Teaching Modern Fishery Management - Episode #12 with Dan Hatherley Hurford from Plumpton College

Dan comes from the 'Golden Era' of fisheries graduates, studying at Sparsholt alongside the likes of Viv Shears and Andrew Ellis. In this episode Dan shares his story that led to his current position as Fisheries lecturer at Plumpton College.

Dan has gone above and beyond to put Plumpton on the map as a recognised fisheries college, a reflection of his passion and genuine interest in fisheries and countryside management more broadly. Dan often uses humour to deliver his knowledge and experience to his groups of students, a top bloke that genuinely cares.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Welcome to the Fishery Fast Lane podcast. I'm joined with Dan Hatherley Hurford from Plumpton College, who has welcomed us here today to record the podcast. So thank you, Dan, personally, for that. We met through Andy, probably a few years ago now, and uh when you bring students out to work with Andy, a fisheries, and uh myself out on site, it's always a good fun day. I enjoy your sense of humour, but you always know when to switch it off and be serious, and I respect that, and I think your students respect you for that. Um how did you get into the role that you've got into, Dan?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

The recent role with teaching.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Yeah, how have you got like your how did your career unfold? Where did it all start? And what is your story?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

I think it's probably um similar to many in that as a as a child I was fascinated by water. You know, I was always involved in, you know, at any time I'd call grandparents or my mum to the nearest place, and I'd want to spend time in it and get wet, didn't matter about my clothes and looking at things like tadpoles or invertebrates, or I was really fascinated with stipplebacks, and I remember that. You know, because they they seem to be everywhere as a kid, and I was I was really fortunate to grow up in Somerset, yeah, and uh I think that area is just like a plethora of natural things to do for your kids, especially when kids are outside, you know. So I I enjoyed it a great deal. And um, my grandfather, uh, who was a big influence on me, was an angler, right? Um, but also um really well respected. He was um uh a very practical person, he was a uh old school tools engineer, so he trained his uh did an apprenticeship and did his um tooling before um CAD and all the machinery came into play. Yeah, um that's really interesting. I'll come back to him though, yeah. Um but yeah, I obviously I was interested in this aquatic environment stuff and used to do everything like marine, rock pooling. Right. Um it's one of the best things for my mum. She used to turn up at Kilve, uh, which is near minehead in Somerset, um, with the right weather, and uh give me a bucket and I'd just disappear for the day. You know, come back to eat and then go straight back out and see what I could find elvis, needles, and rocklin, and um different types of blenny and different crabs, lobsters if I was lucky, stuff like that. I just I was fascinated by it all and still am, you know. Um, but um my grandfather got me into angling, and I was you probably tell I'm I am quite hyperactive anyway, generally. I sort of have peeps and trossies though, so getting old. But um, when I do move, sometimes I just don't shut up. But um he got me into fishing to try and give me something to concentrate on, you know? Yeah. Uh and it worked. Um also he was quite old school, so I had to clean my kit after use and all those sort of mantras are passed down through to me, and and I pass it on to my kids and students actually, same sort of thing. But uh yeah, I mean I went through school, I wasn't particularly academic at school, right? Um, with dyslexia. Okay. Um I found some things a struggle, but I was always really practically orientated. I was able to um describe, articulate, design, foresight, all those things. Uh, and I think that's um very useful, um, thinking back to what I do now, because I can see it in in others and give them an opportunity because I'm not I haven't got that kind of Victorian notion. Yeah um again, that's another story, but um yeah, because of that, angling it's it it becomes infectious, doesn't it? Yeah, and then all you can think about night and day um when you've first got the infection is just everything to do with fishing. Oh, it's just fishing mad. Um bless them. I l I lived around a corner from a proper angling centre, uh, and I used to go in there every day and see um John Blackburn, his name was. Uh, and he he was a mate and my granddad, so he he was understandable. Uh and I used to be a maggot boy on Wednesdays and go and do the maggots and do all the preparing, hand picking casters and all the stuff. Because I um I belonged to this angling club called Bridgewater Angling Club, and it was really streets ahead in the day, in the in the 80s and 90s. Um, clubs, probably because of the lack of restrictions, I would say, used to put on these coaches. And we used to go as a group, didn't matter what background you were, where you were from, you were part of this little club, and they would take you to the club waters and you would fish. And uh, if you won, um, they'd give you a little envelope with some money in it. Right. Um, and we also used to inter club competitions. So I always remember fishing against the silver dace um on the uh Bristol Avon, and they take us up to Bristol from Somerset, um, fish against them. And uh, I think I caught four gudgeon and uh my keep net had such big holes in it, I had to keep them in my um lunchbox.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

But uh yeah, I mean because of that fascination, I think like many people that you've probably spoken to today, um, when they found out that they could do something that was related to or similar to their interests.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

