Hi Roger
I've had a couple of Graham Phillips Barbel Quivers for nearly 30 years now. These were highly regarded in their day. Paul Boote built the earlier rods until Nicholas Whip took over the company and continued the building.
Mine are the 1.25 Barbel Quivers. These came with a removable top eye and an overfit quiver, Fuji single leg eyes and Roberts reel fits, and built on Century blanks. A proper through action rod that will bend tight through to the butt when maximum pressure is applied. Matched with a Cardinal 54 they accounted for 99% of the Cherwell and Upper Thames barbel that I landed, until I moved down under in 2000. They also doubled up as superb Tench rods, matched with Cardinal 55s, and accounted for all the Tench I landed from Queenford Lagoon during the same period.
I got Nicholas Whip to kindly supply me with an extra top section for one of the rods, which I passed to Merv Wilkinson (RIP), who chopped it and spiced a 2 ounce quiver into it, which I used for all my Chub fishing. I never was a fan of the overfit quivers as I wanted to retain the rod length at 11ft.
My fishing companion bought a used Graham Phillips Barbel 1.5 SU about 18 months ago. He stripped it, put a new cork handle and screw down reel fit on it, rewhipped it with the original eyes, and touched up the varnish. Our next session on the Thames he landed a 15.4 lb Barbel on it!
The two rods I have are still fully in tact, with removeable top eyes and overfit quivers, and in very good condition for their age, which is testament to the quality of the rod build, no ED problems either!! Had thought about cleaning them up and moving them on, as I have slowly converted to Harrisons over the last few years.
Mick
