A meeting with a special bloke while Breaming on the Thames.
Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:30 pm
My wife and I moved to what was then Berkshire, soon becoming Oxfordshire due to boundary changes, in 1971. Dead keen to explore the local waters I fished the Thames just by Radley College. In fact, I parked my Morris Minor pick up in the College grounds and walked down. It would have been late September 1971 IIRC.
I set up a running ledger, chucked out a bit of bread based groundbait in a lovely looking swim and cast into the midst of it. Two hours later, one small roach, hardly a touch. Evening was falling and visibility was reducing when a bloke came along with a bicycle and a bit of fishing gear. He had been fishing a couple of hundred yards downstream from me.
We chewed the fat for a few minutes and I discovered he had had a few large Bream and a Chub. He asked me why I had cHosen that swim. Upon hearing my reply, he gave me a bit of advice I have never forgotten.
"No good fishing where there are no fish. This swim has always looked great, but has never fished well. Spend a bit of time finding feeding fish. It gets easy then. The Bream round 'ere roll on the surface if they are feeding or about to feed, so watch out for that. Good luck, young man, I'm off 'ome!"
And he pedalled away.
Years later I saw Matt Hayes fishing TV programme and discovered it was Peter Stone.
What a lovely guy!
I set up a running ledger, chucked out a bit of bread based groundbait in a lovely looking swim and cast into the midst of it. Two hours later, one small roach, hardly a touch. Evening was falling and visibility was reducing when a bloke came along with a bicycle and a bit of fishing gear. He had been fishing a couple of hundred yards downstream from me.
We chewed the fat for a few minutes and I discovered he had had a few large Bream and a Chub. He asked me why I had cHosen that swim. Upon hearing my reply, he gave me a bit of advice I have never forgotten.
"No good fishing where there are no fish. This swim has always looked great, but has never fished well. Spend a bit of time finding feeding fish. It gets easy then. The Bream round 'ere roll on the surface if they are feeding or about to feed, so watch out for that. Good luck, young man, I'm off 'ome!"
And he pedalled away.
Years later I saw Matt Hayes fishing TV programme and discovered it was Peter Stone.
What a lovely guy!