So, where did that, where did you you're in school, you've got this passion for fishing, you ended up going to Spa Show, is that right? How did that unfold?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Well, initially I wanted to go to Spar Show. Right. I was going to do countryside management at Cannington College, right? Um, and then I found out about this um fishery management course, and I was like, wow, you know, I I want to do it. And so did everybody else at the time. So my I applied for Spar Shall, I was a bit late in the application, but my mum's a super lady, um, very bright, really influenced my life actually, um, and such a special person. But she uh contacted Sparshell and spoke to this guy called John Bramford, right? And uh he was just new to Sparshot, but he was head of division, and it just so happens um that although Spar Shot was full, it was out of capacity, every course was ram full. Um, he just came from this college in South West Scotland called the Barony, uh, and he was the manager there before he moved there. And he said, You have you considered the Barony? And my mum's like, Wow, you know, Scotland, and I was like, Scotland, you know. Um, and it I don't know if you know, but in Scotland the educational system is a little bit forward, so they they start back at college in August, right? It was literally like a week before the the course started, right? And uh my mum's very clever, and uh it's a bit of time has passed now, so it's fine. But she rang the Barony College and spoke to the principal and said, My son's been um, we've been given your name by John Bradford, I believe you know, you know, played the game. Um, would it be possible for Daniel to come on the course? And they said, Well, it's very close. We actually start next week. Um, would it be possible for you to bring him up for interview? So my grandfather just got an XR2 uh Ford at the time, like Hot Hatch, it was really funny. Um, and he drove us to Scotland and I had an interview. And he said, the uh principal, he said, we'll give him a place subject to funding. Right. And my mum, the same day on the way home, phoned County Hall in Taunton and said they will um uh they will give us the funding subject to place. So she she said, he's got the place subject to funding, and she told um the college, we've got the funding subject to the placement. So she absolutely winged it, and I got the funding to move the next week to Scotland at the age of 16.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Right. Okay, so when did the Spartial chapter come in there?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Well, I think I always wanted to go there, and when I was at um the Barony, which is um sadly no longer delivering um sport fishery management or fisheries courses, and that's a that was a sad day, but that's just life, you know. Um the the barony overtaught us, it really prepared us well, and it was an amazing experience for me, in the same way, but different to what I experienced later at Spar Shall. The kind of people that I'd met um of different ages from all over the north of the country. I'd never really met northerners, you know. I'd never really intermixed with anyone from Scotland. Right. I certainly didn't know about the kind of um England-Scotland divide at that time with a bit of history, blah, blah, blah. But when you get up there, um it's real, but it's only real for a bit, actually, once all the kind of peacock syndromes back down. They were um there were some of the best times of my life. Yeah, absolutely. I I learned so much, and those friends I've got now I'm in contact with and I've known since I was 16. Yeah. Um, the the Barony, like like Plumpton College got a large estate. The difference is it's got a salmon river flowing through it. Yeah, it had a um a trout farm that we worked on every week. Um, we got taken out to work on other trout farms, so it was quite salmoned orientators. Uh, but I got to fish in really mad areas that you've seen um videos of of late, you know, like cart fishing in Scotland, uh fishing at um Loch Maben and uh uh Castle Loch, which um I knew cart were in there when I was there in uh I think it was 1992, 93.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Um and and they were still the kind of mystical thing then. I think that's at the time when, like, you know, I know you saw Viv earlier and Simon was probably dreaming about Razby or something like that. There's me up in Scotland in the lowlands. So yeah, so I went there and um I did really well. You know, I think if you take someone out of an environment where they're learning something with not realizing why they're learning it and there's not correct target setting, you don't teach them about progression properly, which is in my opinion, what has and can happen in schooling. Uh, if you haven't got a target, it's very difficult to know where you're throwing your darts, you know. Um, and I I did well, I I finished the course two weeks early. I uh I remember it's the first time I felt like I've ever had achievement, you know. And my grandfather was X RAF as well, so um, he was like super proud. The principal and uh some of the uh lecturers that you weren't allowed to call them by first name, so it was quite old school. It was like Mr. Wood or Mr. Walker or Martin Haynes, Mr. Haynes, um, and uh Mr. Patterson, and they they were so brilliant and patient at what they did, and they really taught us so well. Uh, I finished two weeks early.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Um you when did the Spartial chapter come in?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Well, I always wanted to go there because it was like this kind of pinnacle, it's like holy grail of uh going to a fisheries college at that time. There was nothing of it, it was like Scotland all there. Yeah, all the other ones that have popped up and failed since um uh didn't exist. Right. Um and I just wanted to go there. I had an option to stay and do a H and D, which would probably be called the equivalent of a oh, it was a HNC then actually. Right. Um you know, those they don't exist anymore. Um, but I wanted to go to Sparta, so I I enrolled um on a national diploma, yeah, it was called then, and I met some of the people you know now. Yeah um and in my group was uh at that time like Andrew Ellison, yeah, um other people. Other people, like she is well Viv was there, oh right, wasn't he? Viv was there, but Viv was um Viv had done uh because he's a little bit older, he was there, but he was he, I think he just finished his H N D.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

I think that's what he did. So what did you do when you came out of Spar Shop? Did you find work straight away?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Or yeah, I mean I um when I was at Spa Shop, I did the ND uh the first year, and I thought, you know what, because I got so well taught at the Barony, I found it a bit repetitive, although that's useful. I didn't feel like I was being challenged as much, right? So I spoke to the uh the lecturers at the time, which were like Sean Leonard and Pat Howton and um uh Mark Badass and all the other legends, uh, and Chris Seagrave, and uh I said to him, Look, what do you think about me stepping up? And they said, Do you think do you think you can do it? And I said, I well look, I'm getting distinctions in this ND. I don't think I'm being really stretched and challenged. And they said, I'll tell you what, you can go on to the H and D. Um, so I transferred to the H and D in year two. So Andy stayed on the ND, I went into H N D. Yeah, um, but we still shared shared the same accommodation, which is another story. Yeah. Um, and you've heard plenty of uh uh stories about that. But um yeah, I went on to the H and D and uh and that at that time the H and D in the first year degree course, uh, which was relatively new then, a couple of years in, uh taught in the first year the same. And um, and then it would splinter off a lot of those guys went into industry, or you'd go on to year two or year three.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Back then, Dan, was it was could you see opportunities in the industry, or are you just on a bit of a whim because you love fishing? Is there like an industry opportunity there?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

It wasn't all about fishing. I think the underlying thing for me was just a fascination with like um any aquatic life. Anglin was like a recreational act that gave you justification to be in an environment without looking odd or trespassing, you know. Um I I enjoyed angling. I thought the the kind of hunter-gatherer element of it and or whatever underpins the the uh the connection with anglin is really important. But um, yeah, I know I was just I I was taught things like aquaculture and fish farming and right that just didn't involve fish, you know. I I remember finding it fascinating learning about shellfish culture and oysters and um mussels and uh and scallops and things like that. So when you're learning something that is of interest, you become in the same way like when you first start fishing, you become engrossed in it, and I think you do well.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Was a career in fisheries on the what were target of yours? Was that the goal, or did you just kill killing time?

