Reels On Wheels Fishing Festival

Reels on Wheels (UK) Limited is a limited charity company set up to raise funds for various reasons: At present it is dependent on the generosity of like-minded people who support Reels on Wheels and the Buddy System concept. The primary aim is to help and encourage disabled and less able anglers to get back into fishing and to encourage as many people as possible to take up fishing as a recreational, outdoor activity.The secondary aim is to help and encourage clubs and commercial fisheries to improve access for all anglers, irrespective of their (dis)ability, wherever practicable.The third aim is to promote angling for everybody as a healthy, beneficial outdoor pursuit, by supporting less privileged groups and enabling them to participate in organised events.With these aim Reels On Wheels will be holding a festival of fishing at a fully accessible fishery including the toilets and all the swims over the weekend of the 7th and 8th of June 2008.This will be a two day festival of fishing for EVERYBODY we want experienced match men, novices, the disabled, less able, fully able, kids and adults to come along and help us celebrate all aspects of this sport that we all love.

On the Saturday there will be a short match from 2pm till 5pm this is being sponsored by The Wandering Angler who is providing a trophy for the winner and medals for first second and third places. There will also be prizes of tackle and bait etc for the first three places and for the largest fish. There will also be a prize given for some silly reason (still to be decided).

Saturday evening there will be a BBQ with both meat and vegetarian options, where we hope everyone will have a great time meeting loads of new people.

We have been given permission for the competitors to fish over night if they so wish, no prizes just a bit of fun.

First thing Sunday morning there will be bacon and egg rolls available at a small extra charge, we will try to keep this as low as possible.

The Sunday match will start at 10am and finish at 4pm there will be a trophy which will be provided by Julz and Myself, there will as on Saturday be prizes for places and biggest fish.

There will be a marquee on site which can be used for shelter but will also house a display of ROWs achievments and plans, and details of the Wandering Angler. On the Sunday we are proud an honoured to have Mr Mick Brown attending for most of the day, he will be chatting to people, posing for photos and generally joining in with the fun feel of the weekend. He will also be presenting the prizes. Also on Sunday we will be drawing the raffle, we have a huge number of fantastic prizes donated by supporters and the angling industry.If you would like more information please visit our forum, where apart from a warm welcome you will find details of the festival and the raffle. You can find our forum at www.reels-on-wheels.org/forum/The cost for the whole weekends fishing and the BBQ will be £20

Where is this taking place?

It is taking place at a fishery called the Manderson trust, which is between Cambridge and Huntingdon, we will be taking over two of the lakes on site.

what a lovely idea Claire/forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif

There has been a lot of interest in the Festival and we now only have 10 places left. So if anyone wants to come along and have a fun weekend then please contact me as soon as possible to book your place.

I look forward to meeting everyone at the Festival.

youve let me down mr Monk......

Well here is part one of my report on how the weekends festivities went.

Julz and I had the bus loaded up and decided to leave nice and early as we were expecting a delivery of some more raffle prizes at the Manderson Trust lakes, at about a quarter to seven we got a phone call from Nick telling us he had a blow out on the M4 at 3 in the morning luckily he was safe and well if a bit shaken. So off we went to the lakes to meet up with Nick, by the time we got there he had been there for about 15 mins still a bit shaken he was in need of a hot cup of tea. So after a nice hot drink we got round to sorting out what needed doing.

First thing we needed was a place to put our display stand, book stall the prizes etc etc so we unloaded the still boxed marquee, now to say the instructions weren’t very good is an understatement. So whilst I was struggling to get the marquee up I was getting comments such as ‘Claire is having problems with an erection’ from the audience, but up it went eventually and we started to unload the display stands, etc etc.




By lunchtime a couple of the competitors had turned up and I met Jon and Steve (Hipflask) for the first time so we started the draw very early so that everyone could get their bivvies etc set up for the weekend, during the rest of the day we had a few more competitors turn up, Seb and his dad turned up after the changing post codes of the Cambridge area caused the m to get lost followed closely by Michael (my son) and Jim with his whole family.




