Meet Avian Sandercock, Sam Turner and Jake Woolf, the three hosts of Fish and Game, as SideCountry founder Richard Prideaux asks how they came to fishing, shooting and the countryside – and what they intend to do with a podcast.
Avian talks about his Cornish roots, lifelong fishing and the small club shoot that brings his local community together.
Sam explains how farming, fly-fishing, clay coaching and simulated game days fit into his working life.
Jake traces a route from falconry and gundogs to shooting at Branches Park, KuduRiver Gundogs and the TWENTY10 Club.
Along the way, the three give an honest assessment of their fly-fishing ability and discover that enthusiasm may be more useful than elegance.
This short introduction sets out the ground the Fish and Game podcast intends to cover: coarse, game and sea fishing; driven and walked-up shooting; deer stalking; gundogs; falconry (for some reason); conservation; habitat and land management. More importantly, it explains the spirit of the show – breaking down unfamiliar language and barriers to entry, learning in public and showing the people, places and work that surround a day in the field or on the water.
In this episode
– Who Avian Sandercock, Sam Turner and Jake Woolf are, and the parts of Britain they call home
– Their very different histories with fly-fishing, coarse fishing and sea angling
– Why fishing and catching fish are not necessarily the same activity
– The overlap between fishing, shooting, food, conservation and land management
– The importance of community in club shoots, sim days and days on the river
– Jake’s route from falconry and gundogs to KuduRiver and TWENTY10
– How Fish and Game plans to explain terminology and make unfamiliar sports easier to approach
Credits
Presented by Avian Sandercock, Sam Turner and Jake Woolf, with Richard Prideaux.
Edited by Avian Sandercock.
Produced for SideCountry by Amy Green.
DISCLAIMER
Views are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.
This transcript was generated using AI and may contain minor errors.
Introducing Fish and Game
Richard Prideaux: So I don't even really know where to start with you three because there's a lot to unpack here.
Sam Turner: Alphabetically.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, well, alphabetically, which one's first then? I can't do alphabets.
Jake Woolf: Hang on. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J. So we go with Avian, shall we?
Avian Sandercock: Thanks, Jake. I feel the wheels of the bus you just threw me under.
Richard Prideaux: I mean, we're setting the scene here. I'd like for you, Avian, to, in as few Cornish words as possible, explain to the audience who you are and, well, what you're doing here.
Avian Sandercock: I'll have a go at the first one, but the latter question, we may have to work together on that one, Richard. Well, my name's Avian. I'm very nearly a 60-year-old fat man living in Cornwall. I live here with my wife and three dogs. I absolutely love the outdoors, even when it's raining. And I'm here really to just try and share with everybody what I find so interesting about doing what we do. And hopefully with the other two herberts, finding out some of the things we don't know about and doing a bit more.
Richard Prideaux: I just want to set the scene here for the listener. Just how Cornish are you?
Avian Sandercock: I will definitely say I was conceived here. My dad's side of the family, they've been farming in this area for 100 years, and within the slightly broader area for 400 years. So we reckon that makes me just about able to claim local. But I grew up in Buckinghamshire and I've been back here now for 20 years this year.
Richard Prideaux: And you've got to be the most Western of the three of you, haven't you?
Avian Sandercock: Yes. I think next stop is, yeah, next stop is Canada.
Richard Prideaux: Because that's the thing. When we talk to American friends about all this stuff, I try to sort of set the scene because they just think everything is five minutes away from each other in the UK. But really, the geography of all this matters. So you've got Avian over in the very far west and then moving east a bit. That would probably be Sam next, would it? Would it, Sam?
Sam Turner: It would, yeah. East a fair bit, to be fair. I'm not just furthest east in Devon without being in Dorset, but also meaning I'm furthest away from Cornwall as I could be.
Avian Sandercock: You say that like it's a good thing.
Sam Turner: We've had discussions about this before.
Avian Sandercock: We're not going to have turf war on episode one, are we?
Sam Turner: No.
Richard Prideaux: If you can leave the Devon-Cornwall turf war blood feud until at least episode four, that would be good. Yeah, that's fine. But Sam, are you, I mean, are you a farmer, would you say, Sam? How would you define yourself?
Sam Turner: I'm, I suppose I am, as in I have a small farm. I've worked in agriculture since I was 13 or 14, I suppose. Not born into it, but somehow got into it and stayed into it for seemingly a very long time, which I do wonder about sometimes. So yeah, I would say I'm a farmer, but I also do other bits. I do a bit of groundskeeping, I do a bit of site work, I do a bit of clay shooting and instruction and sim days, and I do a bit of loading. So, jack of all trades, master of none, I would probably say.
Richard Prideaux: That's quite a CV there. That's quite a few things to go through. And I suppose that's the thing with this show as you move forward, you've got, you've each got quite a variety of backgrounds to look at and to pull from. So you're going to have to sort of structure and decide which bit you present to the audience first, because it's going to get not quite confusing, I'd say, but it's going to get, it's going to be hard for people to pull out, which bits that person is the key voice for. Because Jake, you're further north, but you're in the more civilised corner of the world, probably.
Avian Sandercock: I don't know about that. It's very nearly France, Jake, isn't it?
Jake Woolf: More Holland, but... Doesn't make it any better.
Avian Sandercock: Yes.
Jake Woolf: I'm very happy to be over on the east side. It's lovely. It's rather flat over here. And it's all very, very pleasant. So yeah, it's Newmarket for me and the home of British horse racing — or British flat racing.
Richard Prideaux: And listeners will probably know the three of you from other corners of the internet and sort of damp corners of the UK at different times. I mean, judging by your Instagrams and things like that, you're probably best known for your shooting activities. Would you say that's fair?
Sam Turner: It's probably the ones that get broadcast the most, yeah.
Jake Woolf: I would say so. That and gundogs for me.
Avian Sandercock: Because I think the problem with the fishing exploits is it's hard to untangle a fly from a tree when you're trying to hold a camera. Seems to be a bit easier with the shooting.
Richard Prideaux: That's the thing. I suppose shooting at least, if you're there on your own or no one's taking photos of you, can always get photos of the rest of the line of pegs or something like that or something from the day. If you're out fishing on your own and no one's taking a photo of you, it's just sort of the top of the waders, isn't it? Or something like that.
Sam Turner: Pretty much, unless we all start buying these AI glasses, which I know Jake doesn't like very much. Trying to find a set of polarised ones is a nightmare at the moment, because I have tried.
Jake Woolf: Well, I've actually just bought a new bit of tech because I'm a complete novice fisherman. And so this is going to be a lot of fun where I'm going to be learning through you guys. Oh God.
Avian Sandercock: We apologise in advance.
Jake Woolf: However, we're going to be going on a bit of a journey and as we move forward, the exciting thing is that we as a family are going to kind of embark on this adventure together. None of my family, Joe, Tobes, Laura, even baby Florence have ever picked or cast a rod in anger with a fly attached to it. So I have gone and bought myself a DJI Neo 2, which apparently has incredibly good tracking. It's lightweight and it can do that kind of [unclear] circle. Listen, it's got more gadgets than I know what to do with.
