Belonged to Reading and district through Kingston working mans club over thirty years ago Dishyfish.Also fished the Kennet with CALPAC at Padworth.Many unforgetable names to remember.I qualified for the Diawa masters on Thele Lagoon(not Thele pit) unforegetable and the trip of a lifetime to the Guden in Denmark,what a river that is. Upper Benyons,Beat 5,The Cunning Man stretch,The Arrowheads,running the gauntlet with the Highland Cattle (some thought),realy they where pussycats, but you couldent get past their horns, if they where under the bridge.Lovley lovely days,cards on the coach,pi@@ing in a bucket cause the driver wouldent stop.Fond memories of the old timers that put me right, and are now long gone.I seem to remember your pole was probably an SLV,great pole in its day.

Never really fished the stretches you have mentioned although my best mate at the time used to live in Kintbury and he used to fish the stretches around there. Being a newbury lad myself and being brought up in Greenham, as kids we mainly fished the free stretches around the town. The areas down by the munkey bridge near the leisure center were good for mostly small dace, roach and minnows and occasionaly they had the odd match there. Under the A339 bridge was a good spot for huge dace fished of the rod tip using crow quill floats. A bit further up and there was a far bank area littered with trees and loads of cover that was always rumoured to hold duck eating monster pike, although nobody ever saw one caught. Ha Ha. Further up still towards Greenham lock was some nice little spots with lillie’s that again rumoured to hold tench, but to be honest we never had a clue how to catch them, even if they were there. There was also a little weir tributary that was fun catching minnows and there was the old chub and grayling in there. We always believed that there was a monster of some sort in there and we would spend days tirelesly in persuit. But knowbody ever caught anything even though bit fish ‘were seen’, yeah right!!
Past the lock and over the small footbridge, the first swim you cam to was solid with decent roach and dace, and if you cast over there was a chance of perch and pike with again what was rumoured to be decent chub. But to be honest most of it was the fact we were just kids with an over active imagination. Further up still and it became a bit of an unknown territory for us and to be honest we couldn’t be bothered to ride our bikes that far as it meant it would take too long to get home when our bellies got the better of us and we were starving for a big plate of tea.
A littel bit later on we joined Newbury angling club and at one point all we were doing was fishing. That included all the pits aroound newbury and thatcham, as well as the Avon around hambridge lane etc. We also used to fish Thatchams wasters quite a bit as we had some sort of arrangement. It was here that I met Ivan Marks, and all the great anglers of the time who fished a charity match on our pits. We were in awe and when he bought us a bacon buttie each we couldn’t believe our luck.
That is one of my fondest memories but I shall neve forget the good times we had fishing the kennet and Avon, we used to get into a little bit of trouble for messing about occasionally, but the sense of freedom we had then as kids was irreplaceable.

@Dishyfish wrote:

Twenty years or so ago ! Myself and a good friend Derek Carter, use to fish a bit of the Kennet and Avon canal which we called Mac’s cafe. It was opposite end of bit called East Towney ! Trying to get a parking space for this bit of canal was not always easy, because the famous benyons stretch would have a heap of anglers clambering for one of the hot barbel pegs..

Well the bit of canal in question was reed lined either side ! One of the hot pegs was a concrete block I recall. There was a brown fence behind you, but I’m not sure if that was there back then, or added later. It was big roach heaven ! No 2ib ers but the biggest we recorded was a lovely 1.14.0 and loads 1ib plus.. I’m not sure if I got the pole right ! LSD or something like that, correct me if I’m wrong please, was the pole I used. We would use lovely crowquills which my freind made, line was the ever reliable Bayer Perlon 16 or 14hks and baits were casters and good old fashioned brown crumb..

Winter was the best time ! Mainly because the canal was chock with weed in the warmer months. Really good fishing and if we had some of those mild wet winter days, which would put some colour in the canal, there would be a chance of a Tinca or two…

Obviously the fishing back then was a lot better ! We were members of the RDAA through a club called Newtown.. I just wonder if anyone out there as fished this water recently and also a lovely little stream we called Mac’s cafe back stream.. park up at East Towney and walk which seemed a age across a big field. You came to a lovely stream which had a barbed wire fence along its length.. Some great fishing we had there !! Big Dace to a pound plus big roach and loads of chub to good old stick fishing..Very fond memories !! So anyone else out there have fond memories of these waters 🙂 🙂

Were you remembering something else about the good old days delbert 😀

You’r not far off there Marcus ,the Molesey boys allways thought Raven(Delberts old team)where on drugs :p .How else could you bring yourself to wear fur lined scooter jackets 😮 .Mind you it was one of the first club uniforms worn on the bank,forerunner of what most of us wear today 😎 .A handy team on the Grand Union though. 😀
Odd who you end up mates with,me being a biker and Delbert a scooter man.

Lurking again?

You get the coat out Dishyfish and i’l borrow “Pot and Pans”: Norton. 😎
Sonning eye Pit.What a monster,used to catch loads of slabs on it.I have also seen it so windy that the rollers used to hit one end of it and shoot twenty feet in the air,it was like the sea and probably still is.Good fishing too on the Thames that runs right next to it.
I recall breaking the back of my old Mk2 Cortina estate going a bit quick over the hump back bridge at the Three Kings Jacks Booth pub,cant remember the Kennet streatch we had been fishing,but the poor old motor was bent like a bannana and went to Parrys the next day. 🙁

Toplights mentioned having a trip to the Guden in Denmark in the dim and distant past so maybe i can bring you up to date on the present situation.
My son and his family live in a charming little township just outside Silkeborg and my wife and i are regular visitors to see them.
I fish the Guden and the Remstrup in and around the town centre and the roach fishing is fabulous. Not too sure about the bream fishing and this last few years has seen an invasion of the dreaded zebra mussells sending the water in the lakes gin-clear but if roach and perch fishing are your bag then im sure you would enjoy a trip.
One last bit of advice, take plenty of money with you cos it aint cheap.
Tight lines Mick.

Dishyfish, was that Derek Carter who lives/lived in Iver village and joined Old Windsor AC for a number of years in the 80’s ?

Guden,very fondly remembered Mick.I fished for the Bream that day,Cleggy(ex England manager) was next to me and he fished for the Roach and weighed in ninteen kilo of Roach quite a good weight on the day.I was lucky that day and had Forty od kilo of Bream,they where like dinner plates and fought like Barbel in the river that ran like a mini Hampshire Avon, in its hayday.Beer was an astronomical price,we also thought we had pulled the birds, till we where told they loved to practice their English out on us :rolleyes:. Impresivly clean country and welcolming people.Worst part of the trip was coming home,our Ferry was requisitioned for Nato excercises and we had to travel home via Hambourg.Spent the whole trip home with head down the toilet in a force eight gale.Happy days 😀 😀 .