SPEAKER_01 14:03

I honestly think that you go in, if you ask, and I do, we ask students to write down what their goal is, what their dreams are, and they always say, I want to own my own lakes first thing. Um, and I want to be a fishery manager. Um, sometimes they say, Do you know what? I want to farm fish. And and you're like, Wow. And half the time that's because their dad or something else is involved in it and and they want to take over the business. Some of them, especially nowadays, they all want to be a professional angler or a sponsored angler and probably don't realise the the tremendous effort and hardship and short shortage, the shortness of those sort of availability and or jobs, or what goes with it, probably didn't articulate that very well, but they're not as easy to get as one might think, or pay enough to earn a living. Right. Um, I think tackle design and being in a company is something that comes alongside that. That's probably where the package comes together. So that that is one of the options for them. But for me, angling wasn't the thing. I think once I was bitten by the kind of husbandry and culture of of different aquatic species, I was fascinated. And I I to be honest, I wanted as a kid, I wanted to be a vet, it's probably what Fifth said too, but um, when um I wanted to work in mariculture, um, and I because I um I transferred from the H N D um which I'll come back to now, uh I asked again if I could transfer from the H and D. And they said you if you take the 14 exams, so you take all the H and D first year exams and the first year degree exams.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

H and D, which tell us what that is before we get.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Yeah, higher national diploma. And I wanted to transfer to the Bachelor of Science degree, and they said I could transfer up if I passed all the H and D at Merit, and I passed the first year exams for um uh the degree, which are sequence different, they're sort of different questioning styles and stuff. Yeah, um, and I did it, and that's how I got on to the Bachelor of Science degree, right? Um, but yeah, in terms of what I wanted to do, I I really wanted to go and farm Bass and Breen.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

Right. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Um, I was I was absolutely fascinated by it. I went and went and did it as one of my placements. I worked for a company which still exists. Um, it was a subsidiary of a big um company in Scotland called Caines Fish Farming, right? Um, and it was in uh the Pennepanese called Solomonda Aquaculture. Right. And I worked out there as uh when I was on the degree, um it did me a load of good in many ways, actually. I went out there at like I think I was 16 and a half stone, um from all the beer and that we were drinking at college, you know, eating too much and trying to chase girls but getting short breathed. Um and when I when I got to uh Greece, I think the diet and the environment and I was swimming and climbing, I came back just under 12 stone. I was there for 12 weeks. Right. And um I couldn't do one pull-up. I probably couldn't do one pull-up now. A bit Rich is laughing in the background, but um, I think by 11 or 12 weeks I was doing 100 for fun, right? You know, and I came back and I was all hench and I was, you know, and I was like, oh, this is good, it's a whole different game, you know.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Um yeah, I I mean everything about it was just what I wanted to do. It just didn't happen. Um I did go for a job, and uh for one reason or another, it it it didn't happen. I think it's because my age, you know, I was quite young, and uh, I because I stepped up and went through the cistern, I probably hit the same ages as you would in normal education, but I was I was about 22 when I graduated. Right. Um, and I got my Bachelor of Science degree and uh and a few pats on the back, you know, because I was that hyperactive, dyslexic kid of the 80s that had been pigeonholed that then got into learning a subject that was interested in. Yeah, and then um it all went good. Yeah. Um, but then what did I do? You know, I didn't get into this kind of mariculture side. I uh I got an option at Spar Show. Uh Pat Houghton said to me, he said, look, um, I need someone to do the feed trials for what was a company at the time called Trow. And uh it's it's not an uncommon thing. I think a lot of the year three degree students stay on and do it because it's um easy money. Uh you're already vetted, so to speak, and um uh they know you and they know that you'll do it and you've got the skills to perform it. So I did feed trials, um, and that was supplemented with working in the college bar as well. And uh 16 stone, yeah, yeah, packing it all back on. Uh it did help with the recreate recreational life though back then. Um, and then uh I got house with uh Viv Shears there. Uh he allowed me to stay in a house with Simon Elliott.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

Uh do you could you tell Viv was going places that that time?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Do you know what? I did I looking back, I was thinking about that. He was as a technician, Viv, you you know Viv, don't you? Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was he was good at his job. He used to go around in a buggy all the time, always chatting to people, blah blah blah. I'd get the job done. But and and he'd talk angling and he did like a pint and all that, and we used to go out and stuff, no doubt about it, and had some great times um uh and Southampton, stuff like that, bonkers. But um, he was definitely going places, and so and with Simon then I remember that kind of entrepreneurial bug, and I didn't really think about it at the time, I just thought, oh, taking advantage of an opportunity, you know, and that's all it is taking that advantage of opportunity. He started doing um from memory, he was doing pellets, and he because we had that contract with feed companies, I think they were buying it in um because you can, uh, and then the carp scene had just gone nuts, and it was all about pellet, you know. So he was selling with Cy, uh not with Simon, so with Simon Scott's, um, lots of pellets, I believe, right at that time, and the the garage was full of it, you know. Yeah, uh, and anglers would turn up and and buy 25 kilos of pellet, um, and they still do now, don't they? Yeah, uh, so I think it was kind of entrepreneurial in that sense then. Yeah, and I and that actually, if you think about it, um the kind of footprint or template for success is already sown when you were there because he we'd all watched Chris Seagrave and Pat Houghton with Bow Lakes and their success um with their fish farming, and and you're qualified to do the same thing. It's that kind of leap of faith to go and do and replicate that, maybe do it better, you know. Yeah, the same thing, but better as a motto of plumpton.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

Yeah. Am I right in thinking that you did a stint with the EA environment agency?

