IC Fishing Society Finds Affordable Fishing in London

Okay now you’ve taken the bait. There is no Imperial fishing society, but I do recommend starting a society if enough of you are interested. Also I am gill-ty of not technically fishing in London, it was Epping, but Central line does go there! Affordability is also questionable, £40 for a full day fishing rainbow trout, being able to take two fish home, and equipment hire is pretty damn steep. Thankfully this was a birthday treat and for me it was free.

In my younger years I was a keen watcher of River Monsters and ever since watching Jeremy Wade wrestle beasts from the deep, I’ve wanted to try my hand at fishing. As well as the thrill of the catch, the aspect of chilling on the bank with a brewski is very appealing.

So last Saturday six of us headed to Thornwood Springs Trout Fishery. From Epping station it is short Uber trip to the fishery, where we were greeted by Peter the founder and manager. He’s a friendly fella and extremely helpful. We were given our fly fishing rods, nets and priest (a bat for killing fish), and off we went! Only two members of the group having fished before, and no one having fly fished. With our combined vast experience we did not decide to buy the instructor package whereby Peter would have helped us. Peter having noticed our perplexed looks kindly gave us a small tutorial on fly fishing. Unfortunately our incompetence knows no bounds and on being set loose on the lake we began having problems. Peter was great about it, detangling, reattaching floats, re-tying lines. He wasn’t upset or annoyed, but disappointed. Like a father figure we tried to gain approval by quickly improving our fishing technique, and our first couple hours of fishing were fortuitous; six fish were caught! Steve’s guidance was trout-lessly helped us, but as the day cooled the fished stopped nibbling and we ended up with only ten before heading home and cooking.

The act of fishing is not only fun, but relaxing, exciting and somewhat therapeutic. When a fish bites and you first feel it thrashing away it is exhilarating, yanking the rod, keeping tension on the line and pulling the unfortunate lil bugger in is thrilling. Chilling on the bank keeping an eye on the float is suspenseful, and it does require patience. Sitting on the bank with my besties, sipping brewskies, and the sunset in the beyond the M25 wildlands was a lovely experience. I will be sure to go fishing again!