"Let's make a feature of this rubble"
In the meantime, one look at this footage should also be enough to convince lateral-thinking anglers that it's already well worth fishing the Wandle again. And not just with bait. After all, this river has long held a reputation as fly water, and for laying down a sternly technical challenge to the fisherman.
Even in 1848, Hofland's "British Angler's Manual" was warning that "his young brothers of the angle must not expect any sport in the Wandle unless they fish fine in the extreme: a single hair should be used... or at least gut as fine as hair, and small blue and yellow duns".
So some things have hardly changed at all, including the need for Halford's Black Gnats in sizes 18 down to 22. It's thrilling to know you're throwing loops over the very waters of angling history, here, experiencing at first hand how clear streamy pools and tiny dark flies must once have given the great man a few blank days too, before he went back to his vise and refined his tackle from traditional plaited horsehair to the newer, stealthier silk.
Ultimately, of course, this river is Environment Agency water, free to all comers with a valid rod licence. In time, many of us would like to see this general access balanced with a pioneering catch and release order on the familiar North American model. But for the moment, those of us who fish the Wandle are so confident in its future that we've set up the first functional fishing club in London for over a hundred years.
With Tony Hayter as our President - of recent "Halford and the Dry Fly Revolution" fame - other founder members include Sidney Vines, Keith Elliott and the current captain of HMS Victory in tribute to Nelson's time spent on the river at "Paradise Merton". In fact, it's all shaping up to be as genuinely mixed as the fishery itself.
"Looks good now, eh?"
We all know that in terms of clearing out the river and making it sustainably fish-friendly we've barely scratched the surface - and it'll be a while before any of us can set out deliberately to catch a Wandle trout on a dry fly.But while the river still flows through some of London's most highly-populated areas, there's now no reason to suspect that the conditions that bred trout like Halford's portly 3.5lber of 1869 can't be recreated. Today, even the dace run to a third of that weight. In fact, record fish of all species may already be there for the catching.
So, for progressive fishermen of every stamp, the Wandle offers the chance of a lifetime to see a mythical river restored, from a filthy junkyard sewer to a vision of the finest urban chalkstream in the world. Ruskin will have his work - and joy really will be possible again "about those wells of English waters".
