In the four years since a guided Wander up the Wandle became a fixture in the Wild Trout Trust’s annual charity auction, the river’s trout population has been steadily increasing.
Today, barring pollution incidents, it’s perfectly possible to fish certain stretches of this South London chalkstream in the reasonable expectation of bumping into a trout – and this year’s auction winner, Mike Tyler, surely set some kind of record by catching his first Wandle trout on a dry fly within fifteen minutes of wading into the river for the first time!
With the pressure well and truly off, we headed for lunch at the William Morris in the hope of catching a few other Wandle Piscators celebrating World Rivers Day with a club fish-in. Will, Steve and their trotting rigs seemed to have mysteriously vanished, but we hooked up with Adrian in Ravensbury Park…
… and spent the rest of the afternoon casting dry flies to chub and dace all the way up to Goat Bridge (Halford would have been proud!)
Mike, thanks for your generosity to the Wild Trout Trust, and here’s to many happy seasons fishing your local urban river!
