The Fishing Coach

Spring arrived in the second week of May and as most of the passes were open at last, Jan and I decided to harness up the dogs and make a trip to the Vale of York.

The dog team.

I had volunteered to help my old friend, fellow PAA coach and more importantly, my accountant, Graham Walker to run a charity match in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society. Graham, his wife Anne and her sisters have already raised over £5000 for the charity and Anne is planning to do a sponsored walk on the Great Wall of China. See here for more details of Anne’s trek.

We arrived in Graham’s delightful village, Newton upon Derwent at midday and I was whisked off to see the fishery and visit a couple of tackle dealers. The shops were very generous with their donations, particularly Thompsons in Murton who told us to help ourselves to £100 worth of tackle from their shelves and then added two rods to our haul.

Here is a list from Graham of all who supported us:

Pool Bridge Farm let us use two lakes
Martech (UK) gave us the prize money
The Environment Agency provided a rod & reel for every novice
Cormoran provided a keep net for everyone plus a few good prizes and some Muckboots
Dynamite - loads of bait etc
Roy Marlow gave us a day for two at the Glebe
Thompsons in Murton let Martin Porter and me do a trolley dash for prizes and then gave us two rods
York tackle gave bait, a rod and other stuff
Joe Traves provided the meat for a barbecue for 80 people
Bruno, Derek North and Martin Porter came to support the event - I’d have struggled without them
The thirty five contestants, some of whom had to go to the pub every night to sign up new sponsors

and finally, when his mates had gone home, the winner of the £200 first prize in the “proper” match came around to donate his winnings - Chris Kendall, what a gent!

The matches, one for experienced anglers and one for beginners, were held at Pool Bridge Farm and my job was to help the beginners by providing coaching and tackle if needed. There were lots of prizes and a raffle so all the beginners went home with something.

The weather was very kind to us, if a little too hot and everyone caught fish.

This lad went on to win the beginners match

Not all the beginners were youngsters and Bernard caught this fine tench and the first still water barbel I have seen.

He certainly had a wonderful day, taking second prize and we all finished the day with a wonderful barbeque.

Graham and Anne are bird lovers and they have a barn owl that has been rescued but can never be returned to the wild since she would be very unlikely to survive. She lives in a special cage with room to fly and the privacy of an enclosed box in which to sleep. She’s very much still a wild animal and in no way tame. It was a great moment, sat in the darkness of Graham’s conservatory, to wait for the owl to make an appearance each evening at about 9 p.m.

You can see a larger version of the picture here.

We left late Sunday morning intending to return home in a leisurely fashion but made a diversion through Chesterfield to look at my old stamping ground. We had lunch just outside on the road to Matlock in a pub called The Three Horseshoes in Spitewinter - the food was better than we had dared hope considering that we stopped at the first place we liked the look of. It was probably the best Sunday lunch I have ever eaten and I would recommend it to anyone both for the quality of food and the excellent, friendly service.

A wonderful weekend with many thanks to Graham and Anne for their hospitality.

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