The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

In the summertime I've been known to moor on one of islands near Shiplake where JK Jerome and his mates camped in Three Men in a Boat. Rodney Bewes also use to moor there in his small white cruiser called 'Silver ____?'. Annoyingly I can't remember the full name of his cruiser! He was a friendly chap for sure, and use to wave when I passed. Oddly, it's the same mooring where I saw a pair of Red Backed Shrike about 18 years ago, whilst I was fishing. Rodney nearly always moored in that spot for a few days each summer.

Absolutely invaluable advice thank you Cane. Plans are on hold for a while, as I’m sure you will understand. I’m focussing more on the river Wye at the bottom of our road at the moment......

Troydog wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 6:40 pm Absolutely invaluable advice thank you Cane. Plans are on hold for a while, as I’m sure you will understand. I’m focussing more on the river Wye at the bottom of our road at the moment......

Very sensibly so! The Thames will still be there next year, I’m sure. Tight lines and all that.

No mention so far of the Rose Revived at Newbridge. I knew a family who ran the White Hart at Fyfield, not too far away from that part of the Thames.
They sponsored me for four years when I raced in proper Road Racing in the IOM and Ireland. They took over the Rose Revived and my wife and I looked after it for them one night a week so the eldest son - the licencee - and his wife could get a night off.
At the time I was working for Kawasaki Motors UK Ltd at Slough. We had a bit of an unoficial social club and I ran a fishing match on the Rose Revived's stretch of the river. We had about twenty anglers, most from Kawasaki but two from the Honda raceteam and one from a local fabricator and very good angler who used to build Lola F1 race chassis for Eric Broadley. IIRC, he won with a few pounds of Roach and a decent Perch.
Nobody got a big chub that day, the stretch from there to Bablock Hythe was alive with them, but easily spooked.
Coincidently, the pegs for marking the swims were borrowed from the Oxford Section of the Vintage Motorcycle Club. Kawasaki business cards were stapled to them with the peg numbers felt tipped on. A couple of years ago I watched a VMCC trial. Several of the pegs were in use marking the observed sections, still with the remains of the business cards affixed!
Rooms were available at the Rose Revived and AFAIK it still has the fishing. Above the Bridge the Windrush enters the Thames. I caught one of my only two Barbel in the Windrush, in the nearby weirpool.

Like the other I caught on the Thames at Crowmarsh Mill's weirpool bankside, I doubt it went a pound................................