Most well respected anglers often ruminate upon fishing a well behaved, gently flowing river, with nothing to disturb their bliss except a passing waterfowl and the occasion bite.


Boats like this don’t belong on a river!
But not when you’re fishing the Thames in the height of summer!

The daytime has to be yielded to the cruisers and motor yachts plying their way up and down the river and they don’t give a hoot to whoever is trying to fish. They sit up there in their flying bridges with their canvas navy cap on looking for all the world like Albert Trotter. There are times when you can’t leave a feeder out for more than 30 seconds before having to furiously retrieve before it’s sucked up into the enormous propeller that these modern ‘Gin Palaces’ have.

It’s not as if they are designed like the river craft that have preceded them, those old boats typically had a shallow draft, 18 inches at most, were long, sleek hulled and created no more a wake than the average duck passing by. By comparison these have a 3-4 foot draft and many who don’t observe the reasonable speed limit leave all manner of chaos in their wake. They are despised by the rowers as well as us anglers, probably the only time when we unite against a common enemy. For us though, it’s the damage they do to the banks.

Look at some of my pictures of a bank that was redressed in 1993. The method used was to put a strong polymer netting (see photo) across stumps of scaffolding and then back the earth up to it. Just ten years later and this is all we have left, the stumps are visible, but you can clearly see that the bank has been completely eroded and is now 6-8 feet away from them. Some of this erosion is no doubt due to flooding, but encouraged, I hasten to add, by boat owners mooring against the bank and driving in great metal stakes. Even more damage is caused when they wriggle the stake around to remove it!


Type of netting used to support the bank
Goering’s Bank design was better

Part of the re-dressing work was because of a massive hole in the bank that was left by Goering’s Luftwaffe lads during WWII (honestly!), which gave the entire field its name of Sandy Bay. They dropped all their bombs after being chased by Spitfires (so the story goes), some fell into the river, others on the land, and I can point you to a nearby pond now which is a bomb crater. I have seen an old map that in one area shows the bank and, about 10 feet behind it, a row of alders, thereby providing the ‘towpath’. Now the alders are in the water. Okay, so we don’t need a towpath anymore, but most of this erosion has been done within the last 30 years.

What about the next 30 years? I was once fishing at Medmenham from a bank that was 3ft high off the water. There’s an island opposite with the main channel between. It was about this time of year, no-one around (I had a clear view of about one mile of bank because of the gentle bend in the river) and hardly any boats about. I heard one coming downstream and the owner must have also seen that there was no-one about, certainly no other boats. Without seeing me he fully opened both engines and the air filled with a roar. It was short lived of course because he rapidly came into view and he cut them.


The original line of the bank in 1993
The boat, in typical fashion, lurched forward to an almost standstill before continuing at its regulated speed. There was an exchange of views between us, he apologising in English, mine the opposite in French (mixed liberally with German, Greek, and a smattering of Hebrew). I said I’d report his boat to the NRA (pre 1996) and we then exchanged physical gestures as well. That would have been the end of the matter except that when I looked back a wave 2-3 feet high was heading straight for me. When it hit the bank I got absolutely drenched. Amazingly, not one drop of water missed. So I ran down the bank to give him another tirade.

The point is though, how many jerks are doing this when no-one is looking? These boats belong on the ocean, some are even of the ‘Ocean’ make, with their flying bridges and chemical toilets. Heaven knows what they do with the stuff, but their toilets are supposed to be sealed as they pass Teddington. I bet they’re not inspected though. We have some pretty big barges that have come over from Belgium and Holland, 100-plus feet in length, and they can go through at quite a speed, but the wash from them is very little more than the wind creates. Tiny little ripples, that’s all because they again, are designed for travelling on inland waterways.

We also have a fair collection of steamers, and I really mean steamers. Some are gorgeous, being teak and mahogany-built. One we have is built, or rather dressed, to look like a New Orleans paddle boat complete with artificial paddle and twin smoke-stacks that don’t smoke. They have to be pulled down when they go under bridges. They’re a bit of fun and they cause a little more disturbance of the bank in some cases, but only because of the dispersal of weight.

Farmers don’t help either by allowing cattle to erode the bank where they have self-made drinking holes. Wouldn’t it be far better to have a purposely built slope where cattle could go without causing any damage?


Cattle drinks are always a problem
One of the reasons for that is, probably, if you want to modify the river bank in any way you have to first apply to the Environment Agency for planning permission – and that costs you. So first of all the EA (this is NOT fisheries department remember) neglects the banks, promotes all sorts of deep V-hulled craft on the river to destroy them, then when you want to repair the bank for them they want more money to allow you to do it. If you want to build swims into the water, then each swim has to be treated as a separate application.

Betrayal

Also in 1996, some of our members helped the River Thames Society in rebuilding part of the riverbank and some 100 yards of the best swims for bream. We laid down some willow stakes and made ‘hurdles’ by weaving thinner willow in and out of the stakes knowing full well that the willow would start to grow. The Society had tons of really thick blue sticky clay delivered by barge which we tried shovelling in behind the hurdles. Eventually they had to hire a digger to finish it, but it was a good job and our club used to pay them £ 150 for that length. Now look at the picture of the sign that appeared this last year – “NO Fishing”. Thanks! That’s what you get for helping them!


This type of bank reinforcement is known as ‘Willow Spiling’
One funny moment happened a few weeks ago and no doubt Stuart Heard will back me up on this if he joins the forum discussion afterwards. Stuart and his dad, Stephen, were already at The Compleat Angler when I turned up with my mate Ron (not Mr Clay, another Ron). I went over for a chat and then we started fishing. Later on this cruiser came into the weirpool, not all that unusual as some come up, have a motor around, and go straight back out again. However, this one was making a deliberate beeline for the top part of our bank. He came past Ron and myself, no worries, but then proceeded straight through the swim where Stuart and Stephen were fishing causing them to bring their lines in.

I suddenly knew what was going to happen. His intention was to more up and all 7 or so people would get off and go for a drinkies in the hotel. The trouble is that the top end of the weirpool is very, very shallow indeed and before he made the bank – KKKEEERRRunch. He was well and truly aground. There was the usual panic, a great revving of engines and poor Stuart and his dad were getting all the stinking exhaust from this, not to mention the water being churned up by the propeller. It must have been ten minutes later when I went up to Stuart and said should we offer to get all women and children off, maybe provide them with a gangplank or something.


The sign of betrayal!
By shifting the people around in the boat and what with them rocking it, they managed eventually to get it free. They gave up the idea of tying up and going for drinkies and I guess the owner was thinking more in terms of what damage had been done to his hull. It put the fish off for a while in Stuarts swim, but he started catching again soon after. I’m only sorry I didn’t take any pictures of the happy occasion, but as for boats, don’t talk to me about boats.

Rowers? Now that’s another story. The way they cut so close in to the bank, oars whisking past your face, little spotty-faced coxes in the back yelling instructions through a 2000 watt amplifier, trainers riding bicycles following them on the towpath yelling through a megaphone, bimbo blonde young girl rowers in their wet T-shirts showing off their……..

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