Most of us tried to have a go for a few fish, some more successful than others but that was to become the story of the whole weekend, but more of that later. Both Seb and Steve caught a few nice fish whilst having a short pleasure session. There was plenty of help and advice on hand for those who needed it Jon and Steve spent a couple of hours trying to help Julz catch a fish before the festival started.




That evening the conversation got louder and more raucous, to the point that Charlie from the Manderson trust had an angina attack (he was fine after a little while), the laughter could be heard all over the whole complex, and I seemed to acquire a new nickname of Ms Knackered as by 11pm I was a tad tired.




So that was the end of day minus one the festival was still to start in earnest and there will be details of that in part two.

And before anyone says anything ……. Yes I can’t half ramble on.

Festival Report Pt 2

Saturday morning was another early start as we were expecting the first anglers to start showing up from about 7am and we wanted everything to be ready for them.

As people started to arrive there were plenty of faces I recognised and plenty I didn’t but everyone was having a good natter and a giggle.



All The bivvies going up

I finally got to meet Andrew, the Wandering Angler, who arrived with John and Martin pulling a great big trailer behind their car, I know that three anglers need a lot of equipment but do they really need to bring a bath as well as the kitchen sink? As they were unloading the trailer it became more obvious why they needed so much room, the cup for winning Saturdays match was absolutely enormous at nearly two feet tall and there were several other prizes as well. A big thank you goes out to Andrew for his support, sponsoring the Saturday match and all the other prizes that he provided, you are a star. One of the extra competitions that Andrew sponsored was a drawn pairs competition, where we drew out the names of two anglers and paired them up for the whole weekend. Both John and Martin had also bought along prizes to be put into the raffle, thank you both.

As lunch time rolled around everyone moved off to their pegs ready for the all in, at 2pm I blew the whistle for the all in and got loads of comments about the police coming as it sounded just like an old fashioned police whistle. Due to all the noise round the lake it fished a lot harder than when I have fished it on pleasure sessions, but there were a few good fish out but the best of them cam out to Jon who was fishing right in the corner, he ended up with 15lb 8oz winning the match, in second was Kevin with 10lb 10oz followed up by Mark with 6lb 11oz congratulations to all three of them.

Early evening started off as the rest of the evening would carry on as everyone sat around the marquee having a drink a chat and another drink whilst Kate and I got down to cooking half a ton of food. There was about 50 each of chicken legs, burgers, and sausages as well as chicken kebabs and bacon. During all the cooking John presented me with a bottle of wine to say thank you from him and his forum for all the work I had done, it was totally unexpected and greatly appreciated as I hadn't expected anything like that. Whilst all this was cooking away Nick broke out a couple of 2ltr bottles of the infamous Zyg Gregoreks home made wine which he had donated to make the evening go with a swing and boy did it go with a swing.



some of the food cooking

Julz has rather a penchant for Zygs wine and drank three or four glasses of this rather potent brew and along with everyone else who was supping anything alcoholic they could find, the banter got louder and louder and more and more jovial. Eventually we drifted off to bed to get ready for the long match on Sunday.

Part three of the Festival report.


Yet another early start, I see a pattern emerging here. I had a wonder round the lake and had an early morning chat with Andrew about life, the universe and everything before I lit another BBQ to cook breakfast on.

Breakfast consisted of bacon and sausage rolls which seemed to go down very well as everyone seemed to want seconds so either the food was good or all the competitors were pigs, I’ll leave you to make up your own minds about that one.

Just after breakfast it was great to see our very own Robbydrum turn up, tired from a match the day before but determined to support our first event, he even bought along a few more prizes for the raffle. Thanks for coming along and supporting us Robby.

After all the food and coffee we made our way to the swims ready for today’s six hour match, the early morning mist was burning off and it looked set to be a lovely warm day.

The all in was called at 10am and the fishing started in earnest. A few fish were coming out early on and in the first hour Robby had a lovely fish of just shy of 8lb on the bank, all the signs were looking good.




A little while later I noticed Mick Brown turning up and let Nick know. He stopped fishing to go and say hello and generally have a chin wag. After the rest of us had been fishing for another hour or so Nick wheeled himself down to my swim with the biggest grin on his face, it really was from ear to ear. With this wonderful look on his face he told me the news about Mick agreeing to become our new patron, he was going to make the big announcement later during the prize presentation.

