Spinning: A Yarn With An Urban Fly Guy

Some lesser known species of ‘trout bum’ found in the mud

A long-time ago another blogger had given me my first lesson on the fly, we’d stalked wild trout inside the M25 (the orbital road that encircles London), a summers day in the garden of england, a delightful afternoon spent on the banks once fished by Dickens, out in the further reaches of the ‘burbs but still technically within the city. 

You can read about it here.

Ah Mr Quinn I Presume?

After much to-ing and fro-ing we’d set a new challenge, fishing the lowest pool of the Ravensbourne, where it meets the Thames, just as the tide turns and starts to fill it with salt water – as the big-uns came to snaffle up the little-uns. Cold enough to snow, wet enough for the constant light rain to keep it from ever settling, welcome to urban fishing, in London, in the mud, in February. Brrrrrrrrr! 
'Where the Ravensbourne meets the Thames' sounds kind of classy doesn't it? 
It's also known (somewhat more figuratively) as Deptford Creek.

'And for my next trick..............'

We’d both attended the Creekside Centres excellent Low Tide Walk (my version of events here) and seen first hand evidence of the juvenile Flounder, Mitten Crabs and Urban Detritus. The tackle shop didn't have a 'caddice of old bike flys' so  Jeremiah had armed himself with a Flounder Fly. He's an optimist.

The history books are full of mentions of the Eel fishing industry that flourished in symbiosis with the tanneries the area was also known for, even all these years later the mud is still throwing up plenty of evidence both of the tanneries and of course the south londoners inbred impulse, that when disposing of almost anything, lobbing it in the river is best practice.

There is very very little solid ground in this part of the river mouth. Armed with 9 ft of spinning rod I cast out a sprat intending to freeline the current. I was temparily fascinated, and distracted by Jeremiah's vigorous casting.

I thought I was standing on the only other bit of solid ground, I took his photo and suddenly I relaised that my bait had crossed the river at 90 degrees to the current and my line was now disappearing into a mud bank. I stuffed the camera into a pocket, pulled and pulled at the line, but before I could get any back my legs had sunk beyond the tops of the famous YELLOW wellies! Opps!

The guys from the building site on the opposite bank were pissing themselves laughing, and shouting. [As yer do].

Building Site Guys: “Should we come and get you out?’

                                  SBW: “No No I’ll be fine”. [gives cheery wave]

I literally had to use my hands to dig out my boots, thankfully with my feet still in them. The mud really stank. It sucked.


Defeated but not disheartened, we retreated to The Birds Nest to plot further adventures, where our arrival was celebrated by another group of builders.

Building Site Guys: 

"Fishing in the morning, pub in the afternoon, that's the life boys"

I made him about right.
Your pal
The bushwacker

Mud Larks of Deptford

Mud Lark - ‘A fellow who goes about by the waterside picking up coals, nails, or other articles in the mud.’
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue - 1811

On its southern bank, were it meets the Ravensbourne, the river Thames has a natural dry-dock, known as Deptford Creek.
On Sunday afternoon in response to claims of a ‘spawning ground for Flounder’ and ‘squillions of Mitten Crabs’ your pal the Bushwacker and accomplice Deej joined the Creekside Centre’s snappily named ‘Spring/Summer Low-Tide Walk Programme.’
And big fun it was too.
We were issued with thigh waders and broomsticks to use for wading poles and for nearly two hours we were led up-river toward Lewisham.
There were many signs of life, not all of it the stuff vandals leave behind. Between the shopping trolleys and torn down road signs Nature has reasserted herself, the guys who led the walk must have pointed out 25-30 different plants that had self-seeded in the creek and on its walls. Nothing was introduced by the regeneration project; everything there has arrived under its own steam.

The Creekside was the site of many a slaughter house in the century before last, (Tanners Hill is just round the corner) and the sawn bones of cows, sheep and horses poke out of the mud here and there. The Creek was also the launch dock for many a colonial endeavour / piratical raiding party and handmade shipwrights nails litter the site. We had a great time poking around in the mud. Just in case any of the group forgot we were in ‘sarf larn-den’ the guides told us how one school trip to the creek was enlivened by one of the kids finding a handgun sticking out of the mud.

After a few moments to get your eye in, looking through Polaroid sunglasses there are loads of juvenile Flounder in the crystal-clear water and the cast-off shells of Mitten crabs are everywhere. The water must be in good health as Mirror carp, Tench, Trout and Eels have all been caught in the creek.
The chaps showed us how to ‘kick sample’ the bottom, collecting up slit in a white observation tray, we could see hundreds of aquatic creatures swimming about. Londoners are habitually sceptical about the quality of the water in the Thames and its tributaries, but after seeing just how much is living in it I started to believe the guys claim that the Thames is the cleanest metropolitan river in europe.
Would you Adam an Eve it, me old china?

£5 very well spent – if you’re in the area, you gottta go!

"Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts.
So long as we are dirty, we are pure".
Charles Dudley Warner 1800's

creekside centre

Get stuck in
Bushwacker.

Mitten Crabs

Seen in the River Thames since the 1930s, the Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) first arrived in Blightly as tiny larvae in ballast water in ships from China and Korea. Now there are loads of the bastards!
By burrowing into the rivers banks, (which causes rapid erosion) and eating enough stuff to put pressure on native plants and animals, they haven’t always received the welcome the deserve.
The good news is they’re not only delicious, but also very easy to catch!!
These hairy-clawed-snax-on-legs are rated 'proper delicious' in china.
The shell of a large one can be eight centimetres across. Making them perfect for the BarBQ.
You'll be please to hear the scientific community is united in its praise for this culinary delight; one serving suggestion, that sounds both thrilling and practical, comes from Richard Tullis, biology professor at California State University,
"Fixed Asian style, stir-fried with garlic, soy and ginger... it will also turn on non-Asians."
Who could ask for more than that?
Philip Rainbow (keeper of zoology at the Natural History Museum in London, England) concludes:
"The culinary route may represent our best culling strategy if we are to limit its potentially damaging environmental effects." Yummy!!
Bushwacker.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/other-invertebrates/chinese-mitten-crabs/crab-control-help.html

PS FOR READERS FROM THE USA (especially on the east coast)
If you catch or find a mitten crab: please keep it, frozen is best, on ice second choice, or preserved in rubbing alcohol.
Take a close-up photo of the beastie, and email your picture with
the precise location and date of the find to SERCMittenCrab@si.edu If you can’t take a photo, contact the
Mitten Crab Hotline on (443-482-2222).
PLEASE DO NOT THROW IT BACK ALIVE!!