Graffiti, discarded beer cans, shouts from drunk punters spilling out of nearby bars … Few would describe Camden Lock as an angler’s paradise. But it’s on this stretch of London canal, far from the burbling chalk streams and tranquil ponds of the British countryside, where 22-year-old Tom Lloyd likes to fish. He’s been angling all over central London since he was a teenager. He first picked up a rod on a trip with a friend to Waltham Abbey in Essex, but quickly discovered he could fish far closer to home: “You can be in the middle of this urban setting with drunk people and beer bottles, but you’re just there catching fish with your headphones on,” he says.
Street fishing, also referred to as urban fishing, lure fishing or predator fishing, is a growing sport attracting a new, younger breed of angler. It is at its biggest in mainland Europe, especially Paris where an underground culture of millennial and gen Z anglers from all backgrounds is taking over the banks of the Seine. (When one of the movement’s pioneers, Fred Miessner, died suddenly last year in a car crash, hundreds of French youth turned out for a fishing vigil.)
“In the UK it’s a smaller scene but it’s growing,” says Giacomo Francia, the founder of Streetfishing London, an online shop and blog he set up after moving to the UK from Germany a decade ago, when the British urban fishing scene was so tiny he couldn’t find the kit he needed. Unlike traditional fishing, which generally involves sitting at a pond for days at a time with a tripod, tent and flask of tea, urban fishing is nimble and active. It is generally done on canals rather than ponds, which are narrower so you move around to find the fish rather than casting in the same place too many times – if a spot doesn’t produce, you just find another one. It is more of a standup sport (unlike carp fishing which is pretty sedentary). It’s also cheap and accessible as it requires minimal kit – just a rod, lures (artificial bait) and a net. “You wander the streets with your backpack, hop on the bus or scooter and find the nearest canal,” says Francia.
“If you work in a city you can bring a little fold-up rod to work and get in half an hour on your lunch break – that’s more than enough time to catch a few fish,” says Lloyd. Common lure fishing catches are perch, pike and zander (everything caught goes back into the water – all recreational freshwater fishing in the UK is “catch and release” other than “game fishing” for trout, salmon and occasionally char) but the city setting can bring unwanted surprises.
A few years ago, Lloyd was out fishing with friends near a bridge in north London when their hooks kept catching on an old shopping trolley, so they used their rods to tug it to one side. A few days later the police discovered there was a body stuffed underneath it. Nevertheless, Lloyd still prefers the unpredictability of urban fishing: “It may not be peaceful but it’s definitely exciting because you never know what you’re going to catch.”
Birmingham-based YouTubers Tom Synnott-Bell and Sean Edwards, both 31, are childhood friends who started their street fishing channel Snagged Bro in 2018 around their jobs as an actor and car factory worker. The channel is doing so well they now look set to go full-time. Videos are lighthearted, mostly featuring the pair mucking about on Black Country and Birmingham canals with GoPros. “It’s really fishing-related entertainment,” Synnott-Bell explains; most of their 31,000 subscribers are under 30.
When they started out, fishing shops didn’t really cater to young urban anglers, so they began designing their own “merch”, including baseball caps, beanies and a gold magnet for clipping your net to a rucksack. Now, brands such as Fox Rage, URBN and Spro Freestyle are catering to a younger angler for whom khaki cagoules won’t cut it: “Over the last six years there has been this shift towards what the youth are starting to do more [in fishing],” says Synnott-Bell, who believes young people are more relaxed and less purist than older anglers. “Kids consume so much online content, and if they’re interested in fishing they binge on it, then want to go out and do it.”
Street fishing is not the only area of the angling world enjoying a youth influx. Fisher and presenter Hassan Khan has been angling for more than 25 years but has recently noticed a surge of young people – including women and those from different backgrounds – getting into the sport.
He believes this is down to a number of factors: the pandemic, when unlike most activities, fishing was allowed to continue (young people who tried it out of boredom found it far more fun than they expected); a new wave of social media channels, influencers and brands (including Nash Tackle, which he represents) making fishing cooler and more accessible; and fishing coming into the media mainstream with shows such as Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing and Ali Hamidi’s Grand Fishing Adventure.
