Seal fishing in the Lea

[Catfish.017]

Looks like a Mullet to me.... on a club outing to the tidal Stour in Kent at Pluck's Gutter, one of our members hooked a bream that was snatched by a Seal........ luckily his line parted as his keepnet was too small for a full grown seal and club rules definitely state "Only Recognised Species To Be Placed In Keepnets"

In 1970 I left school and began an apprenticeship with Ford Motor Co at Swansea. The plant had opened four years earlier and many of the fore men and engineers had been 'culled' from the London area. The tool room foreman Bernard Bailey was one such and it wasn't long before we discovered a mutual love of fishing. Bernard used to get misty eyed reminiscing about the Bream fishing at Plucks Gutter relating tales of huge catches on the swing tip. I wonder, is the fishing as good now as then? Bernard didn't really describe the river to me and in my straightforward youthful minds eye the word gutter suggested a narrow deep channel though obviously being tidal I suspect it is probably quite a wide venue?

[Aitch]

Not overly wide... about the same width as the Lea or the Avon... plenty of Roach and Dace with some Chub not as many Bream as there used to be though... and sometimes you'd catch the occasional Flounder

[Ljm183]

I saw both seals, on various occasions, and a porpoise/dolphin in the Tidal Thames in the 1960's.

The Tidal Thames at Twickenham/Teddington was filthy then - but full of fish!

And a good size mullet - worth fishing for!

The Seals and Dolphins use to follow the ships up the Thames. Just before the ships reached the docks they would throw all the uneaten/rotten food into the river. Used to see plenty of Dophins from the top floor of Free Trade Wharf in the 60,s.

[Reedling]

The river used to stink a lot in the sixties (Woolwich area) we used to get the smell quite some way away. I suppose because Seals and Dolphins are mammals they did not need to take oxygen from the river water so survived in that environment.

[Stathamender]

I saw both seals, on various occasions, and a porpoise/dolphin in the Tidal Thames in the 1960's.

The Tidal Thames at Twickenham/Teddington was filthy then - but full of fish!

And a good size mullet - worth fishing for!

The Seals and Dolphins use to follow the ships up the Thames. Just before the ships reached the docks they would throw all the uneaten/rotten food into the river. Used to see plenty of Dophins from the top floor of Free Trade Wharf in the 60,s.

Was this by accident or did they do it on porpoise?

[Olly]

Is that white Whale still having a whale of a time?

[Stathamender]

Is that white Whale still having a whale of a time?

Call me Ishmael.

“Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, the Whale

[Ljm183]

The river used to stink a lot in the sixties (Woolwich area) we used to get the smell quite some way away.

That was probably the stink from the Beckton sewage works not the river... Still the same now.

[Reedling]

The river used to stink a lot in the sixties (Woolwich area) we used to get the smell quite some way away.

That was probably the stink from the Beckton sewage works not the river... Still the same now.

We also had Crossness this side of the river, which had a part in the death of many in the princess Alice disaster. When the boat went down Crossness had a little earlier released sewage into the Thames, it did this every day Lee. The Thames did stink though, when I used to play on the Woolwich ferry as a kid it smelt then, especially the mud.

[Duckett]

Like Tuesday Swim I’ve also seen Mullet on the surface around Three Mills. I’ve often wondered what else there is in the tidal stretch around there but I’ve never got round to going down with a rod. My success rate with Mullet is zero!