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Back in the Victorian and Edwardian eras it was a common sight to see a Thames fishing guide taking his clients out in a boat chasing the river species. Each small area of the river had it's own guide in those days and the new breed of middle-class client-anglers would catch one of the new trains from London out to Staines, Windsor etc and pay for the privilege of getting expert guidance from a local man who lived on the river and from the river.
With the decline of the Thames water quality due to abstraction, pollution and navigation changing the whole geography of it, angling declined. Slowly, one by one the guides died out and were never replaced. Until now.
These days angling guides are back with a vengeance. Not just on the Thames, either. Today, in the C21st a Thames angling guide might be based on the Thames but he will also cover a much bigger area than just a half mile of river. Modern transport and greater expertise means that some guides will travel - even taking you to the far flung north of Scotland for Salmon and wild seatrout or to the deep southern chalk streams for grayling and barbel. A quick Google on the net will find you quite a few more guides than you might imagine but beware, not all of them are up to scratch.
Today's angling guide is required to be a consummate professional in all respects, not only must he be an angling instructor, he now has to be a health and safety expert. The qualification to look for is that the guide is Professional Anglers Association (PAA) registered. This will give you the confidence that you are not in the hands of someone who will one day appear on the Rogue Traders TV show!
One of the latest top-flight anglers to embark on a guiding career is Alan Tomkins. Recently retired IT consultant Alan has finally given up the desktop and VDU for the riverbank - it's about time because this is his true vocation. He has little to prove. A regular angling magazine contributor for decades, he was a known 'name' before many of today's angling heros were even born. I first encountered Alan in the early 80's. He was fishing a massive gravel pit with about 6 monster carp in
it and truly believed that he would catch them. And he did! He was one of those at the forefront of the carp-fishing revolution and has become one of the most respected figures in angling today. He was one of the first members of the elite British Carp Study Group, wrote a carp rig-tying book for Tim Paisley and has recently passed the tests to become a PAA registered guide. I understand from my spies that he actually spent much of his time there teaching the PAA instructors how
to Wallis-cast with a centre-pin. This doesn't surprise me as Alan is generally recognized as one of the countries leading exponents of the art. He's a consummate all-rounder and there is little in angling that he can't teach you. A decade ago he taught me how to cast with a pin - and how to successfully and regularly catch barbel and grayling, so I recommend him to you. He's a good teacher.
I went out with him on a half-day late September lure-fishing trip on the Thames. The conditions were far from ideal, the sky was brilliant blue and the temperature had dropped right down due to the previous days crashing thunderstorms that had come rolling down from the north and east. Those same storms had shed a million gallons of icy water over the upper Thames that had spent the intervening hours trickling down to Windsor, carrying sediment and colouring the water. Did I mention? When chucking a lure around, the clearer the water the better is the general rule. So, things did not look too brilliant but you'll never win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket so we launched the boat and set off.
The flat bottom on Alan's boat makes for a very stable fishing platform. The boat is not very elegant, nor is it fast. These are excellent qualities in a Thames fishing boat! It is also amazingly solid, rugged and unsinkable - so when we eventually reached the top weir and ran aground onto a new gravel bar that has appeared in the shallows, no damage was done. I reckon you could spend five minutes whacking that boat with a hammer and would do it no damage. But I'm not sure that Alan would let you test it out like that!
We started out moored in the middle of the weir where we could cast to both banks and the weir sill itself. We switched lures every five minutes and finally started to get some reactions. I had a follow-up on one lure and then 15 minutes later a surging take as a fish followed up and decided to eat my lure just as I was lifting it from the water. The subsequent watery explosion took me by surprise but the rod took on a reassuring full hoop as the fish plunged under the boat. How big? I'm
not too sure; I only got a glimpse of it but it sure felt like a double. Then it was gone, shedding the hooks before I could get used to the idea that I had hooked one. Damn. I hate it when that happens. The yanks say 'That's why it's called fishing and not catching'. I say, Bollo**s!!
We continued to thrash that weir-pool for the next hour but the water was becoming cloudier and colder by the minute and the fish just wouldn't have any of it. They had vanished. We didn't care. We were having a really great day, just fishing in a beautiful; place on a beautiful day. We up-anchored and drifted downstream with the current. Switching lure-size down to smaller plugs we thought we might get a perch or two by casting under the overhanging bushes that characterize the Thames margins in this area. With the fishing being so slow it became a casting-accuracy competition, seeing how far we would risk it. He Who Dares Rodney I quoted. Then I swore as I missed a hard sharp pull on the rod tip.
The water was clearer here away from the turbulence of the weir and the odd small perch was clearly seen following up our lures. But we were after their bigger cousins and, though fishing light tackle, we had wire traces, just in case.
We had picked a bad time for boat traffic. Just about every rowing team in the area were out and about, each with its accompanying power-boat and megaphone-wielding trainer. Alan expertly guided us down the north bank where I played chance-my-luck casting into harder and harder to reach gaps in the overhanging bushes. Suddenly Alan let out a quiet yelp of satisfaction. Fish on. A pike? No. A perch? Hmm. Maybe. Blimey.
It's a chub! And a good one too, well over 4lb and on it's way to 5. Well I never. A chub on a plug. Not often you see that is it? But ten minutes later I cast into a black hole, turn the reel handle once and whack! I'm into another chub. A similar size to Alan's but I want to weigh it. 4lb 12oz. Two chub on plugs in 15 minutes! What are the chances of that?
An hour later, with the water becoming clearer with every yard that we drifted downstream, we had another couple of fish. I had a perch and Alan took yeah, you guessed it, another 4lb+ chub! It strikes me that this could really be the way to sort out these rare big Thames chub. It's a great way of fishing too with never a dull moment. The scenery is constantly changing and each cast is into a new and unknown swim. And there are some hidden monsters in the river; nobody really knows what is in there. The next take could be the fish of a lifetime.
As the light began to fade we had a brace of pike, the best of the pair maybe going 8lb but fighting like it was a twenty. Alan unhooked it in the water and we watched it swim off. Then back to shore before darkness fell. Only then did I realise that I had accomplished what our American cousins might call a Grand Slam. A perch, a pike and a chub, all on small plugs. And all on a day when the signs were not promising.
See, if you don't buy a ticket you can't win the lottery.
Check out Alan's new guiding service on www.riverwhy.co.uk
Geoff Maynard
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