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah. Um, at the same time, I did apply for um these these jobs over in the Mediterranean. Right. But then uh whilst working at Spar Shalt, this job came up as uh back in the day where it the EA just formed from the NRA, National Rivers Authority. For those that don't know that, every now and then government has a shake up or their subsidiaries and they reinvent the wheel to try and make it look more efficient, and then they amalgamate um different groups to make it more efficient. Yeah, and they formed this something, uh, this organization called the EA. I think it was a year before. Right. Um and the structure started with something called a fisheries assistant, right? And then it went to a grade three fisheries officer and then a grade four fisheries officer. And a fisheries assistant essentially is someone uh it's like a a team gopher, as well as you have to organise the stores, get everything ready, prep, clean, the whole, the whole thing. Uh the sort of things that I teach my students here, yeah, you know, the basic skills. Um, and I went for this uh fisheries assistant job in Thames region, a place I'd never been before. Um and I I wasn't overly excited about it, a place called Hatfield in Hertfordshire, um, where it was based. But um I got that job, and because I'd had that kind of You know, continuous mantra of effort and passion. Uh I did really well. Yeah. I settled into the team really well. And they were like the best people to learn from. Absolute characters, some of them. Some of them still there, like senior management in the EA now. But we were an operational team. And I was doing all the all the stuff that you dream about, really. Yeah. I did. For me, it was a dream. Like the monitoring program. We were out electrofishing on the River Lee. And you know, all these rivers that had played a part in my reading and understanding about the history of angling. And then next thing you know, I'm on the cone and the Lee and all these places, electrofishing places that you've never been as an angler. And you wouldn't see because you have to get in and go up to see. You know, it's a completely different aspect than doing it.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Is that what led to Plumpton?

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Um that job.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Was that the last one?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

No.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

No. So I got I got a fisheries assistant job, and that was the Thames region one. Right. And then naturally I wanted to progress. Yeah. So uh I um I saw this job advertised in Sussex region. So it was internal advertising now. Um and it was for a grade three fisheries officer in Sussex. Uh and I went for the job and I came with pretty good recommendation because I, you know, all right, I can be jovial and have a laugh at that, but I can also um be professional if I want to be. Yeah. Um and I I put on the right show and I got the job. And that job came with the credentials at that time. It just it just stepped up the ante um in terms of professionalism in in that under the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, uh, you're warranted as a constable when you're a fisheries officer. Right. And for that reason you have the have similar privileges and powers as a police constable in for the act for um enforcing the act. And that meant that I suddenly got training that I never thought I was gonna get. So you had things like conflict resolution and buttons and handcuff training, um, uh how to interact with public, media training, all this stuff that um was just so far away from what we'd learnt when uh when I was at um at Sparchot, you know, it was just a different thing. And um, I was in Sussex, I loved it. Uh it was such a diverse job then. I had powers to six miles at sea, and when we're at sea, we could have blue lights on the boat, and we all had helmets and we were boarding vessels um and inspecting, looking for like cash salmon and sea trout and stuff like that. Um, and every night like later, we even um uh joined with other enforcement agencies. So for a couple of operations, we were working with special branch, right? Um, because they they didn't have the warranted powers to board a vessel without reasonable grounds, okay. But as a fisheries officer, we had reasonable powers to board, um, or if we had reasonable cause to suspect, we could board a vessel to investigate. Okay, and then special branch, because they can support a warranted officer, could follow. And what we were looking at is um the drugs runs from mainland Europe, right? Uh, where sea fishing boats were running drugs. That's cool. Um, so that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

I'm Ben Pinnegar, and I'm your podcast host. For those of you that don't know me, my business is called BP Milling, where I specialise in producing plant-based pellets for fisheries that break down fast. I farm my own carp entirely on my pellets, and you can see me doing exactly that over on my BP milling YouTube channel. So if you're enjoying the fishery fascinating content and you haven't discovered the BP milling YouTube channel, then there is loads more content like this where we deep dive on the science behind running fisheries, how to run fisheries in a healthy way, and how I farm my carp. There's loads of videos of me doing exactly that. If you're interested in finding out a little bit more about my pellets, we have an online shop where you can purchase the feeds directly, delivered to you in bulk or in single bag quantities at www.bpmilling.co.uk. You strike me as like knowing you how I know you, you strike me as the class clown, but you've had a lot of formal, very sort of professional jobs. Uh we haven't even got to Plumpton yet in the lecturing. But how's you you obviously strike a balance which I think you've got to play the game?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

There's nothing wrong with enjoying your job. Absolutely, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with having a laugh. Yeah. But you just need to work out when to and when not. Yeah. Um, and actually, humour makes the world go round.

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Yeah, and I've seen you with your students, and I think they like I know for myself when I had lecturers like yourself that you you respect them so much more than when they're more human and they are like that. Being a person's important thing. Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

100%. Um the Sussex thing. Uh the powers at sea bit was just one part of it, and going out on the boat. And I had these other new people that I'd met. Um, people like Mark Thane, and um there were uh there was um some other m members of staff that were really inspirational, you know. Again, a bit older, so you always look up to them, I think. And they they they knew that I knew what I was talking about, so they they they they brought me into the team and I I was involved in everything. And in the yeah, if you put yourself in the right position and act in the right way, things happen. And I I was given an enhancement budget and I was working, I was given a catchment, which was the local river ooze, uh, which is a very interesting river in that it it's tidal, tidally influenced quite far into land, like up to I think it's nearly eight miles. Um, and then you've got this kind of man-manipulated freshwater um, you know, tributaries and things like that, and then it and then it goes into this influence from the South Downs, where you've got all these natural um chalk springs that create chalk streams, which um then flow into the ooze and um influence uh what can survive there. So it's really big for things like um sea trout, and they're like such a marvellous creature in that they have such an interest in life cycle, being anadromous, they uh go to sea where there's more of a larder and they fatten up and then they come back. These in it, I think it's one of the largest average sizes of sea trout in the world. They can be like up to seven, seven pounds um or more. I think the largest one that was reported to me was over 25 pounds, and they are you know a salmon, they're a uh a formidable creature, yeah, and they swim upstream and they spawn in the headwaters that we've got here on the estate. Um Sussex chalk streams are rare as hens' teeth, yeah. Uh they're totally um undervalued, and luckily there's a movement towards um removing and um enhancing and re-wiggling and all this sort of stuff to do with uh rivers in the UK, and I think there's a heightened awareness now of um this kind of 10-year decline in pollution. I don't want to go off on one, but there's 38 Sussex chalk streams in the world, and that makes them one of the rarest habitats on earth. Yeah, and we've got um five or six on the colleges of state. Um, it's all about time and influence and backing uh to try and get something done. Yeah, but but back to work, um, I could probably knit that in a bud pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Yeah, but that brings us up. Like I I had no idea that was so much behind you and your story and what you'd done, but that brings us up to I'm conscious that we there's a lot more I want to cover in what you're where you are now. So just give everyone a taste of what you do now. What is your job role and what does it involve?