Avian Sandercock: What is that? Is it a machine, a rod or a camera?
Jake Woolf: What the hell is a DJI Neo 2? The DJI Neo 2 is a drone.
Sam Turner: By the way that I fish, I am usually more likely to catch something in the air, which is usually a tree branch.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, or a bat. I caught a bat once, honestly.
Sam Turner: Cool, that's pretty good.
Richard Prideaux: We're going to put a pin in that, Avian, and come back to you because I want to hear the bat story.
Sam Turner: I was just going to say I'm more likely to hook a drone than I am a trout, but I want to hear the bat story too.
Richard Prideaux: Okay, we'll finish up on the bat story, but I think, I mean, the whole point of this episode is to sort of set the scene and give the audience an idea of who you are. So maybe we should run through skill ratings on several different things. So that'd be easy. Well, you are the Fish and Game podcast hosts, so let's cover it in that order. So let's do fishing. So zero is complete below novice. Don't even know how to pick up the object. And ten is a god at that level. So let's go for where you think you are on, say, fly fishing. So zero to ten, each of you. I think Avian first.
Avian Sandercock: That's kind of a two-part answer, isn't it? In terms of obscure information and having read the books and in theory know how to do it, probably a seven and a half.
Richard Prideaux: So that's armchair fly fishing then?
Avian Sandercock: Well, yeah, but then again, in terms of the equipment I've bought over the years and hidden from the wife in a cupboard, maybe an 8. And in terms of fish in the net and successful days with elegant casting...
Richard Prideaux: I suppose that does set up the thing that you'll have to repeat through all of these shows as you move forward, which fishing and catching fish are not the same activity. Sometimes they happen on the same day, but not always.
Avian Sandercock: Rarely in my case.
Richard Prideaux: What about you, Sam?
Sam Turner: So I am a firm believer in that fishing is absolutely nothing to do with catching fish. And I'm probably a four out of ten when it comes to actual fly-fishing, with an enthusiasm level of ten, possibly 11.
Richard Prideaux: Okay. And dare I ask Jake?
Jake Woolf: Well, I'm not going to be a zero, but I'm going to say two, because I've seen one and I'm certain I've picked one up and handled it. But I've never cast in anger. I've never cast out onto a bit of water or a bit of land, so I am very much a novice.
Sam Turner: How can you be a two?
Jake Woolf: Well, because I've seen it. Richard said a zero has never even picked one up and I'm certain I've picked it up. I have fished. I've done some sea fishing in the past, and I used to love growing up in Wimbledon, getting the bus over to Kingston and fishing off the Thames — perch, pike, the odd boot, a shopping trolley here or there. It was the eighties and the Thames. But my school, we had this wonderful reservoir and we used to fish off the side of the resi there. I had a great time until the blue-green algae came in and then people started getting very sick and stuff like that. So we were all pulled back into the houses and we weren't allowed to go fishing again.
Richard Prideaux: Decontaminated.
Jake Woolf: Yeah, exactly. Washed down, you know, and put through the shower system. But so fly fishing, I'm going to put myself as a two, never cast in anger. But coarse fishing, I'd put myself probably, I know you didn't ask about coarse fishing, but yeah, that's probably the level that I'm at, maybe a four or five for that.
Richard Prideaux: Well, that's the thing. I mean, we haven't got all day, but I could just go down through every single niche subcategory of fishing for this, which that's the first year's episodes tied up there, isn't it? Because my fishing has always been mostly on the sea because I fish for the table mostly. That's what I grew up doing. So that's where I've sort of steered towards. But every time I talk to friends about fishing, you sort of have to align with their conversation to find out what they're doing with reels. Yes. Okay. So what water is it? A canal? Canal? No, got no interest in that. No rivers. Oh, I can actually get interested in a river. You know, so you've got to find your little tribe within fishing. And I suppose that's the thing for the three of you, because Jake, I mean, I suppose you're going to be taking the brunt of the, I don't know how to do this, but I'll give it a go. For Avian and Sam, what would you say are, you know, what is your fishing? What's the thing that you identify with the most?
Sam Turner: Mine would be, mine would probably be fly fishing now, but if I go back to when I was a kid and something I probably want to do with my kids was chucking the line off the harbour wall in the hope to catch a crab or going out picking cockles or winkles or something like that, all the way up to, you can get a charter out to go mackerel fishing, which is great fun. Something we'll hopefully cover in the future will be tuna and shark, which I'd like to do off a big game boat as well. Fly-fishing is easy for me because I'm on a river here, so I can kind of go and I use it as an escape from everything more than fishing for the table, like you say, Rich. But it's, yeah, there's lots of other things to explore, I think, rather than the fly fishing therapy that I do.
Richard Prideaux: So what, yeah, to what degree is that fly fishing therapy you standing in a river, not talking to people?
Sam Turner: That's exactly what it is. And without getting myself in too much trouble, I don't go down to the river that I'm talking about fly fishing. I go down there to practice my casting.
Richard Prideaux: Just get the fish used to what happens.
Sam Turner: I'm teaching myself and the fish.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, that's it. That's it. What about you, Avian?
Avian Sandercock: Well, I mean, I started fishing. My grandfather was a keen fisherman up in Stoke-on-Trent. I think I caught my first stickleback when I was about six. I've been quite lucky over the years. I'm quite ham-fisted, but I've always had a give it a go attitude. So, you know, we had a period of years where we did carp fishing, which I loved the technicalities of, but was really rubbish at. And for us, it seemed like siege warfare: camped up by the lake for four or five days with nil return to show for it because we didn't know what we were doing. Fly-fishing I've come to a bit later in life, and I enjoy it, but I really am not built for anything elegant or athletic. As I think I've said before to people, it's very much like whipping a greased pig with a pool cue. But the one thing I've really loved growing up that I'd love to try and get back to and unfortunately in the West Country we don't have those bigger rivers or the more fertile rivers that hold them is just a very simple day walking the banks, ledgering for chub and barbel. And I think, as you said, it's so absorbing and you're on your own, you're in nature, you're cut off from everybody, which I think is fantastic. I've met an awful lot of people over the years, but I think by now I've probably met enough. So I'd love to go back and have a day catching chub, floating bread crust, just very simple.
Richard Prideaux: I suppose that's the thing with this podcast and from what the three of you have told me about your plans for it, there seems to be this big overlap between the shooting world and the fishing world. If you're interested in one, you're probably interested in the other to one degree or another, whether it's about the food or whether it's about just the experience of being there and the connection to that place. So are you going to be covering fishing and shooting throughout the series? Is it going to be split down into two? How are you going to cover it?
Avian Sandercock: Well, you mean we've thought about it? That's a very bold move, Richard. The three of us have talked about it and got excited in the build-up. We'd like to try and dabble into both sides all at the same time. So, you know, we'd ideally have a sort of core topic, but I don't personally, I don't want it to be this week we do shooting, next week we do fishing necessarily, but just something that, as you said, plays with that crossover. And because I think all of us who enjoy spending a day in the outdoors, that's the key to it. And as long as we're not playing golf, you can actually immerse yourself in it and enjoy it. So we'll try and pick on something that interests us or something we know a bit more about that the other two don't or however it goes and just try and broaden that view.
