Urban fly fishing often delivers the unexpected. On a summer afternoon exploring the River Wandle, what began as a search for brown trout turned into a chaotic battle with a 5lb carp on a 3wt fly rod - and one of the most memorable Fish of the Year moments of 2025.
"That’ll never fit in my net mate, where’s yours?!"
shouted Jez from across the basin, as my mind raced to figure out how I was going to land this thing. I had hung my net on a tree a few yards down the bank, beyond a couple of vivacious trees that I, now connected with a fish in the water below me, would really struggle to circumnavigate.
"I’m just going to have to get in with it"
I called to Jez, as he watched on cackling at every farcical move I made.
The River Wandle, a South London chalkstream, has become one of the capital’s most exciting urban fly fishing venues.
Fly Fishing the River Wandle in Summer
It was a Wednesday in July and I had an itch to get out on the water so I hopped on the (never) trusty Thameslink and headed south in search of some urban brown trout. My ulterior motive for the day was to explore the new developments on the Wandle, including the recent removal of a significant weir that now offered huge opportunities for resident populations to journey both up and downstream.
Having hooked and netted a teenage chub in one of the new stretches, but without much other aquatic life presenting itself to me, I decided to amble upriver to ‘the Aquarium’ - a brickwork basin which holds numerous species and makes you lose track of time entirely. I’m sure most anglers are familiar with that one spot - the place that makes them forget time, as ‘one last cast’ becomes ‘oh now I’m going to miss my train’ or similar!
Sight Fishing ‘The Aquarium’ Basin
The trouble with the Aquarium is that, to sight-fish it most effectively, one must perch like a heron atop a rather high wall overlooking the water (as can be seen in the background of one of the photographs). This means that if/when one hooks a fish, either one must carry a net with a very long handle or get creative if arriving ill-equipped.
I had my scoop net with me, but I’d left it hanging from a tree slightly downriver as I stalked my way along the wall. Having spotted a couple of carp-shaped lumps swimming around in the murky depths, I turned my attention to a sizeable trout lying in the mouth of a small tunnel at the top of the pool. The infamous Tunnel Trout. The one that can never be hooked.
Heavy Streamers, Light Rod - Under-Gunned on a 3wt
That day I had brought along some very heavy minnow streamers for purposes such as these, where the lines between fly fishing and lure fishing blur and a sideways approach must be taken. In a move that would make the original Carshalton Dodgers turn in their graves, I swung the streamer into the mouth of the tunnel and let it drop into the fast, shallow water, hoping that my aim had been sufficient to bring it into the feeding path of the Tunnel Trout. As I had been concentrating on the trajectory of the swing, I had failed to notice that one of the previously mentioned carp-shaped lumps had drifted into the mouth of the tunnel and was now holding court with the trout that I had intended to hook.
"You know it never takes a fly mate"
Called out a familiar voice as I looked up and across the pool to see Jez, a local legend, standing there bemusedly watching me in my natural habitat.
"Not with that attitude Jez!"
I called back as I looked down to see the trout do what it does best: disappear up into the dark of the tunnel with a deft flick of its powerful tail. Back to the drawing board, or so I thought, as I never would have expected the carp to move into place and absolutely devour the minnow pattern I had lobbed in, attempting to hook the trout…
Instinctively lifting the tip of my trusty fibreglass 3wt rod into this fish, I knew I was undergunned.
Landing a Carp from a 5-Foot Wall
I also knew I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, having forgotten my net down the bank and now connected to a sizeable carp from the top of a 5 foot high wall. The only option I could see was to get in.
I haven’t climbed for over a decade and I’m certainly not in very good shape but, unperturbed by these trivia, I gripped the edge of the concrete with my left hand (rod still bent double in my right) and started to lower myself towards the water. At this point Jez must have thought he was watching a comedy sketch.
As the toes of my wet-wading boots touched the surface of the water, my left hand gave in and I fell the remaining distance into the river, somehow holding my right hand aloft, still connected to the carp as it zoomed around the pool.
Now soaked from head-to-toe, I waded across the pool thanks to a curiously-placed girder of some kind, around the deepest part and downstream to the shallower, gravel-bottomed tailwater. I managed to reclaim my net from the tree in which I had hung it and finally gathered the fish in its temporary, rubberised cage. I’d never caught a ‘wild’ river carp on my fly kit before so this was a first for me - a pristine, fin-perfect fish that went 5lb 1oz in my trusty Mclean weigh-net.
Urban Fly Fishing and the Unexpected
Happily releasing the fish after a few photos, something wasn’t adding up in the back of my mind. There’s no way a fish that was born and raised in the river could be as perfect as this one, without a single split fin or any missing scales; it probably came from a local resident’s koi pond after they couldn’t be bothered tending to them anymore. The joys of urban fly fishing.
Amusingly, the next week I went back and managed to hook, fight and net a brown trout that hit 4lb 11oz in the same weigh-net. One might expect this trout to have been my fish of the year but no - my first river carp on the fly caught in a maelstrom of hilarity and farce had to be the one!