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Well, I joined Plumpton in 2017. Um, previous to that, I was uh a fisheries consultant. So after the EA, I did quite a lot of stuff. I went into environmental crime, right? Um, and then I was in a flying squad uh equivalent, and we uh used to go around the country doing the higher-level fisheries enforcement, like the Elva enforcement on the seven. Um, a lot of I got trained more heavily in things like covert surveillance. Um, we used to put a lot of camera equipment in, we used to do foot, and um, I got trained in uh foot driving um and um uh covert crop surveillance, like putting in cameras in rural areas. So that was awesome. Uh, and then after um I got uh my end with the EA in 2010, I started my own business and I was a consultant in the same way like Andy is now. Um, and I worked really hard. Uh but for a couple of years I was spinning too many plates and I put myself in hospital three years in a row. I have pneumonia and hypothermia. Really? And uh the last time I did it, I was 20 minutes off organ failure.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

And I didn't know I was, I just thought I needed a cup of tea, you know. But um the doctor said to me, uh, what do you do? And I explained, and he went, I just had a young son, and he said, You've got you've got to think about what you do, mate. And you you need to change your career. Oh my god. And I was I always found it a struggle to get employees that were able to be prompt, on time, interested, put a full day in and be papery, you know, get up early, work late, all that. It's really hard. And I thought, well, what I think sometimes the only way you change something is to um try and get involved in it. And I thought, well, I think I can give back like people have given to me, um, and did such an amazing job of it. If I can emulate even half of what they did for me, then I'd be doing the right thing in this kind of circle of uh of life, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Where was Plumped and and the fishery course before you arrived then? Was it was it existing?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

It was it was existing, it was very old. Um really good bloke, uh Andy McCall, um, who was part of the initial um setup, but it was very small. I mean, Spar Shuttle had always been a kind of king ping lead animal, yeah. And other um inst institutions, I guess, or other colleges had had set up since um in that time that we talked about, like um HADO, um, who still exists. I mean, they're our main competitor because they're only 38 miles away, but I don't like to see it like competition.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

No.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Um, I came into education because I wanted to give back, and also I was consciously aware how fragile we are, really. I think you have to have a shock before you realise that maybe you've got to adjust what you do. Yeah, saying that now I do run around like a blue ass fly all the time these days, whether I give myself enough time. Uh that's another question. But um, coming into education is a it's been a wonderful journey. I re-re-educated myself as a teacher, which I think looking back to what we said about the 80s, I think is a milestone in itself that now I'm teaching others, but I can use my experience and understanding and empathy and sympathy and ability to look at and draw the right out of people. Yeah, I can see good in in what they do, I can manage behaviour. There's loads of key transferable skills that I've gained over the years that help me be a better teacher.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

Do you think, Dan, with the way things are changing so fast in the modern world, that is is education changing with the likes of AI coming into it and is that being used by students? And are we less reliant on actual human intelligence route now with being replaced by AI and things?

SPEAKER_01 33:19

I think that's a great question, actually. Um, in recent years, AI has come in, um, but we deliver something um that is underpinned by City and Guilt now. You know, I I feel that the qualification that we deliver is quite robust, and the reason for that then is because it it has an exam which is externally moderated, and there's no use of IT or anything like that in the exam unless it's because of an educational need. But that's 100% watch like a hawk, it's exam conditions. They also do uh unit assessments, but unlike when when you do the lower courses historically, you could go away and work on them independently, they have to be worked on and um they can be researched, but they have to be worked under set dates under observation, right? And there's also where you've got AI, we've also got, I suppose, AI-based software that can tell you whether AI is involved. It gives it there's a system called Turnitin that uses this new software as an addition and it tells you um how familiar, how similar, um, and how it relates to everything on the web or other. So anything that's been digitized, it will tell you what percentage relationship it has with it. And if it's over 15%, um, then it would we have to talk to the individual and they have to look at um either mild adjustment or they're given a completely different assessment because it's felt that they've um uh cheated.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

Is on the other side of that, Dan, is it helpful in your job in teaching?

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Oh, yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Um, but one thing I have learnt very quickly with any uh non-human system, you have to be able to guide it. And there's a tendency that if you wrote into AI, oh um, write a sequence of a thousand numbers in any order if you like, and then repeat it after so many times, it does the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Um, and it's about it's a bit like a Google search. If you put too much in or the wrong spelling or something in the wrong order, you'll get a different outcome. Um, so it's how you use it. You can get it to work with you to support things, but it's not a kind of in my mind, it's not a direct replacement. Yeah, it can help and it's powerful for research, it's good for doing things to assist you in your education. Like, for example, if you gave it a list of resources, it could Harvard reference them for you, which saves you hours of uh individually doing it like you used to.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

Yeah, I just wondered if if you're searching on on AI and it's scraping the internet for information and and compacting it into a package to deliver it to you like that. What if the information it's scraping isn't accurate? Yeah. And then it people that are posting that onto a website that perhaps is could be scraped again by AI later on, then it surely our information is going to get less and less accurate and less and less reliable. But I I don't know enough about AI's total.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