Sam Turner: And there might be episodes where we don't talk about fishing or shooting per se. We talk about the things that surround those bits. So we might talk about gundogs, we might talk about woodland management, we might talk about a bit of gamekeeping, we might talk about anything like that, deer stalking.
Jake Woolf: Falconry as well. I'm really looking forward to getting back into that.
Richard Prideaux: Hang on, I didn't sign you up for falconry. It seems like part of the common ground of this is conservation and the — I don't know — it's sort of the emotional experience of doing that thing, sort of the felt and lived experience of being in that place doing that activity.
Sam Turner: I don't think any of us are going to sit here and tell people what to do. I think that it's going to be people joining us in learning things and going through a process and exploring different things you can do in the countryside rather than us dictating to people how things should be done and why they should do it. So it's a journey we'll all go on together.
Avian Sandercock: I don't think any of us have sort of got the faintest hint of trying to be experts in anything. I think, as we said earlier.
Sam Turner: I'm pretty good at getting stuff wrong.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, me too. But actually sometimes getting things wrong is a wonderful way to actually discover a bit more deeply what does work and what doesn't work. And I guess we're really keen for people to share their experiences and thoughts with us, and as a group we all increase our knowledge and understanding — and hopefully our enjoyment of being outdoors.
Jake Woolf: I mean for me it's going to be taking the family and going on that adventure and journey together. I take so much solace in actually doing stuff with my family: my eldest, who's 28 and has started his journey quite late; then you've got Toby, who's ten; and Laura, who helps behind the scenes with what we get up to. We're going to talk about all of that coming up. What I've found, coming to it quite late, is that some of these experiences can be quite solitary. Now, that's wonderful. I've not stood in a river, but I'm told it's wonderful. When you go out deer stalking, there's a connection there; it's beautiful. You're at one, whether or not you're going to pull the trigger or you're there with your camera. You'll know this about me as we go forward: I love that community aspect. I love where you can do it with more people and you can share that experience. And that's the enjoyment that I really want to get across from Fish and Game is how these things don't have to sit there quietly. You can enjoy them. And I'm going to try as long as Laura comes on board with it as well.
Avian Sandercock: So basically, if we need you to do something outrageous in a stupid outfit, we've got to bribe Laura first.
Sam Turner: I think what you're saying there, Jake, is what is great about what we're trying to cover with this is because you can go fly fishing by yourself just to get a moment to yourself. You can go fishing with a group of mates on the same river. You can go fishing on a boat with a group of mates. You can go pigeon shooting, just you and the dog. You can go shooting with a whole team of guns, you can go deer stalking by yourself or with a friend. You can kind of chop and change all these different things that you want to do with as many people as you want to do it with, depending on what you need from that experience, as it were. So there are different things for different scenarios in your life, I suppose.
Richard Prideaux: We're talking about that social experience. I mean, I know all three of you and we've had many conversations at the Game Fair and all sorts of other places over the years, but I know the three of you through shooting together or different shooting related activities together. So maybe we should sort of briefly touch on that towards the end of the show here and just let the listeners know what you do in that world. So Avian, you have a — is it a syndicate shoot that you have?
Avian Sandercock: Syndicate's very grand. We have a little club shoot on a farm. Right. So it was a quite an old syndicate. My wife and I joined. I'm very lucky that my wife, Claire, shoots as well. Hell of a lot better than me. But we joined this little syndicate and as the way of these things, you know, it's often a small group of local people get together, pay a little bit of money to a farmer, put some birds in the wood and enjoy a few days shooting in the season. And unfortunately, people moved away and it sort of fizzled out. So there were one or two of the guns and a few of the beat team said, well, we can probably take this on. So we're in our third year now. Actually, this morning I was there at seven o'clock letting this year's batch of pheasants out. And we've really focused on it, not so much as a shoot because we only put a few birds down and we don't see many of them. Half of the guns probably would miss the floor if they dropped the gun. But we love it. And it's very much to Jake's point. It's about the community. I think our youngest member is eight and our eldest is 86. And it's far more sort of an armed dog walk, hopefully take something for the table, but bloody good elevenses in the barn and then off to the pub for a pint afterwards. So far more about the local social thing than the actual shooting. But we do a hell of a lot of work throughout the year just in habitat restoration and management. And it's like having a very big allotment. It's lovely.
Richard Prideaux: So the shooting is almost sort of superfluous to the wider year-round experience then?
Avian Sandercock: Oh God, yes. All the guns say we're not really here for the shooting, are we? But I think the bizarre thing is, Richard, to touch on that, very much that's at the core of our little club. But I think it is important for people who don't shoot to understand, and again, perhaps with fishing clubs, if it wasn't for the fact that we are going through the motions of putting the birds down, looking after them, bringing them together, trying desperately to shoot them whilst wearing ridiculous outfits, which I'm sure we'll come to in future episodes. None of us would probably get together on that farm three or four weekends in the summer and every weekend through the winter if it wasn't for the shooting. So that's kind of the glue that holds that community of 25 or 30 of us from all different walks of life and age groups together.
Richard Prideaux: That's fantastic. And Sam, I mean, you seem to be active year round with the shooting with, it looks like you're doing a lot on the clay side of things.
Sam Turner: Yeah, so my early days of game shooting were very similar to what Avian just described there, but after a few years due to land ownership changing and bits like that, the little syndicate we had came to an end, which was a shame. And it's still a group of friends that we try and do one day a year during the season together. And I'll get a few days during the season, but more recently the big thing for me has been the sim days and coaching and corporate days and bits like that we do through the spring and the summer mostly, which has been brilliant fun. I did my coaching course and bits like that. And I actually really enjoy doing the corporate stuff where you're taking people who have never held a shotgun before and you're teaching them that it isn't a nasty thing. It's actually great fun. Getting them breaking some clays and a smile on their face and feeling more comfortable with a shotgun than they do when they first come into the stand is, I think, absolutely brilliant. And like Avian says, it's seeing people, especially on the sim days, you get a lot of teams of guns who are probably a syndicate throughout most of the season who are doing that thing that keeps them together throughout the summer when they're not seeing each other every weekend. They're booking into a sim day and they're kind of rekindling that friendship they have for three or four months of the year throughout the rest of the year. So that's been really good fun, really good fun.
Richard Prideaux: And from what I've seen of you guys already, you really try to bring together that community aspect of what you do. You know, you're very active in the shooting community sort of online and keeping that wider conversation going, because I know you do work with GWCT and to come to Jake in a moment as well, I know you've got, you've all got these great community connections within that. Is that something you want to try and bring through into the podcast episodes in the future?
