of errors.

I want you all now to imagine the face of a fisherman’s wife who had been assured for years that maggots cannot escape from a maggot box (To be fair, they can’t if they’re KEPT IN A FRIDGE!). Now imagine the same face which has only just learned about this particular episode as I have proofread this blog to her…We never keep secrets. Unless it’s about maggots…

It has been nice knowing you all….

My arrival at Todber was met with bright and breezy conditions. I knew it wasn’t going to stay like this for long, so the equipment was quickly set up whilst it remained dry.

Nice Bloke Tim and The Wookie (Jerry) had by now arrived and were busy erecting the new Gazebo which came in handy later in the day. There was a little bit of praying because it was breezy and there were no tent pegs! The sun flashed in and out behind the broken wind-blown clouds causing all three of us to display our best impressions of a Chameleon walking across a picture of a rainbow-coloured Unicorn. Coats on, coats off, coats on, coats off… They were very much on by the end of the afternoon…

Chrispy and his clown car arrived a little later because the gearbox had gone on strike during his journey to the venue. It popped and banged its way into the carpark stuck, as it was, in 3rd gear. It came to a halt before completely falling into many pieces with hiss and a sigh…But he’d made it. Upholding the high level of dedication that your coaches constantly deliver.

Hillview Lake was looking extremely dehydrated. The lack of rain had taken its toll making the water level extremely low. I’m actually glad it was not a hot day. There could have been real issues with keep nets otherwise.

With everyone except Mia and Alec now arrived, the draw went something like this:

Peg 1: Alfie Ellis who gets taller by the minute!

Peg 2: Thomas Millard who likes to let the fish know where he is, at all times.

Peg 3: Alec Campbell who did not make it.

Peg 4: Jayce Hardware who took it to them with a waggler float.

Peg 5: Freddie Campbell who is coming on leaps and bounds.

Peg 6: Jack Copp who should take up fishing because he’s quite good at it.

Peg 7: Kenzie Toulson who really needs to open up and talk more often.

Peg 8: Josiah Wells-Parkes who loves catching Skimmers!

Peg 9: Austin Scott-Kennedy who needs an abacus.

Peg 10: Alexander Adey who needs to stretch his legs now and then.

Peg 11: Josh Roe who battles with himself as hard as he does with the fish!

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

Graham Howard – Father Ted Crilly

Tim Broughton – Father Dougal McQuire

Jerry Bracey – Father Jack Hackett

Chris Painter – Mrs Doyle

Peg One:

Alfie Ellis:

96lbs 4ozs, 2nd place:

20 championship points:

2 pairs points:

When I pass the draw bucket round, I lower my eye level because we’re dealing with juniors. Little kids mostly. When it I get to Alfie I find myself looking at his chest! The lad’s a giant!

I watched Alfie for a while today and his feeder skills are impressive, and his pole skills are coming along nicely. I do need to hone his rigs a bit, which I will do in time.

Just shy of the magic ton today for the tall lad, but enough to deliver a strong 20-points for a second place finish…

Peg Two:

Thomas Millard:

35lbs 15ozs:

13 championship points:

8 pairs points:

A bright pink top that can be seen from a high Earth orbit and deft use of a multiplying reel set a less than usual sight at Todber today. But, maybe, that’s the way Tom goes fishing. It’s always amused me how an angler on one side of a lake has purchased a camouflaged coffee mug and underpants to blend seamlessly into the background, yet on the other side is someone who would be less conspicuous if they wore neon glow sticks with an airhorn. Thomas is definitely the latter of the two…

Peg Four:

Jayce Hardware:

85lbs 5ozs, 3rd place:

17 championship points:

3 pairs points:

I think that Jayce had a cracking day despite the weather, and from what I witnessed, fished really well. Thomas, Jayce, Alexander and Freddie all opted for the more fish friendly approach to fishing and used their unhooking mats today. This slows the process down a little but shows more empathy than the usual way of doing things in matches.

Peg Five:

Freddie Campbell:

55lbs 10ozs:

14 championship points:

5 pairs points:

Another good day for Freddie who is having a cracking season so far. We adjusted the lash length of his pole rig from 250-metres down to 25cm to make it easier to connect with the fish. I didn’t get to ask if it helped, but I know it wouldn’t have done any harm.

Freddie is one of my favourite kind of junior, eager to learn with useful questions.

Peg Six:

Jack Copp:

143lbs 9ozs, 1st place:

25 championship points:

1 pairs point:

Jack recently shared pictures of he and I together through the years. It shows how much he has grown up, and how I have grown old…It also marks how far he has come since those early days. With his first win where I had to crouch down because he was so small, to a recent win in the knockout series where I’m not sure if I’m crouching or if it’s the natural curve of a crumbling spine.

Jack produced some class fishing today and did so at a canter. 50lbs clear of the second placed junior and all on tick over.

Jack won a Daiwa Feeder rod kindly donated by Nigel Kemp.