I totally agree. One of the reasons why we use a library, and the students you know are in the in the library at the moment and they're on a research-based task, is because within the first few weeks we do this thing called initial assessment to look at what where the student is in terms of ability, their level of need or support, or their the kind of level that they need to study at. So if they're at the wrong level, we can move them up or down. Yeah. Um, but uh we do use um the library also to cement that kind of connection between books and uh different other methods of research. So the internet is one powerful method of gaining resources, but books are often before they go to print, they're vetted by industry experts to make sure that they collaborate or corroborate or agree with what's written in it. Yeah, and that's that's more powerful than someone that maybe doesn't know quite what they're talking about, but it's quite influential on um media and therefore listen to more. So there is that kind of um difference between quality um of information, and and there is a lot of fake news, you know. That's a common term, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 37:30

Yeah, it's um obviously angling and mental health is quite a lot of crossover there. Have you found coming into this role educating the next generation? Have you had to be quite clued up or researched or or educated on what to look out for and how to deliver and look after your students?

SPEAKER_01 37:48

We have um uh compulsory CPDs, which is like uh compulsory um training um and development. And we obviously mental health is a real big deal um and has increased exponentially over the last few years, and I think probably because of awareness and the ability to um to report or um try and seek help, whereas I think maybe it was a bit closeted historically. I don't think there's a huge increase in it. I think there's uh maybe an increase in um uh fake mental health, yeah, but then that's really that's a harsh thing to say because one person's ability to cope with something is different than another. So it's all about getting the right diagnosis, yeah. Um self-diagnosis is a big deal, yeah. Um, but then you need to have support for that, maybe. Yeah, sometimes it's just a shelf for help. Um, and we have a safeguarding team at the college that we work closely with, so there's that kind of um pastoral um support that we have here because we can't do everything. I mean, you know, you're well, I I think you know anyway, Ben, but I'm quite a busy person. I teach full time, I've got to manage staff or work with staff to make sure that we're delivering the right program. Yeah, uh, we've got a facility to manage with livestock, so there's a husbandry element to it. Um, plus I'm a dad, you know, I've got my own kids. Um, I think that's helpful, of course. Yeah, uh, but yeah, I mean I'm I'm a busy bee. But uh the uh there's there's the sort of safeguarding and um management of of behaviours and helping people with um that need support is it's really important in education.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

Yeah. I know when I was studying fishery management at Sparshall, as I was leaving, I know that Viv and Simon were very aware that the curriculum was trying to be more class-based and less practical based. And I think that was something that they were really fighting not to happen. I don't know if it's successful in the end or not, but is yeah, do you find that part your course is there's a nice balance of practical still, or is it are they do the people above try and bring it back to a more classroom-based, less experience-based?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

I think the the courses that we deliver at level three still have um quite a large level of practical involvement in them. But I wanted to sort of quantify a few things in that in education you need to learn aspects of theory. And often theory is then cemented by practical action. So if you, for example, methodologies from a safety perspective, if you want to even learn how to, I don't know, something simple like putting in a fence post, there's a method that you would follow, or methods you could follow. So you need to look at how that relates to things like tool selection, um ground conditions, uh, health and safety. Those are the things that you would cement in terms of theory, and you probably support that with um uh then demonstration, and then you repeat that practically to then give them an opportunity to learn how to do it, when to do it, why they're doing it, uh with what tool selection they're using, etc. And I think you can transfer that across the 14 different subjects we teach on curriculum, which is pretty fast. Yeah, um, some of them are quite wide scoping, like estate skills, um, which includes things like management of boundaries, um, and again, that can be used in all sorts of land and wildlife industry. Um uh keeping people out, keeping things in, keeping predators out, keeping things in, that sort of stuff. But you at level three, you certainly know how to uh do those um specific acts. So fencing, um, even hedge management. So I teach them how to do uh hedge laying, yeah, um, because that's part of the wider curriculum. We learn about things like fault finding and rectification of engines, so things like pre-start checks. So before you go out on a job, you've probably been out electrofishing before Ben with Andy. Um, if you if you've got two generators, you want to make sure they're running, um, that you've checked them for faults, leaks, all the things that could cause environmental damage, or um lose your money because you uh you turn up on a job and nothing's working, um, you you've you've got a delay and you're less efficient, and also people judge you on it. Yeah. Um so starting off on the right things like learning when to, how to safely, how to fix, how to rectify, or specific actions, yeah, following methodology and then practical um instruction and then repeat is powerful. Yeah. Um, some subjects do have a large theory element to it, but one of the marvelous things about Plumpton is that they've um adapted this facility here, where we've got a CFAS registered fish farm next door with both siprinids and warm water species, and um which is it is uh is currently being adapted and expanded, uh, right next to the classrooms. I mean, we call them wet classrooms for a reason because you can literally pressure wash the classrooms down. Yeah, um, but that's another story. So you could turn it into anything. They're like um municipal, you could be doing um fish biology and then break out the fish dissection kit and do a dissection right where we were doing it, you know. Um, you can do the dissection, take skin scrapes, put it on the microscope, show it on the big TV, write and um analyze and zoom in, get them to identify. Um and then that cements what what might not necessarily be picked up by all. Yeah, not everyone's a practical learner, no, um, but then most do come here because they think that that's not that's all we'll be doing. Right. Okay. But that's not the case.

SPEAKER_03 43:32

Because that was probably the biggest what I saw as the biggest opportunity when I was at college was those work experience weeks where you're engaging with employers, and you're that that was how I met Andy ultimately in my first year, and how I still work with Andy now, and that was probably 15, probably pushing closer to 20 years ago. And I still speak with my the exper work experience I did in my second year with Priory Fisheries. I I still speak with them, and that's what I see as the biggest opportunities. Are are students still able to get that? work experience in modern times or are they more classroom based again?