Sam Turner: Definitely. I think shooting is probably more about people than it is about actually shooting, isn't it?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, I agree. I think in its purest form, definitely. And I think if we lose sight of that, then we put the whole kit and caboodle at risk. But I think fishing is just the same. It's that custodianship. You look at rivers as a non-fisherman and they're just wet on the top and they look a bit green most of the time. And sometimes they're brown and sometimes they're not. Whereas fishermen are actively surveying the health of the river every time they go. It's easy to walk the dog and walk past a wood and think, that looks like a nice wood. But unless you spend a day or two regularly in there, you don't get to see the changes to it. You don't get to see what's working, what isn't working. And for me, that's the fascinating bit is that sort of development of the environment and the habitat management and the fact that as long as shooting is about the community and the environment, yeah, the taking of the game is kind of the icing on the cake.
Sam Turner: The only trouble with getting more and more into fishing is you get more and more infuriated by your local water authority, it would seem.
Richard Prideaux: You're sort of left to get on with things more in shooting, aren't you? Well, Jake, you're sort of involved at different levels because you've got the gundog thing as well and you're a photographer. Can you sort of explain what your role in shooting is, what you do?
Jake Woolf: Okay. So here goes. So I bought a dog for my wife and in 2010, that sparked everything. And I'd been involved in the countryside. My first job at 16 was as a falconer working at a falconry centre. This is where falconry comes in. And then going out on hawking adventures and what have you. And anyway, the thing with it is, as my journey with the dogs got further and further into picking up and then to shooting and owning a gun, getting my licence and what have you. It all cascaded very, very quickly. And I can remember a flashpoint where I looked at how the industry was and I thought to myself, there's something we can do that won't reinvent the wheel, but we have an opportunity to speak to the naysayers. We're going through a very big period of change at the moment with ammunition and with how we're seen. And so I had an opportunity to approach a local estate who were diversifying their farm and say, I think there's an opportunity here in a small walked-up-style shoot day where you do small bags but with small teams. We stay in luxurious accommodation and you start ticking those boxes. What do people really want? They want that immersive feeling within the countryside, that hunter-gatherer feeling of being walking up, but they love dressing up like Edwardians. But they also want to be fed and they want high-end, best-quality food so that it's sourced from the estate. So all of a sudden we're bringing in local businesses, chefs, that has worked really, really well. And that leads into KuduRiver Gundogs. It is based around my dogs, but it has grown into these wonderful countryside experiences at Branches Park. And seeing those communities and those friendship groups coming together is really, really special. Watching people come together, hard-working men and women who turn their phones off when they pull up the drive and they don't switch them back on again until they have to leave two mornings later. The only time they've touched their phones is to take pictures. That's really, really cool. That has been really successful over the last three seasons, going into our fourth. But, more recently, TWENTY10 has come about, which is the other end of the spectrum.
Richard Prideaux: Which is not the year, it should be said.
Jake Woolf: Or the time, or anything like that. It is a concept of being able to take 20 people shooting over 10 pegs and experiencing an estate that not everyone can necessarily get onto. Now we're going to talk about this in the future, about all the different ways and stuff like that. So we're not going to go too deeply into it now. But all my thing is, and I've mentioned it already in this episode, is how important it is to bring people together. And by building community, you get that whole opportunity to enjoy that day for longer and share it with more people and make it more accessible. And that is what's really led me into my shooting kind of way of life.
Richard Prideaux: And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, hang on, pegs, you're still talking about pegs — I thought we were just doing falconry. As you go, are you going to be sort of explaining some of this? Because some of the terminology in both fishing and shooting side of things is weird, isn't it?
Jake Woolf: Isn't it just? And when you're coming into it new, you're almost having to ask questions which you think are [unclear]. I remember standing amongst people on my first days picking-up, and the first day I went shooting, and I had no idea what they were talking about. Now I had some concept of, you know, a peg, but if you go and stand on stop with your dog there, [unclear] until we call you back, and then go back to the tree in the corner and stand there and wait — I'm like, what am I going to do? This Labrador's looking at me, going, ‘We didn't train for this. You trained me in a straight line.’
Sam Turner: That's one thing about the TWENTY10 concept as well, though, is it's not only making estates that are probably or potentially unaffordable, more affordable, and sharing that day with more people, but if you're a bit inexperienced and you book yourself onto one of those, it's kind of the same as booking yourself a loader or a chaperone to take you on your first game day because you're sitting there with somebody who knows the weird terminology we have in shooting, knows the etiquette for the day, kind of knows how the day will run. And you can stand there and you can ask questions and not feel pressured into, should I shoot that one? Should I not shoot that one? Am I shooting at the right time? Is that too high? Is that too low? Have I done something wrong here and all those things that might be running through your head that would actually probably ruin your day a little bit if you're worried about them too much.
Jake Woolf: Yeah, definitely. And I think that's where the TWENTY10 Club has really kind of excelled is it can allow the novices to come in and everyone's full of advice. If we were to sit at the pub at the end of the day or if we were to meet up in a WhatsApp group and talk about bits and pieces, we could all tell a story here, there and everywhere about this and that. Sometimes you just need to break down those barriers and what I would really hope and what we are going to achieve in this podcast with Fish and Game is we're going to kind of break the back of that. And so people can come along with the journey. And those questions can get answered. I'm really excited for it. I know that you boys are as well. So it's, you know, for the non-shooter, for the experienced fisherman, for the [unclear] stalker and the falconer.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, this is the only thing. When you do the falconry episode, can I come back for that one? Because I'm going to duck out now and I'm going to leave you to record the first proper episode because this was sort of a teaser and a setup for the main thing. But when you do falconry, can I come back?
Speaker unclear: Please do. Please do.
Richard Prideaux: I think that'll be the next one I'm back on, really. And in the meantime, you're going to be covering anything you can think of related to fishing, to deer stalking, to driven game shooting, rough shooting, walked-up shooting, all the conservation behind it, some of the sort of land management aspects. I mean, I've had a look at your show notes here for the future episodes and it's a diverse bunch of ideas, it must be said.
Avian Sandercock: I think the real point, just to summarise what we've been waffling on about this evening—
Jake Woolf: Is that me?
Avian Sandercock: No, that's Claire. We're not having salad for tea, obviously.
Jake Woolf: You're having takeaway. Yeah, so what Avian was trying to say was we're going to take things forward. And anyway, fantastic episode, ladies and gentlemen.
Sam Turner: Are we going to do a cookery episode based on that?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, not from here. No, so I mean, I think whenever anybody's looking, there's always that barrier to entry, isn't there? If you think I'd like to have a go at game shooting, but I don't know what I'm talking about, or I want to have a go at sea fishing, but I don't know where to start. I guess being three willing non-experts, what we're hoping to do is demystify a lot of it, break down the initial barriers and just encourage people to give things a go. Come along with us and try things we've never tried before and not pontificate about it and sort of block people's ambitions by, well you don't know this word and you don't know that word. So we will be very careful to try and explain all the cryptic words and weird handshakes and strange clothing of all these different sports and just try and show people that, yeah, give it a go, get out there and have fun.