Proper job mate…

Peg Seven:

Kenzie Toulson:

49lbs 5ozs:

13 championship points:

6 pairs points:

Every time I looked over towards Kenzie, he was netting a fish. The trouble was they were the wrong kind. Silverfish do not count when we fish at Todber to save on the number of keep nets used, and Kenzie had caught quite a few of them. Couple that with a number of fish lost for a reason I never got to the bottom of and a weight of just shy of 50lbs was a surprise to me.

Kenzie was operating his off-putting tactic of talking the adjacent opposition to death. Something I had witnessed at last years S/J Pairs match when I was partnered with him. I wore earplugs that day and boy did I need them…

Peg Eight:

Josiah Wells-Parkes:

42lbs 13ozs:

12 championship points:

7 pairs points:

Jo went home a little gutted with his performance today after a lower weight than he’d hoped for. Like Kenzie, Jo was plagued with Skimmers during the feeder phase of the match and didn’t recover enough on the pole. Poor health has hindered his progress this year, so I think he’s being a little hard on himself to be honest.

He should take a leaf from a seasoned angler’s book because, if I muff the S/J match up in two weeks’ time, I will be using the ‘Lack of fishing time’ excuse myself!!!

Peg Nine:

Austin Scott-Kennedy:

73lbs 8ozs (50lb net limit penalty):

15 championship points:

4 pairs points:

Oh, Austin….

It made me so frustrated on the way home. I even woke up on Sunday morning thinking about it. With a 66lb net limit in place as we have always had, he still managed to go over with 67lbs 4ozs…I know it was exactly that because the scales recorded it, which it should not have because the scales were supposed to show an error message at 66…

The real kicker is that there were only a few fish in his second net (23lbs) and there were plenty of spare nets to use. If he’d only split his nets better…

I need to have a little chat with him about it before the next match there because one fish could have made all the difference…

Peg 10:

Alexander Adey:

23lbs 5ozs:

9 championship points:

10 pairs points:

The littlest junior was off and running quite early in the match.

Don’t think that he was off to a flying start with that comment.

I mean that he was off to the shop after just 30-minutes!

When he returned, he knuckled down to testing his line in the most extreme manner possible. For such a small lad, he has ferocious casting technique that frightens me to watch it. I almost heard the line groan under the pressure as it absorbed the power of another big cast with the bail arm closed.

Alexander donated a few feeders to the lake as, what I can only assume as, some kind of sacrifice to the lake Gods.

He and Charlie endured the rain and wind as it whipped their faces. So, at least they get kudos points for that!

Peg Eleven:

Josh Roe:

32lbs 4ozs:

10 championship points:

9 pairs points:

Probably the shallowest peg made keep net positioning tricky. So much so that Josh was forced to use my longer Preston nets instead of his beloved Matrix ones because they were too short.

Josh was really struggling, and I tried to help by asking him for information about what he was doing. The question I should have asked him was ‘Have you plumbed your swim properly?’

Sadly this seemed not to be the case. But it was very late in the day when Dave Copp took pity on him and asked that one important question.

He was way over depth and, once sorted, managed to start catching a few but was a long way behind the others and where he wanted to be.

All bad days are a lesson learned.

STOP PRESS!

So, we made a colossal cock up with the results…

List of quality excuses incoming, watch and learn kids…

so it’s usually chaos at the end of matches (1) and the wind (2) and the rain (3) did not help. I had my own gear to pack away (4) as well as all the regular junior stuff (5).

The day had a ‘Y’ in the name (6) and I was soaking wet (7). I was conscious that everyone was keen to get home (8) and we had the Gazebo to pack away (9). I also found I had a bone in both legs (10).

The prizes were given out according to the joint weight of each pair, when we usually calculate the result according to the position of each junior and add those together.

The vouchers were all handed to the wrong people…

Please keep all the vouchers that you were given and I will compensate those that lost out next time…

Please accept my apologies…

The teams and results are:

Alfie Ellis (2) & Austin Scott-Kennedy (4) - Team total 6 points.

Freddie Campbell (5) & Jayce Hardware (3) – Team total 8 points.

Jack Copp (1) & Josh Roe (9) – Team total 10 points.

Josiah Wells-Parkes (7) & Kenzie Toulson (6) – Team total 13 points.

Thomas Millard (8) & Alexander Adey (10) – Team total 18 points.

Congratulations to Alfie and Austin, well done to the rest…

Man, I’m glad that is over.

I am never fearful of admitting to an error, or errors. But when it effects the juniors, it hurts.

On reflection, some of the pegs were getting close to being unfishable due to the water levels. A couple were actually dangerous for juniors, and I publicly apologise for putting anyone at risk.

For the Senior/Junior pairs match in two weeks’ time, I will visit the venue on the Thursday before the match to see if anything has improved. Hopefully by then it will have.

If not, I am giving you all fair warning that we may be forced to postpone or even cancel the event on the grounds of health and safety.

The final decision will be made on the 11th of September.

Juniors Sec…