SPEAKER_01 44:04

When I came here in 2017 in the curriculum they're um they're generally expended to try and do one work experience day a week. Now that's great but it has its flaws. The reason it has its flaws um to an extent is that not all aspects of the program are deliverable in Sussex. An example is if I'm doing salmoned farming or talking about salmonid culture from an environmental perspective that's situated in in Scotland at least there are obviously some local trout farms that use chalk based aquifers like at chalk springs and such like um for trout farming. But if you want to learn about salmon farming you've got to go to Scotland. We're fortunate in this area to have two of the major coarse fish farms in the country although there are loads of others um which I'm aware of um I remember dealing years ago with Ben Gratwick and he was there at Priory when you were there no doubt. And he was another reputable um company which would be the sort of place where you want to send them. Yeah. But what I negotiated is is try to replicate what we had. So we had three week blocks didn't we I remember um vividly going to Anglers Paradise I think everyone did um with that angling connection with you know Zig Gregorick and his madness and his family and uh all the things that came with it toasting and chucking wine and all that sort of stuff netting and fish farming I I I enjoyed it a great deal. And I also enjoyed uh I went to Calverton yeah uh to the environment agency fish farm when I was a student right and at the lower level I think it was in our first year and it was hard work. I think the the old boys that were there um yeah um weren't easy to get on with but um it's a there's it's weird how uh life goes around in that I had a phone call from the EAA last week and I spoke to Rab, um who's one of the senior guys there and he said Dan we'd like to um work with you and look at an opportunity to re-engage with um Plumpton students um we've got harvesting coming up uh we we would we could host them for two to three weeks at a time um we'll accommodate them we'll feed them and you know that is an opportunity yeah um and we've been working on opportunities ever since I got here so this year is the first uh actually it's not the first year but it's the first year of organized students that are going to go up in batch groups to the Environment Agency Conservation Fish Farm at Calverton. Right um we also send students with um not a unique relationship but maybe unique for FE. There's a company called Hendrix Genetics the based uh owns something called Hendrix Salmon. It's called Lancatch when we were at college is the location um and uh we send students up to learn salmonid farming principally because not only is that something that's so um you know such so enriching but getting that industry experience that you can't get in Sussex you're not going to get that a day a week it's a long commute to the west coast of Scotland you know I drive them there you know we leave at 315 in the morning or do it the same time same way every time they stay here 315 leave get to Scotland by 11 we have some food swap drivers get up past Loch Kilped get up to on the west coast near where you would get the ferries to the islands and then we arrive and uh Hendricks have been so supportive um Jan Vanderberg um thank you he uh helps us with accommodation um in like croft cottages um on an estate which is where the Lancatch fish farm is um and he's mates with the uh with the king so they have to be on their best behaviour right um so you know there's a lot of reputational impact of um poor behaviour by the way from students but these guys have gone up there and they've really um for the majority of the time they've waved the flag um and i again it's not a new thing I'm just emulating what we had and I I believe like you that that's a powerful thing. Yeah with that said they've done is that is there opportunities in fisheries at the moment are employers coming to you looking for students they do yeah yeah yeah uh every year Viv um rings me all right um and I've always had an uh honest relationship with him yeah and also I am honest with the uh the legal process as well so if if he rings me and asks me straight up I can decline or accept yeah um but if we're just having a chit chat about it uh I can give him some pointers on when I think someone's maybe suitable or available.

SPEAKER_03 48:37

What are they looking for? Are they looking for does practical ability trump intellectual sort of intelligence?

SPEAKER_01 48:47

I think I think it's job dependent I mean if I think we've had um a shoot for example might go and work in a lab working at Cambridge uni supporting um their research I think if you've got that theoretical drive and and that's what you're strong at uh that's your job that's what should suit you. I think if you're already a practical person and you've got um good work ethic uh and you're prompt and you're driven yeah they're the people that if you're in a if you want someone in a fishery management or a fish farming or aquaculture scenario yeah they're the ones you want. You also want fit people don't you you want someone that can work all day not moan about such yeah um and that you know I I wouldn't say that that has dropped I think people moaning is just something as you get older you notice more. Yeah um just reliability isn't it yeah reliable you've got to be reliable and we do get a few yeah and some of those are successful um Aaron gets uh quite a lot of students that have worked via Plumpton for him yeah um and also go to um we've got this brilliant relationship and I really do think outside the boundaries in that we don't have a HE provision at Plumpton so you can't progress to specifically agricultural fisheries. We do have a university centre which is marvelous for like sustainable um environment based courses but not specific to fisheries management or so we have a relationship with Sparchal where a lot of our students naturally want to progress there like we did. Yeah yeah um and I uh drive the students there and they accept us and they give us a tour, give us goodie bags and whatnot. Yeah um and many of my alumni are Sparshell alumni yeah and um I think it's a brilliant thing.

SPEAKER_03 50:33

Because I just wonder with opportunities and like in a such a rapidly changing world with things like opportunities in YouTube and media where you think actually the younger generations can probably educate to the older generations to sort of guide you to where actually there's opportunity in media of things like why we've seen Carl and Alex on YouTube and how they've created their own opportunities and their own path into a media industry and um do you see any any changes happening there with perhaps the importance of things like YouTube as a C V almost because if if people are put in uh understanding algorithms YouTube can go either way if um if you get it right and you're giving the audience what they want to see and you're intriguing and passionate and um something interesting to watch you you do well I think um I mentioned earlier about you know we're talking about Anglian history even recent um what I would call media stars for this new 16 year old group that are coming in only one in one in 20 or something will recognise that person yeah whereas if I said Carl and Alex um they recognize them.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Yeah um whereas if you asked me uh show me a picture of Isaac Wharton although I wasn't around then clearly yeah because of my expanded level of interest so I know who it is but they wouldn't have a clue or a few of them might you know and I think it's about familiarisation. Yeah a lot of them are YouTube ice and sadly I'm not allowed to use TikTok but um they're all over TikTok like a rash you know right um I met I had the pleasure of meeting Carl when he was working with Nash right because we had a really good relationship with Nash Tackle um but that things moved on after COVID and Sally that's not the case anymore quite quite like it was although we're open to it um uh Carl moved on um I think Alex went off to do his like foraging stuff and find himself and all the things you do I think at that age anyway and I didn't really know what to think about Carl but I tell you I went to um uh a local tackle shop called Vogel's angling right and um Carl was there right and the the queue was around the block and I have to say um I've I don't mind changing my viewpoint um because it wasn't for me I didn't watch Carl and Alex but I I appreciate it but I've watched it and I've watched him and I met him as a person and watched how professional he was all day yeah and he is an absolute ambassador for the sport he was he didn't have a break he just about had fluids he was polite and kind to every person and genre of person he's a legend.