Richard Prideaux: And in the interest of getting on with it, we're going to bring it to a close there because you can go and listen to the next episode of Fish and Game. Right now we are releasing this episode and the first episode at the same time. If you go to the show notes on your podcast player, that's like the bit of text that comes with the audio file on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening to this podcast, you'll find links in there all about the hosts, more about what they do, the various projects they're involved with and just more about the show. So I'm going to say goodbye and I'll let the other three, well, I think I'll just let them speak now because you don't need me.
Jake Woolf: Well, that was nice, Richard. I mean, I mean, he's gone, lads. Listen, for free, for free. Honestly, look at that. Like we've been let loose.
Avian Sandercock: The problem is he's taken all the 50ps for the meter, I think.
Jake Woolf: Hang on, I'm running out of time. Yeah, 100%. Get pedalling, Sam. Get on that gyro, mate, and get it working again. We're getting the lights back on, but...
Sam Turner: So the windmill's going around. Yeah, nicely.
Jake Woolf: So.
Introducing Fish and Game
Richard Prideaux: So I don't even really know where to start with you three because there's a lot to unpack here.
Sam Turner: Alphabetically.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, well, alphabetically, which one's first then? I can't do alphabets.
Jake Woolf: Hang on. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J. So we go with Avian, shall we?
Avian Sandercock: Thanks, Jake. I feel the wheels of the bus you just threw me under.
Richard Prideaux: I mean, we're setting the scene here. I'd like for you, Avian, to, in as few Cornish words as possible, explain to the audience who you are and, well, what you're doing here.
Avian Sandercock: I'll have a go at the first one, but the latter question, we may have to work together on that one, Richard. Well, my name's Avian. I'm very nearly a 60-year-old fat man living in Cornwall. I live here with my wife and three dogs. I absolutely love the outdoors, even when it's raining. And I'm here really to just try and share with everybody what I find so interesting about doing what we do. And hopefully with the other two herberts, finding out some of the things we don't know about and doing a bit more.
Richard Prideaux: I just want to set the scene here for the listener. Just how Cornish are you?
Avian Sandercock: I will definitely say I was conceived here. My dad's side of the family, they've been farming in this area for 100 years, and within the slightly broader area for 400 years. So we reckon that makes me just about able to claim local. But I grew up in Buckinghamshire and I've been back here now for 20 years this year.
Richard Prideaux: And you've got to be the most Western of the three of you, haven't you?
Avian Sandercock: Yes. I think next stop is, yeah, next stop is Canada.
Richard Prideaux: Because that's the thing. When we talk to American friends about all this stuff, I try to sort of set the scene because they just think everything is five minutes away from each other in the UK. But really, the geography of all this matters. So you've got Avian over in the very far west and then moving east a bit. That would probably be Sam next, would it? Would it, Sam?
Sam Turner: It would, yeah. East a fair bit, to be fair. I'm not just furthest east in Devon without being in Dorset, but also meaning I'm furthest away from Cornwall as I could be.
Avian Sandercock: You say that like it's a good thing.
Sam Turner: We've had discussions about this before.
Avian Sandercock: We're not going to have turf war on episode one, are we?
Sam Turner: No.
Richard Prideaux: If you can leave the Devon-Cornwall turf war blood feud until at least episode four, that would be good. Yeah, that's fine. But Sam, are you, I mean, are you a farmer, would you say, Sam? How would you define yourself?
Sam Turner: I'm, I suppose I am, as in I have a small farm. I've worked in agriculture since I was 13 or 14, I suppose. Not born into it, but somehow got into it and stayed into it for seemingly a very long time, which I do wonder about sometimes. So yeah, I would say I'm a farmer, but I also do other bits. I do a bit of groundskeeping, I do a bit of site work, I do a bit of clay shooting and instruction and sim days, and I do a bit of loading. So, jack of all trades, master of none, I would probably say.
Richard Prideaux: That's quite a CV there. That's quite a few things to go through. And I suppose that's the thing with this show as you move forward, you've got, you've each got quite a variety of backgrounds to look at and to pull from. So you're going to have to sort of structure and decide which bit you present to the audience first, because it's going to get not quite confusing, I'd say, but it's going to get, it's going to be hard for people to pull out, which bits that person is the key voice for. Because Jake, you're further north, but you're in the more civilised corner of the world, probably.
Avian Sandercock: I don't know about that. It's very nearly France, Jake, isn't it?
Jake Woolf: More Holland, but... Doesn't make it any better.
Avian Sandercock: Yes.
Jake Woolf: I'm very happy to be over on the east side. It's lovely. It's rather flat over here. And it's all very, very pleasant. So yeah, it's Newmarket for me and the home of British horse racing — or British flat racing.
Richard Prideaux: And listeners will probably know the three of you from other corners of the internet and sort of damp corners of the UK at different times. I mean, judging by your Instagrams and things like that, you're probably best known for your shooting activities. Would you say that's fair?
Sam Turner: It's probably the ones that get broadcast the most, yeah.
Jake Woolf: I would say so. That and gundogs for me.
Avian Sandercock: Because I think the problem with the fishing exploits is it's hard to untangle a fly from a tree when you're trying to hold a camera. Seems to be a bit easier with the shooting.
Richard Prideaux: That's the thing. I suppose shooting at least, if you're there on your own or no one's taking photos of you, can always get photos of the rest of the line of pegs or something like that or something from the day. If you're out fishing on your own and no one's taking a photo of you, it's just sort of the top of the waders, isn't it? Or something like that.
Sam Turner: Pretty much, unless we all start buying these AI glasses, which I know Jake doesn't like very much. Trying to find a set of polarised ones is a nightmare at the moment, because I have tried.
Jake Woolf: Well, I've actually just bought a new bit of tech because I'm a complete novice fisherman. And so this is going to be a lot of fun where I'm going to be learning through you guys. Oh God.
Avian Sandercock: We apologise in advance.
Jake Woolf: However, we're going to be going on a bit of a journey and as we move forward, the exciting thing is that we as a family are going to kind of embark on this adventure together. None of my family, Joe, Tobes, Laura, even baby Florence have ever picked or cast a rod in anger with a fly attached to it. So I have gone and bought myself a DJI Neo 2, which apparently has incredibly good tracking. It's lightweight and it can do that kind of [unclear] circle. Listen, it's got more gadgets than I know what to do with.
Avian Sandercock: What is that? Is it a machine, a rod or a camera?
Jake Woolf: What the hell is a DJI Neo 2? The DJI Neo 2 is a drone.
Sam Turner: By the way that I fish, I am usually more likely to catch something in the air, which is usually a tree branch.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, or a bat. I caught a bat once, honestly.
Sam Turner: Cool, that's pretty good.
Richard Prideaux: We're going to put a pin in that, Avian, and come back to you because I want to hear the bat story.
Sam Turner: I was just going to say I'm more likely to hook a drone than I am a trout, but I want to hear the bat story too.
