North Essex, sometime in the mid to late seventies. A big, shallow estuary of mudflats and marshland.
As kids, we fished on summer evenings for the huge numbers of eels and flounders that haunted the warm, murky water. Earthworms were good enough to catch a few, lugworm was better, and if you had peeler crab—well, you’d have a bite a chuck. The eels ended up being taken home for the neighbour to eat. He’d nail them up against the shed and make a small circular cut around the neck before getting some pliers, and skinning them. Different times.
Whilst fishing, we’d see immense shoals of apparently uncatchable mullet—huge fish nosing around in inches of water as the tide gently flooded. We tried everything: maggots, harbour ragworm, bread, fly fishing, and anything else we could think of. I never caught one and never saw anyone else catch one either. They were impossible. Or so it seemed.
Fast forward forty years. Yes, forty years. I’m still living in the area, a few miles north, and so close to the tidal river I can smell the salt and ozone coming off the flats when the wind is blowing in the right direction.
These days, eels are rare, the flounders more so, but there are far more bass. There are still shoals of mullet which, though they suffer from being netted along with the bass, come and go throughout the warmer months. For a long while, we’ve been catching good numbers of thin-lipped mullet on small pieces of ragworm, baited spinners, and artificial flies. It’s not easy, but with persistence and, most importantly, observation, they are well catchable.
The “uncatchable” mullet from the seventies were unquestionably thick lips. If you see groups of mullet and are unsure what type they are, cast out a Mepps spinner baited with ragworm. If you don’t catch one, they’re almost certainly thick lips. In harbours, docks, and other similar places, thick lips can be fairly easy to catch, but on these estuaries, it’s a different matter.
One boiling hot day a few years back, I went for a walk downriver, where the estuary widens and becomes almost entirely salt water. I was looking for the thick lips I’d spotted a few days previously whilst bass fishing. Walking through the chestnut woods, which slope steeply down to the water, I stood and watched for a while. Conditions were good—a very light southerly wind created the merest hint of a ripple on the shallow water as the tide gently started to flood the shallows. This spot is tucked away under the lee of the woodland canopy, sheltered from the prevailing winds and completely out of sight from prying eyes. Tackling up whilst sitting on a huge tree trunk, I couldn’t help but think: sixty (or is it seventy now?) million people in Old Blighty, and not one of the buggers is within a mile of me right now. Just how I like it.
There’s a strange, almost desolate beauty to this landscape, especially in winter when massive flocks of waders and wildfowl pack the lonely mudflats. I’ve walked, run, cycled, and fished these east coast tidal rivers for as long as I can remember and seen them in all seasons—from summer days when the water is a Mediterranean blue to grey winter days when sheets of ice cover the margins.
It’s not to everyone’s taste, but it gets in your blood when you’ve spent a lifetime here.
I’d arrived just as the tide was creeping into a bay and immediately spotted a stationary mullet sitting in the weed. There were only a few fish showing, but I stood on a piece of raised marsh and drip-fed small pieces of mash into the flow. After a while, more and more fish appeared. After maybe an hour, I saw a fish take a piece of bread off the top. I spent the next two or three hours standing up to my thighs in water, pretty much motionless, shaking with excitement. Yes, shaking. Over a few fish. After all those years. More and more mullet started to take the bread, but very, very cautiously—nudging, pushing, and sipping at it. I reckon I had a dozen or more fish mouth my bait before immediately rejecting it. Bastards. I was willing them to take it properly.
As the tide started to ebb, a seemingly non-stop line of browsing, splashing fish started to leave the bay. It looked like my chance had gone.
I moved from the marsh to in amongst the fallen trees. As I stood there baiting up, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a movement. There—just inches away from my legs—was a fish. Taking bread too. I didn’t dare move until it swam away. Then, I baited the hook and lowered it in. It looked at it, nosed it, and swam off, eating all the other freebies.
I had an idea. I slid a big bit of crust up the line and then put a pinch of flake on the hook a couple of inches away, so the flake was suspended just below the surface. Believe it or not, the fecker took the big bit of crust confidently. Yes, the bit on the line, not the hook. I couldn’t believe it.
Amazingly, the fish wasn’t spooked. So again, I ever so gently lowered some bread in, literally off the rod tip. It stared at it for what seemed like forever—certainly a few minutes—before slowly engulfing it. I struck with about two feet of line out, and all hell broke loose as the mullet bolted off around a sunken log. It looked like after all that effort, I was going to lose it. I pointed the rod tip directly at it, wound the float hard against the rod tip, and heaved the fish back. Somehow, it stayed on and came back from under the log before shooting thirty yards out into clear water.
It fought long and hard, but once I’d found my net (long story), it went in first time. A real lump of a thick lip that went exactly 5lb on the scales—not that the numbers really mattered. After sliding it back, I sat down on the log, shaking. Again.
Gale Light
