Weekend Roundup
Posted on 25th May 2021 at 23:45
What a weekend...
What a weekend the Phoenix Heroes Veteran Carp Angling Club (VCAC), it`s members and civilian supporters has had, challenging, enjoyable and rewarding was the result! Seeing over 50 anglers from a mix of veterans, serving members and civilians coming together to enjoy the benefits of carp angling and being in the outdoors with friends.
During the weekend of the 21st - 23rd May, Gary Stockton the CEO of Phoenix Heroes had set a tester to see if our core team could run and participate in multiple events around the country, it was always going to be a challenge but the weather undoubtedly was one of the biggest challenges, seeing winds of up to 50mph throughout tested the best of us.
The three events that were set to test us was: -
Carp Society 40th Anniversary Horseshoe Lakes - Team Phoenix / Aquaculture Ltd
Coking Farm Competition
East Delph Lakes
Carp Society
Coking Farm
East Delph Lakes
Carp Society 40th Anniversary - Event 1
We were invited by Miles Carter to attend the Carp Society 40th Anniversary weekend at Horseshoe Lakes where we would get the chance to showcase Phoenix Heroes to a carp angling audience and some very well known angling personalities and organisations. This was a fantastic opportunity given to us and would like to thank Miles and the other Directors of the Carp Society for showing their support. This event was headed up by our CEO Gary Stockton supported by members of Phoenix and Aquaculture Equipment Ltd.
We are in the process of placing the boats that have been gifted to us by Mark Walters and Robin Brunt after a kind introduction from Patricia and Anthony at Heyland Marine. We now have 5 of the K2 fibreglass folding Kontender boats that will be placed on lakes that we are aligned with in memory of one of our fallen comrades. The first boat to be placed was at Horseshoe Lakes in memory of Cpl Bryan Budd VC 3 para, we know it will get great use but also hope that it attracts other veterans and serving members to come and join the Phoenix Heroes carp angling family.
The weekend was a great success, fighting against the elements for the majority of our stay but when you are in the company of good people, family and friends with a Phoenix Heroes fire pit to hand it makes things a little easier. A big thank you to Shaun Harrison for spending the entire weekend with us in his impressive bivvy set up and for sharing good stories and handy tips. It was also great to see our Ambassador Rob Hughes for a quick catch up, a brew and bacon butty, we also adopted one of our Phoenix Heroes members Matt Skelhon for the weekend after experiencing a nightmare with his bivvy and winds during the Coking Farm competition. For those of you that remember the story of Steve, one of our veterans that we helped three years previous, you will be pleased to know that he was with us for the weekend and he is doing really well, he took on the role of head chef and did us proud!
A fantastic weekend, met some great people and supportive organisations of which we thank you all for sharing your time with us and hope to meet up and align in the future.
Coking Farm Competition - Event 2
Our 2nd event running on the same weekend was a charity carp angling match organised by Jamie and Kirk at Coking Farm where 35 anglers made up with a mix of veterans, serving members and civilians took part. Our communication lines were open between all three events and it was within the first hour of Coking Farm event that we were made aware that the weather was posing some issues whilst setting up. At least two of the Phoenix Heroes members lost their bivvies to the strong winds and many others battled hard to stay on venue. Other Phoenix Heroes members came to the rescue to provide additional bivvies to allow people to stay and participate but as mentioned previously Matt Skelhon who was tipped up in his bivvy whilst in his bedchair was invited to come over to Horseshoe where we looked after him.
After everyone had eventually set up the competition started, seeing some early fish on the bank, the feedback that we received was brilliant so from everyone at Phoenix Heroes we would like to thank Jamie, Kirk and Chas for running with the event and all those that participated to show their support to Phoenix Heroes, it means so much to us. A big thank you to Coking Farm fisheries for letting us hold this event!
East Delph Lakes - Event 3
With the initial feedback of the poor weather posing issues at Coking Farm we were expecting the same from East Delph Lakes however they were kind of lucky as it was a later start and further inland, albeit they did face their fair share of the bad weather throughout the weekend. This event was headed up by one of our Team Captains Stu Thurston and fished by 8 of our members.
Again, the feedback received from this event was brilliant, most anglers caught and spent some quality time together, they were well supported with the feeding plan that was kindly funded by some of our members. We also took the opportunity to kit out one of our veterans with a complete quality carp angling set up that was donated by one of our members called Jon Smart, as a result he will be fishing with us on one of our events this year and he will be able to go fishing on a regular basis, thanks Jon!
We are so proud of our team at Phoenix Heroes for putting the time and effort in to make these events a success and allowing our members to enjoy the fishing and spending time together. We would not be able to organise these events without the support of our sponsors and the public so thank you all kindly, you are making a huge difference! The lake owners have been nothing but amazing for hosting and looking after us, making our events that little bit special, we really do appreciate it.
We have events booked up every month until Oct this year and we are now looking at bookings for 2022, if you would like to support or join us then please contact us.
From everyone at Team Phoenix,
THANK YOU!
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