Richard Prideaux: Okay, we'll finish up on the bat story, but I think, I mean, the whole point of this episode is to sort of set the scene and give the audience an idea of who you are. So maybe we should run through skill ratings on several different things. So that'd be easy. Well, you are the Fish and Game podcast hosts, so let's cover it in that order. So let's do fishing. So zero is complete below novice. Don't even know how to pick up the object. And ten is a god at that level. So let's go for where you think you are on, say, fly fishing. So zero to ten, each of you. I think Avian first.
Avian Sandercock: That's kind of a two-part answer, isn't it? In terms of obscure information and having read the books and in theory know how to do it, probably a seven and a half.
Richard Prideaux: So that's armchair fly fishing then?
Avian Sandercock: Well, yeah, but then again, in terms of the equipment I've bought over the years and hidden from the wife in a cupboard, maybe an 8. And in terms of fish in the net and successful days with elegant casting...
Richard Prideaux: I suppose that does set up the thing that you'll have to repeat through all of these shows as you move forward, which fishing and catching fish are not the same activity. Sometimes they happen on the same day, but not always.
Avian Sandercock: Rarely in my case.
Richard Prideaux: What about you, Sam?
Sam Turner: So I am a firm believer in that fishing is absolutely nothing to do with catching fish. And I'm probably a four out of ten when it comes to actual fly-fishing, with an enthusiasm level of ten, possibly 11.
Richard Prideaux: Okay. And dare I ask Jake?
Jake Woolf: Well, I'm not going to be a zero, but I'm going to say two, because I've seen one and I'm certain I've picked one up and handled it. But I've never cast in anger. I've never cast out onto a bit of water or a bit of land, so I am very much a novice.
Sam Turner: How can you be a two?
Jake Woolf: Well, because I've seen it. Richard said a zero has never even picked one up and I'm certain I've picked it up. I have fished. I've done some sea fishing in the past, and I used to love growing up in Wimbledon, getting the bus over to Kingston and fishing off the Thames — perch, pike, the odd boot, a shopping trolley here or there. It was the eighties and the Thames. But my school, we had this wonderful reservoir and we used to fish off the side of the resi there. I had a great time until the blue-green algae came in and then people started getting very sick and stuff like that. So we were all pulled back into the houses and we weren't allowed to go fishing again.
Richard Prideaux: Decontaminated.
Jake Woolf: Yeah, exactly. Washed down, you know, and put through the shower system. But so fly fishing, I'm going to put myself as a two, never cast in anger. But coarse fishing, I'd put myself probably, I know you didn't ask about coarse fishing, but yeah, that's probably the level that I'm at, maybe a four or five for that.
Richard Prideaux: Well, that's the thing. I mean, we haven't got all day, but I could just go down through every single niche subcategory of fishing for this, which that's the first year's episodes tied up there, isn't it? Because my fishing has always been mostly on the sea because I fish for the table mostly. That's what I grew up doing. So that's where I've sort of steered towards. But every time I talk to friends about fishing, you sort of have to align with their conversation to find out what they're doing with reels. Yes. Okay. So what water is it? A canal? Canal? No, got no interest in that. No rivers. Oh, I can actually get interested in a river. You know, so you've got to find your little tribe within fishing. And I suppose that's the thing for the three of you, because Jake, I mean, I suppose you're going to be taking the brunt of the, I don't know how to do this, but I'll give it a go. For Avian and Sam, what would you say are, you know, what is your fishing? What's the thing that you identify with the most?
Sam Turner: Mine would be, mine would probably be fly fishing now, but if I go back to when I was a kid and something I probably want to do with my kids was chucking the line off the harbour wall in the hope to catch a crab or going out picking cockles or winkles or something like that, all the way up to, you can get a charter out to go mackerel fishing, which is great fun. Something we'll hopefully cover in the future will be tuna and shark, which I'd like to do off a big game boat as well. Fly-fishing is easy for me because I'm on a river here, so I can kind of go and I use it as an escape from everything more than fishing for the table, like you say, Rich. But it's, yeah, there's lots of other things to explore, I think, rather than the fly fishing therapy that I do.
Richard Prideaux: So what, yeah, to what degree is that fly fishing therapy you standing in a river, not talking to people?
Sam Turner: That's exactly what it is. And without getting myself in too much trouble, I don't go down to the river that I'm talking about fly fishing. I go down there to practice my casting.
Richard Prideaux: Just get the fish used to what happens.
Sam Turner: I'm teaching myself and the fish.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, that's it. That's it. What about you, Avian?
Avian Sandercock: Well, I mean, I started fishing. My grandfather was a keen fisherman up in Stoke-on-Trent. I think I caught my first stickleback when I was about six. I've been quite lucky over the years. I'm quite ham-fisted, but I've always had a give it a go attitude. So, you know, we had a period of years where we did carp fishing, which I loved the technicalities of, but was really rubbish at. And for us, it seemed like siege warfare: camped up by the lake for four or five days with nil return to show for it because we didn't know what we were doing. Fly-fishing I've come to a bit later in life, and I enjoy it, but I really am not built for anything elegant or athletic. As I think I've said before to people, it's very much like whipping a greased pig with a pool cue. But the one thing I've really loved growing up that I'd love to try and get back to and unfortunately in the West Country we don't have those bigger rivers or the more fertile rivers that hold them is just a very simple day walking the banks, ledgering for chub and barbel. And I think, as you said, it's so absorbing and you're on your own, you're in nature, you're cut off from everybody, which I think is fantastic. I've met an awful lot of people over the years, but I think by now I've probably met enough. So I'd love to go back and have a day catching chub, floating bread crust, just very simple.
Richard Prideaux: I suppose that's the thing with this podcast and from what the three of you have told me about your plans for it, there seems to be this big overlap between the shooting world and the fishing world. If you're interested in one, you're probably interested in the other to one degree or another, whether it's about the food or whether it's about just the experience of being there and the connection to that place. So are you going to be covering fishing and shooting throughout the series? Is it going to be split down into two? How are you going to cover it?
Avian Sandercock: Well, you mean we've thought about it? That's a very bold move, Richard. The three of us have talked about it and got excited in the build-up. We'd like to try and dabble into both sides all at the same time. So, you know, we'd ideally have a sort of core topic, but I don't personally, I don't want it to be this week we do shooting, next week we do fishing necessarily, but just something that, as you said, plays with that crossover. And because I think all of us who enjoy spending a day in the outdoors, that's the key to it. And as long as we're not playing golf, you can actually immerse yourself in it and enjoy it. So we'll try and pick on something that interests us or something we know a bit more about that the other two don't or however it goes and just try and broaden that view.
Sam Turner: And there might be episodes where we don't talk about fishing or shooting per se. We talk about the things that surround those bits. So we might talk about gundogs, we might talk about woodland management, we might talk about a bit of gamekeeping, we might talk about anything like that, deer stalking.
Jake Woolf: Falconry as well. I'm really looking forward to getting back into that.
Richard Prideaux: Hang on, I didn't sign you up for falconry. It seems like part of the common ground of this is conservation and the — I don't know — it's sort of the emotional experience of doing that thing, sort of the felt and lived experience of being in that place doing that activity.