According to TikTok, fishing-related searches are on the rise this year, particularly #streetfishing, #carpfishing and #predatorfishing. Then there are the celebrities burnishing fishing’s reputation, including Rita Ora, who says angling relaxes her, and Sam Smith, who recently expressed his desire to be a “fisherthem”. The Angling Trust has also played a part with initiatives such as We Fish As One, championing diversity in fishing, and thousands of Get Fishing community events – in 2022, about 75% of the 38,085 people who participated were under 18.
Londoner Aisha Mohamed-Goodlett, a 23-year-old We Fish As One campaign champion, has also noticed the demographic is changing. “It used to be mostly older men on the bank of the lake where I fish on the outskirts of London, but I’m seeing way more young people joining in now,” she says, “I take my friends and they’re like: ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this, Aisha?’”
In July, Hassan Khan will host the very first Angling Live festival, which he jokes will be “the Glastonbury of carp fishing”, bringing together influencers and brands for a weekend of angling-mania: “There’s a place in the market to do it now there’s this popularity and buzz.”
Although there are no gender-based statistics gathered by the Angling Trust or the Environment Agency, in the US the number of female anglers rose by 45% in 2018. Anecdotally, in the UK the number of women who fish also appears to be trending upwards – particularly in the carp fishing world, where influencers such as Bev Clifford bang the drum for female participation. Twenty-five-year-old administrative worker and Instagrammer Alex Marples from Derbyshire (@lexcarping) was introduced to fishing by her late grandfather, back when the lakes near her home town of Chesterfield were quieter. She still has to deal with the odd sexist remark (“‘I bet you’ve spent more time doing your makeup than catching fish,’ is one I’ve had,” she sighs) but has noticed a younger, more diverse crowd pitching up since the pandemic. “Trying to get a bank spot is crazy as it’s become so popular,” she says. “It seems the cool thing to do, it’s a big thing socially being out fishing with your friends here rather than being stuck inside on consoles – and being outside is so much better for mental health.”
In 2021, fishing was prescribed for the first time on the NHS, an initiative between the community interest group Tackling Minds and Greater Manchester mental health trust. According to Tackling Minds’ director and founder David Lyons, the scheme was such a success it led to a surge of demand from other NHS clinical commissioning groups. Lyons also manages fishing sessions with young people at risk of antisocial behaviour: “The take up has been amazing,” he says, “and police reported a 27% drop in incidents in the area as a direct result.” In 2022, Tackling Minds teamed up with Angling Direct and Anglia Ruskin University for the first peer-reviewed scientific study into recreational fishing, which confirmed its positive impact on mental and physical health.
For 22-year-old Southampton-based TikTokker Carmen (@ukfisherwoman), being introduced to angling was life-changing. In early 2020, she had just come out of an abusive relationship and turned to alcohol in lockdown to cope. Her new partner and friends suggested she come out to the lake with them. “I picked up one of their rods and caught six tiny little fish in about six minutes,” she says. “From that moment on I stopped drinking.” Her TikTok channel now has nearly 40,000 followers.
Outside her job as a convenience store manager, she spends time on the bank whenever she can, which brings her a peace she has never known before. Phone away, she watches kingfishers dive in and out of the water, ducks and swans floating past. “I had all of these demons in my head during lockdown – but once I started fishing they went,” she says. She also hopes her online presence will encourage more young women like her to fish: “When I started out, people would often assume the rods on the bank were both my partner’s, but now social media is normalising the idea of women who fish. I hope I’ve played a small part in that.”
Styling Bemi Shaw, Roz Donoghue, Melanie Wilkinson. Carmen Vest: Acne Studios from My Theresa. T-shirt: Mother. Shorts: Asos. Snagged Bros Jacket and beanie: Carhartt. Blue jacket: Patagonia. Cap: Finisterre. Other clothes, their own. Tom Gilet and cap: Palace Skateboards. Fleece: Carhartt. Other clothes, Tom’s own. Aisha T-shirt: River Island. Other clothes, Aisha’s own