Mick very kindly then spent an hour or so walking round the lake having a chat with everybody and posing for photo after photo. When he heard that Julz was struggling to even get a nibble he came over and spent half an hour or so giving her the benefit of his knowledge and said he would come back in an hour to see how she was doing. Good as his word he came back and changed her bait and recast for her giving as much help as he could. A huge thank you Mick from Julz and from me.




There seemed to be a few fish coming out around the lake as there was the occasional shout for the scales (all fish over 4lb were to be weighed and returned). So we were hopeful that everyone would catch something today.

All too soon the end of the match arrived and it was time for the weigh in, there were only a couple of people who had blanked me included, which meant I was in line for the booby prize.

As we went round the lake with Mick from the Manderson Trust and Mick Brown it became clear that was going to be a couple of people who would run away with today’s match.. The results ended up as follows. In first was Dave Few with a great weight of 25lb 4oz in a very close second was Kevin with 23lb 2oz and in third Was Peter Holding who after struggling in his last few matches ended up with 9lb 14oz. Well done to everyone.




The presentation will follow in part 4

Now for part 4

After the match and the weigh in, Nick and I retired to the Buddy Bus to work out all the Results

They are as follows

Saturdays Match – The Wandering Angler ROW Cup

1st Jon Calli 15lb 8oz
2nd Kevin Watkins 10lb 10oz
3rd Mark Palmer 6lb 11oz

Sundays Match – The Reels On Wheels Festival Cup

1st Dave Few 25lb 4oz
2nd Kevin Watkins 23lb 2oz
3rd Peter Holding 9lb 14oz

The Pairs Competition

Dave Pooley and Kevin Watkins 34lb 12oz

Best Angler of the weekend by weight

Kevin Watkins 33lb 12 oz

Best angler of the weekend as voted for by the competitors

Claire Pearce


At the begining the presentation of all the prizes Nick had a very special surprise for me and presented me with a wonderful bunch of flowers as a thank you for all my work in organizing the event. I may have seemed a little ungrateful when collecting them but the truth is I couldn’t say anything as I was having a little cry. Thank you very much for the flowers Nick they were wonderful and are in pride of place in my living room.




The prizes were all presented by Nick and Mick Brown who posed for photos with each and every winner as you can see.



Jon Saturdays Winner



Dave Sundays Winner



Dave & Kevin Pairs winners

Kevin 2nd on Saturday



Kevin 2nd on Sunday



Mark 3rd Saturday



Peter 3rd Sunday

Kevin the best angler of the weekend

And now for the biggest joke me recieving the best Angler of the weekend as voted for by the competitors. Thank you everyone who voted for me, it is the first time some one who caught nothing won the best angler prize /forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif



Before the raffle Mick signed copies of the great rod race and the greater rod race. These were auctioned off by Nick, the bidding was fast and furious and both sets raised a good amount of money.

Mick then agreed to stay and draw the raffle for us, just about everyone who bought a ticket won something from the raffle. Some of the highlights were when Nick won the wonderful box of Flies donated by Steve (allthegearandnoidea) and he decide to auction them off to the crowd present, bidding was fierce but eventually the flies went to Mr Mick Brown himself.




Several other prizes were also auctioned off raising various amounts from a pound upwards. All in all over 70 prizes were handed out ranging from some floats through to rods and reels and everything inbetween.

I think I can speak for everyone at Reels On Wheels when I say a huge thank you to everyone who took part, bought raffle ticket, donated raffle prizes, Andrew for sponsoring Saturday, Mick brown for agreeing to be our new patron and spending so much time with us, the Manderson Trust for allowing us to hold the event, Kate for all the work you put in and anyone and everyone else who helped with this event. If I haven’t mentioned you I’m terribly sorry but believe me when I say we are grateful.

What a marvellous read.....you`ve got yourself a fantastic patron there as well in mick brown.I have been lucky enough to meet him myself anda real down to earth,happy go lucky gent he is.