Sam Turner: I don't think any of us are going to sit here and tell people what to do. I think that it's going to be people joining us in learning things and going through a process and exploring different things you can do in the countryside rather than us dictating to people how things should be done and why they should do it. So it's a journey we'll all go on together.
Avian Sandercock: I don't think any of us have sort of got the faintest hint of trying to be experts in anything. I think, as we said earlier.
Sam Turner: I'm pretty good at getting stuff wrong.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, me too. But actually sometimes getting things wrong is a wonderful way to actually discover a bit more deeply what does work and what doesn't work. And I guess we're really keen for people to share their experiences and thoughts with us, and as a group we all increase our knowledge and understanding — and hopefully our enjoyment of being outdoors.
Jake Woolf: I mean for me it's going to be taking the family and going on that adventure and journey together. I take so much solace in actually doing stuff with my family: my eldest, who's 28 and has started his journey quite late; then you've got Toby, who's ten; and Laura, who helps behind the scenes with what we get up to. We're going to talk about all of that coming up. What I've found, coming to it quite late, is that some of these experiences can be quite solitary. Now, that's wonderful. I've not stood in a river, but I'm told it's wonderful. When you go out deer stalking, there's a connection there; it's beautiful. You're at one, whether or not you're going to pull the trigger or you're there with your camera. You'll know this about me as we go forward: I love that community aspect. I love where you can do it with more people and you can share that experience. And that's the enjoyment that I really want to get across from Fish and Game is how these things don't have to sit there quietly. You can enjoy them. And I'm going to try as long as Laura comes on board with it as well.
Avian Sandercock: So basically, if we need you to do something outrageous in a stupid outfit, we've got to bribe Laura first.
Sam Turner: I think what you're saying there, Jake, is what is great about what we're trying to cover with this is because you can go fly fishing by yourself just to get a moment to yourself. You can go fishing with a group of mates on the same river. You can go fishing on a boat with a group of mates. You can go pigeon shooting, just you and the dog. You can go shooting with a whole team of guns, you can go deer stalking by yourself or with a friend. You can kind of chop and change all these different things that you want to do with as many people as you want to do it with, depending on what you need from that experience, as it were. So there are different things for different scenarios in your life, I suppose.
Richard Prideaux: We're talking about that social experience. I mean, I know all three of you and we've had many conversations at the Game Fair and all sorts of other places over the years, but I know the three of you through shooting together or different shooting related activities together. So maybe we should sort of briefly touch on that towards the end of the show here and just let the listeners know what you do in that world. So Avian, you have a — is it a syndicate shoot that you have?
Avian Sandercock: Syndicate's very grand. We have a little club shoot on a farm. Right. So it was a quite an old syndicate. My wife and I joined. I'm very lucky that my wife, Claire, shoots as well. Hell of a lot better than me. But we joined this little syndicate and as the way of these things, you know, it's often a small group of local people get together, pay a little bit of money to a farmer, put some birds in the wood and enjoy a few days shooting in the season. And unfortunately, people moved away and it sort of fizzled out. So there were one or two of the guns and a few of the beat team said, well, we can probably take this on. So we're in our third year now. Actually, this morning I was there at seven o'clock letting this year's batch of pheasants out. And we've really focused on it, not so much as a shoot because we only put a few birds down and we don't see many of them. Half of the guns probably would miss the floor if they dropped the gun. But we love it. And it's very much to Jake's point. It's about the community. I think our youngest member is eight and our eldest is 86. And it's far more sort of an armed dog walk, hopefully take something for the table, but bloody good elevenses in the barn and then off to the pub for a pint afterwards. So far more about the local social thing than the actual shooting. But we do a hell of a lot of work throughout the year just in habitat restoration and management. And it's like having a very big allotment. It's lovely.
Richard Prideaux: So the shooting is almost sort of superfluous to the wider year-round experience then?
Avian Sandercock: Oh God, yes. All the guns say we're not really here for the shooting, are we? But I think the bizarre thing is, Richard, to touch on that, very much that's at the core of our little club. But I think it is important for people who don't shoot to understand, and again, perhaps with fishing clubs, if it wasn't for the fact that we are going through the motions of putting the birds down, looking after them, bringing them together, trying desperately to shoot them whilst wearing ridiculous outfits, which I'm sure we'll come to in future episodes. None of us would probably get together on that farm three or four weekends in the summer and every weekend through the winter if it wasn't for the shooting. So that's kind of the glue that holds that community of 25 or 30 of us from all different walks of life and age groups together.
Richard Prideaux: That's fantastic. And Sam, I mean, you seem to be active year round with the shooting with, it looks like you're doing a lot on the clay side of things.
Sam Turner: Yeah, so my early days of game shooting were very similar to what Avian just described there, but after a few years due to land ownership changing and bits like that, the little syndicate we had came to an end, which was a shame. And it's still a group of friends that we try and do one day a year during the season together. And I'll get a few days during the season, but more recently the big thing for me has been the sim days and coaching and corporate days and bits like that we do through the spring and the summer mostly, which has been brilliant fun. I did my coaching course and bits like that. And I actually really enjoy doing the corporate stuff where you're taking people who have never held a shotgun before and you're teaching them that it isn't a nasty thing. It's actually great fun. Getting them breaking some clays and a smile on their face and feeling more comfortable with a shotgun than they do when they first come into the stand is, I think, absolutely brilliant. And like Avian says, it's seeing people, especially on the sim days, you get a lot of teams of guns who are probably a syndicate throughout most of the season who are doing that thing that keeps them together throughout the summer when they're not seeing each other every weekend. They're booking into a sim day and they're kind of rekindling that friendship they have for three or four months of the year throughout the rest of the year. So that's been really good fun, really good fun.
Richard Prideaux: And from what I've seen of you guys already, you really try to bring together that community aspect of what you do. You know, you're very active in the shooting community sort of online and keeping that wider conversation going, because I know you do work with GWCT and to come to Jake in a moment as well, I know you've got, you've all got these great community connections within that. Is that something you want to try and bring through into the podcast episodes in the future?
Sam Turner: Definitely. I think shooting is probably more about people than it is about actually shooting, isn't it?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, I agree. I think in its purest form, definitely. And I think if we lose sight of that, then we put the whole kit and caboodle at risk. But I think fishing is just the same. It's that custodianship. You look at rivers as a non-fisherman and they're just wet on the top and they look a bit green most of the time. And sometimes they're brown and sometimes they're not. Whereas fishermen are actively surveying the health of the river every time they go. It's easy to walk the dog and walk past a wood and think, that looks like a nice wood. But unless you spend a day or two regularly in there, you don't get to see the changes to it. You don't get to see what's working, what isn't working. And for me, that's the fascinating bit is that sort of development of the environment and the habitat management and the fact that as long as shooting is about the community and the environment, yeah, the taking of the game is kind of the icing on the cake.
Sam Turner: The only trouble with getting more and more into fishing is you get more and more infuriated by your local water authority, it would seem.
Richard Prideaux: You're sort of left to get on with things more in shooting, aren't you? Well, Jake, you're sort of involved at different levels because you've got the gundog thing as well and you're a photographer. Can you sort of explain what your role in shooting is, what you do?