SPEAKER_03 53:16

Yeah I just wonder if like map perhaps it's not a skill to be taught in college maybe it's more of a school thing but whether like just just having skills with a camera it's so transferable across any industry you want to go into and I just thought yeah I can see being there being more opportunities nowadays in media and uh maybe being more of a commercial world and and there's no doubt about that they all um they all gravitate to it.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Yeah. I mean whereas before and you know it's like with any group of people you go to any pub now there are groups of people that will talk to each other and have a good drink and all that but also there's people sitting around the table with a pint all staring at their phones yeah and and students are the same. And so we have you know I'm not draconian but when I don't want them on their phones they're not on it and they respect that I'll say please put your phones away and it's not it's not a bum fight for it. Yeah um I I'm quite good in that sense right but I also use it the other way around I ask them I say right um let's have a look how many different types of definitions we can get for one thing or can you spell that for me because I'm struggling with it or I use it in in a positive sense. Yeah but the media side of things is is powerful. It's what I watch now I hardly ever watch the TV. No a lot of people say that now you know I I I search stuff myself I mean I was boring Rich earlier and saying I've watched your stuff it's um really good and obviously I was really impressed with the work that you did looking at kind of time lapse in terms of response to bait and all that and I thought that was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 54:43

It's addictive one actually yeah it's addictive I think when you although I'm so inconsistent when I do it I'm like yeah I've got to do another one because it does does just it gets people talking it it grows all channels and I think it's one of those skills that employers like tackle companies that would probably prefer somebody with an interest in angling perhaps coming out of college with the uh graduating from somewhere like this and you you just think yeah if they had a skill like that that would probably um I'll tell you what is linked to it um the college invested and I was a bit sort of ambivalent about it really that they invested in uh a new cube computer system right which was brought in because we've got metalsmith in and fine jewelry right um and they use it quite a lot but they've got a CAD system right for design.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

Okay. And um that's a big deal in tackle development. Yeah and uh it's hard to find those skills in course game and sea angling which is one of the units that they all want yeah to do um and uh we use anglin as enrichment by the way you know F equals reward but there is an actual they have to be competent in course game and sea angling in their second year. Right. But in that that includes tackle development design enhancements advances they have to know about rod manufacturing when the hooks first appeared um what they were made of blah blah blah uh all the everything from alarms and that and it you know you probably agree if you go into my office it's like um you know a hoarded element of all the different tackle and styles and things like that that I find interesting through probably the last hundred years plus.

SPEAKER_03 56:13

Yeah because I think when when I was looking to employ and the hundreds of people apply and you you look through them if they haven't got an interest in angling then it's not going to be for them so I always that's why I thought like with with marketing or roles in in manufacturing within the tackle industry you'd much rather employ somebody that's got an interest in it because they're not just going to go for the next offer that's the guy that's paying more money or you know it's a big corporate world. So having somebody that's interested in angling I'm I'm sure there's in probably like that that we've been speaking about a lot today with with finding niches in markets like um where marketing is quite probably a set a lot of people that study that in a much higher level and deeper.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

I know um yeah Rich was used to produce quite a lot of uh good material in the magazines that he's worked for when he was a uh journalist essentially um and that's that's really good because you can see different styles and um the passion coming through in their writing. Absolutely where people do that in they they did it in blogs but now they do it they vocalize it we've got um uh Faisal Sugar is one of our students and he's he's a uh predator uh fisherman he does lots of videos probably emulating Carlin Alex I would say yeah yeah and he's got loads of followers you know he's on YouTube he's one of the second years it's not a bad egg um but the the other thing I wanted to deviate away from the anglin side is that teaching and learning sort of fisheries and aquatic science at Plumpton it's it can lead to a lot of this blue economy um which is a worldwide thing right and it's not just about angling a lot of things orientate around angling particularly sport fishery management it's also about environment protection and that's freshwater and marine and that is really important a lot of our um rivers streams lakes and aquatic environments are under threat right and the these um youngsters that want to come in and make a difference and learn um these foundation skills here to use with their UCAS points to go to university and maybe become the next marine biologist or fishery scientist or um eco-warrior yeah they they can use our courses to progress in that way so there's lots of different options in terms of employability local to national to worldwide European you know fishery management in in Europe's massive yeah um there's plenty of options and that also goes to like feeding like you say the wholesale and retail market for angling yeah um aquatics uh wholesale retail food production yeah um and uh then recreation wow well dan I know we're gonna run out of time I know you've got students to get back to that are waiting for you to go back you're such a busy bloke we've only had a flavour of that today of you dashing in and dashing out and uh thank you so much for letting us use the facilities here and showing us around the facilities of Plumpton and the fisheries course thank you so much for coming on the podcast and hopefully we'll have time to squeeze this I think you've got a lot more to tell us than uh I think we brushed over a lot more a lot of what you've done in your lifetime but um hopefully we can come back and dig a little bit deeper into it I've really enjoyed it I think there's a tendency to talk to you about yourself a bit too much but um no I'd love to do that again I'd love to do one with Andy.

SPEAKER_03 59:21

Yeah we need to do that because you two both bounce off each other I think we ought to uh get one in the diary for that thank you very much very good cheers Dan