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Fishing the Upper Thames


Fisherman Mike
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I’ve been fishing the infant Thames between Cricklade and Castle Eaton for the last 40 years man and boy and in that time the river has gone through cycles of change. There used to be reasonable numbers of big roach during the 70,s Shoals of reasonable dace and the odd shoals of grayling in the 80,s. Chub in the 90,s with the odd Perch.

Gravel extraction in the area has adversely affected the water flow to the extent that the stretch from the source to Kemble and beyond often is dry or just a trickle in high summer.

 

Gravel extraction on a large scale is being carried out and at times the excess pump water turns the river a soupy beige colour.

 

In the last 10 years or so the Perch have been scarce with may fish of breeding size washed into the fields when the spate of winter rains raises the water level by 4 feet or more and flooding of the water meadows occurs.

 

Just recently I have been catching some cracking Perch again. Fish of breeding size and several over 2lb and lots around the 1lb mark…may not seem like much to some but considering the Thames in this location is a stream which is easily forded in many locations they are a significant catch.

 

Also we are plagued with North American Crayfish which are reproducing at an alarming rate. One sweep of my landing net through the marginal weed yielded 7 of the little blighters all perfect miniatures of the adult but 1/12 in long. These are possibly the reason for the Perch recovery and also the increase in the average chub size with fish of 4 lb regularly being caught.

 

Otters have also been sighted in the vicinity which will also help to keep the Crayfish in check. Im off again this weekend and Im going to take my Camera with me so hopefully I can post a few pictures up. It’s a stretch of river which is a wonderful place just to relax and watch the day go by but as the vale is exposed can get a bit chilly when the wind blows so I have to resort to the occasional slurp from the hip flask filled with Whiskymac and port cocktail

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Hi Mike

Which angling club has the fishing rights to the stretch? I have recently moved to Cricklade and have often thought about having a bit of dangle in the river here but didn't really know who controls the fishing or what fish I could expect to catch. I have been fishing for the last few years around Hannington trying to find the elusive barbel but catching mostly chub. Give me a shout if you find yourself around here on a sunday afternoon and I will drop you a cup of tea down

Nick

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One of the things on my 'to do' list is to fish some of the upper Thames, I am mainly interested in the Pike though.

I am walking the Thames Path with Mrs D in sections from Windsor to the source, so I am looking forward to seeing what it is like further up, it sounds very nice and I am glad it is fishing well.

 

I heard a report of a monster Barbel caught fairly locally so maybe the recovery is not just confined to the upper reaches.

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One of the things on my 'to do' list is to fish some of the upper Thames, I am mainly interested in the Pike though.

I am walking the Thames Path with Mrs D in sections from Windsor to the source, so I am looking forward to seeing what it is like further up, it sounds very nice and I am glad it is fishing well.

 

I heard a report of a monster Barbel caught fairly locally so maybe the recovery is not just confined to the upper reaches.

 

 

did you see the countryfile programme a few weeks ago where they traced the source of the thames, really interesting and nice to see they are monitoring ground water levels at the start to protect the upper reaches from drying out

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Yes I did, I am looking forward to getting there.

We are a little way off as the logistics get harder the further we get from home there about 104 miles from Windsor - we have done about 40 of those so far, including 18miles on Sunday in that rain :yes:

And I keep stopping and staring into the weir pools dreaming about fishing them all...

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did you see the countryfile programme a few weeks ago where they traced the source of the thames, really interesting and nice to see they are monitoring ground water levels at the start to protect the upper reaches from drying out

Many years ago I recall reading about the monster brown trout in the Thames weirpools, are that still a fact of life? As I recall it seemed to be a pretty specialised branch of angling and required a lot of dedication for it to be successful.

 

Blackpowder

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Just saw this post..

I have seen stuffed trout caught from the Thames but they are from way back (they are in the Flower Pot pub near Henley these days) but I can't comment on the upper reaches Mike will know more about them.

And there was a 14lb 8oz Salmon caught at Maidenhead in 1993, but I haven't heard of any others.

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I remember a 5lb brown trout came out of the Lower Thames maybe 10 years ago, it was caught on a small plug, but that would have been a very rare catch.

Sea trout do come out, I had one at 2 1/2lb on a red maggot fished from a whip while trying for livebait one year.

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