Jake Woolf: Okay. So here goes. So I bought a dog for my wife and in 2010, that sparked everything. And I'd been involved in the countryside. My first job at 16 was as a falconer working at a falconry centre. This is where falconry comes in. And then going out on hawking adventures and what have you. And anyway, the thing with it is, as my journey with the dogs got further and further into picking up and then to shooting and owning a gun, getting my licence and what have you. It all cascaded very, very quickly. And I can remember a flashpoint where I looked at how the industry was and I thought to myself, there's something we can do that won't reinvent the wheel, but we have an opportunity to speak to the naysayers. We're going through a very big period of change at the moment with ammunition and with how we're seen. And so I had an opportunity to approach a local estate who were diversifying their farm and say, I think there's an opportunity here in a small walked-up-style shoot day where you do small bags but with small teams. We stay in luxurious accommodation and you start ticking those boxes. What do people really want? They want that immersive feeling within the countryside, that hunter-gatherer feeling of being walking up, but they love dressing up like Edwardians. But they also want to be fed and they want high-end, best-quality food so that it's sourced from the estate. So all of a sudden we're bringing in local businesses, chefs, that has worked really, really well. And that leads into KuduRiver Gundogs. It is based around my dogs, but it has grown into these wonderful countryside experiences at Branches Park. And seeing those communities and those friendship groups coming together is really, really special. Watching people come together, hard-working men and women who turn their phones off when they pull up the drive and they don't switch them back on again until they have to leave two mornings later. The only time they've touched their phones is to take pictures. That's really, really cool. That has been really successful over the last three seasons, going into our fourth. But, more recently, TWENTY10 has come about, which is the other end of the spectrum.
Richard Prideaux: Which is not the year, it should be said.
Jake Woolf: Or the time, or anything like that. It is a concept of being able to take 20 people shooting over 10 pegs and experiencing an estate that not everyone can necessarily get onto. Now we're going to talk about this in the future, about all the different ways and stuff like that. So we're not going to go too deeply into it now. But all my thing is, and I've mentioned it already in this episode, is how important it is to bring people together. And by building community, you get that whole opportunity to enjoy that day for longer and share it with more people and make it more accessible. And that is what's really led me into my shooting kind of way of life.
Richard Prideaux: And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, hang on, pegs, you're still talking about pegs — I thought we were just doing falconry. As you go, are you going to be sort of explaining some of this? Because some of the terminology in both fishing and shooting side of things is weird, isn't it?
Jake Woolf: Isn't it just? And when you're coming into it new, you're almost having to ask questions which you think are [unclear]. I remember standing amongst people on my first days picking-up, and the first day I went shooting, and I had no idea what they were talking about. Now I had some concept of, you know, a peg, but if you go and stand on stop with your dog there, [unclear] until we call you back, and then go back to the tree in the corner and stand there and wait — I'm like, what am I going to do? This Labrador's looking at me, going, ‘We didn't train for this. You trained me in a straight line.’
Sam Turner: That's one thing about the TWENTY10 concept as well, though, is it's not only making estates that are probably or potentially unaffordable, more affordable, and sharing that day with more people, but if you're a bit inexperienced and you book yourself onto one of those, it's kind of the same as booking yourself a loader or a chaperone to take you on your first game day because you're sitting there with somebody who knows the weird terminology we have in shooting, knows the etiquette for the day, kind of knows how the day will run. And you can stand there and you can ask questions and not feel pressured into, should I shoot that one? Should I not shoot that one? Am I shooting at the right time? Is that too high? Is that too low? Have I done something wrong here and all those things that might be running through your head that would actually probably ruin your day a little bit if you're worried about them too much.
Jake Woolf: Yeah, definitely. And I think that's where the TWENTY10 Club has really kind of excelled is it can allow the novices to come in and everyone's full of advice. If we were to sit at the pub at the end of the day or if we were to meet up in a WhatsApp group and talk about bits and pieces, we could all tell a story here, there and everywhere about this and that. Sometimes you just need to break down those barriers and what I would really hope and what we are going to achieve in this podcast with Fish and Game is we're going to kind of break the back of that. And so people can come along with the journey. And those questions can get answered. I'm really excited for it. I know that you boys are as well. So it's, you know, for the non-shooter, for the experienced fisherman, for the [unclear] stalker and the falconer.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, this is the only thing. When you do the falconry episode, can I come back for that one? Because I'm going to duck out now and I'm going to leave you to record the first proper episode because this was sort of a teaser and a setup for the main thing. But when you do falconry, can I come back?
Speaker unclear: Please do. Please do.
Richard Prideaux: I think that'll be the next one I'm back on, really. And in the meantime, you're going to be covering anything you can think of related to fishing, to deer stalking, to driven game shooting, rough shooting, walked-up shooting, all the conservation behind it, some of the sort of land management aspects. I mean, I've had a look at your show notes here for the future episodes and it's a diverse bunch of ideas, it must be said.
Avian Sandercock: I think the real point, just to summarise what we've been waffling on about this evening—
Jake Woolf: Is that me?
Avian Sandercock: No, that's Claire. We're not having salad for tea, obviously.
Jake Woolf: You're having takeaway. Yeah, so what Avian was trying to say was we're going to take things forward. And anyway, fantastic episode, ladies and gentlemen.
Sam Turner: Are we going to do a cookery episode based on that?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, not from here. No, so I mean, I think whenever anybody's looking, there's always that barrier to entry, isn't there? If you think I'd like to have a go at game shooting, but I don't know what I'm talking about, or I want to have a go at sea fishing, but I don't know where to start. I guess being three willing non-experts, what we're hoping to do is demystify a lot of it, break down the initial barriers and just encourage people to give things a go. Come along with us and try things we've never tried before and not pontificate about it and sort of block people's ambitions by, well you don't know this word and you don't know that word. So we will be very careful to try and explain all the cryptic words and weird handshakes and strange clothing of all these different sports and just try and show people that, yeah, give it a go, get out there and have fun.
Richard Prideaux: And in the interest of getting on with it, we're going to bring it to a close there because you can go and listen to the next episode of Fish and Game. Right now we are releasing this episode and the first episode at the same time. If you go to the show notes on your podcast player, that's like the bit of text that comes with the audio file on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening to this podcast, you'll find links in there all about the hosts, more about what they do, the various projects they're involved with and just more about the show. So I'm going to say goodbye and I'll let the other three, well, I think I'll just let them speak now because you don't need me.
Jake Woolf: Well, that was nice, Richard. I mean, I mean, he's gone, lads. Listen, for free, for free. Honestly, look at that. Like we've been let loose.
Avian Sandercock: The problem is he's taken all the 50ps for the meter, I think.
Jake Woolf: Hang on, I'm running out of time. Yeah, 100%. Get pedalling, Sam. Get on that gyro, mate, and get it working again. We're getting the lights back on, but...
Sam Turner: So the windmill's going around. Yeah, nicely.
Jake Woolf: So.