Tidal Sewage and whats left behind

Not managed to venture to the full tidal in 26 years of fishing , just makes me feel sick knowing I'm fishing in sewage !
Certainly wouldn't get me re-biting my split shot on the line that's for sure !!
I just think there's much better and nicer parts of the river to fish - of course I mean Richmond half lock all the way to Oxford !! 100 times cleaner

If you,ve never fished the Tidal, how do you know your fishing in sewage?
Each to their own, but i find your comments are an insult to the people who try
and keep this part of the thames clean, the people i refer to now are the volunteers
of "Thames21" who i hasten too add, are mainly girls, (who dont wear marigolds).
The decision of this outfit to not do "Litter Picks" anymore, was stupid in my opinion,
it took a "Social" element out of the outfit of which it was created and has been
replaced with political gobblegook, which is boring and is a sure fire way of getting
people to reach for the off button, unless of course, you have a picture of your favourite politician
on your bedroom wall.
Also this outfit gained a huge amount of respect amongst the non-fishing fraternity when we fished
at Barnes and Kew, (both on the full tidal).
Also, in case anyones forgot, David Harvey would not have had the ammunition to stand up and
argue his point, if it was,nt for a certain video produced by Steve Holmes and Paul Sullivan,
two guys who i have the upmost respect for, they did,nt worry about a little bit of mud
and they did,nt wear marigolds.
Maybe if you made yourself available for a bit of dirty hard graft i would accept your comments,
but seeing as you,ve never done anything for this outfit, i would,nt hold my breath.

I feel that comment was a bit unnecessary to be honest . I wasn't being rude or trying to insult anyone as you put it , just that its well known that other parts of the Thames are cleaner than those you mention And i prefer to fish those , not just for sewage reasons but for things like parking and access also . Yes I agree hard work has gone into making that stretch cleaner by all parties involved .
And James , there are also over 1000 members on here , what happened to some of those coming on the clean ups instead of aiming your comments specifically at me ?
So your aware - I've been on litter picks with jim a while back , and each time I go fishing I clear up other people's mess around me .
And anyway - surely I'm entitled to my opinion ? Nothing I posted is rude or out of order , I just made an innocent comment that's all .

Fair enough Adrian, an innocent comment accepted.
But negative posts by people who have no knowledge of the area are insulting
to the people from the area who put the effort in.

I apologise to you if you feel victimised in anyway, but you were the only one to reply.
As i said, each to their own,
Opinions are individual and everyones are different which makes for good debate.
12 months ago i would not have touched this area with a barge pole,
but as i,ve said before, i live next to the river and so am in the unique position of being
able to watch the river change, and change it has, for how long, i dont know.
I know we have had a "Get out of jail card" with all the rain, diluting the discharges,
and we cant rely on that as a cure, but it has improved for now and i for one am happy
about that.

No hard feelings, but i,m very protective of the area i live and fish in
and think Hammersmith and Fulham have had enough attacks
from the nimbys of surrey.

James.

WORKING CLASS FOR LIFE

Lets leave it there I think

Evening gents and all others !!
As a modertor of our fine forum i am keeping a eye on this thread and if i feel its becoming personal then i will close it down. Everybody is entitled to there opinion and everybody should feel free to express it.
So with that in mind lets bring it back on track and look at the mess thats left behind at low tide in the area that James has highlighted as being a issue.

Regards

Andy

Great stuff !!

Hi Andy,
Agree to some degree with what you say, but even you have your facts wrong.
18 months ago the ex-chairman and current chairman of this outfit visited the area concerned
and photos were taken and stuck up by the current chairman, the place was a mess.
The current secretary asked me a few days ago to stick up some more photos as a comparison
and give a general report to the state of the river/shore now, which i did.
What i object to, is people with no knowledge or facts posting up negative reports,
slagging off this part of the river when a lot of volunteers, (not the TAC), are giving up their
free time to try and keep this part of the river clean.
When i say you have,nt got your facts right, what i mean is, the crap left at low tide is a problem all
along the tidal from teddington to the sea, what the post is all about is the green residue left on the river banks
caused by low levels. sewage and hot weather, that has now gone, the sewage is still coming out,
(it comes out all along the river), but thanks to a combination of constant rainfall and a rubbish summer,
things have got a lot better.
I said to the secretary that i would prefer to take photos on the 6th April, so as to make it a calender year
since the last lot were taken (springtime,not winter) and hope conditions would be similar, so as to get a true picture.
Last year we had two successful outings on the tidal and although not a lot of fish were caught,
everyone enjoyed the experience and wanted to do more, this is my wish and i for one would love to see
more anglers fishing the tidal, (the fish are here, ask Lee Tomlin, their just a bit hard to catch), this will not happen
if people with no knowledge give the place a bad name.

james

Im sure peoPle can make their own minds up on wether to fish there or not ! ive not given the area a bad name , it was my opinion , a single persons opinion . and actually I do have knowledge of that area , and I was not slagging anyone or anything off!!! I merely stated that my preference was further upstream to fish , for many reasons , but mainly pollution , parking , access etc . At no point did I aim any of this at you !
Although I don't have to justify myself to anyone - I have been out on a few clean ups , admittedly a while ago now , been out with the ea at Richmond doing the fish surveys , putting up signs with jim , taking tac leaflets round the tackle shops etc . Yes , i know others have done a lot more than me , but I do what I can when I can .

The work on the full tidal has been great I'm not denying that , and the people involved have really turned it around in a big way .

It's fairly obvious that your problem is not just with me , but with the tac as a whole or so it appears .
Anyway enough from me - let's just let this lie now please and get back to what the thread is about . Life's too short for silly bickering .

Hi James,

I only asked if you could post up some photos now because I am impatient and wanted to know what the effect of the high flows had been on all that muck. That doesn't preclude posting up some more on 6th April, in fact if you have the time, please post up a new one every week. I don't understand why and I don't think you're being particularly fair picking on Adrian.

If you remember we did have another tidal fish-in organised for a couple of months back, I can't find the thread now but I can remember is it was cancelled due to horizontal rain. Me, I've hardly been out anywhere the past 3 months.

Please remember that all the committee have other full-time commitments and put in quite a lot of effort for this club, sure there's a lot of politics in the background, that's how it is, without that the TAC would be nothing. Personally I've been working late in to the night most nights sorting out a way to manage the membership list so we can contact you all and sign new people up without all the palaver and expense that the membership job had previously become.

You are right we havn't done nearly as many events as we'd like to have this season, I'm sorry but that's simply how our lives have worked out, I see a bit of light at the end of my particular tunnel but not sure about the others. There are over 1450 members, 750 on this forum, if any of you want to do stuff please shout and get everyone going.

If you would like to get another social tidal fish-in organised, please feel free to step up, start a thread on "Forthcoming Events", agree on a date that suits best and it will happen. That's really all that is required to make a social fish-in happen. After all the rain and high flows the gravels must be quite clean everywhere so choose a good place and let's get out. (Just don't clash it with the barbel fish-in on 9th March nor Penton Hook this Saturday!) There's not much longer left for fishing then it will be the litter picking season.

Regards
Ed

James I see the fire still burns bright in you

Glad to hear you're fishing your bit of England. Magical place with a charm all of its own. As you know, it's like you're on a beach down at the sea at times with the gulls squawking above you and pebbles underfoot. Anyone who's fished the TAC tidal socials will know it's attractions.

The thing about the tidal is it's so multi-habitat. You've got mud flats (Brentford), clean sand (St. Pauls Hammersmith southside), clean gravel (London Apprentice), massive gravel bars (Small Profits Barnes), deeps (Fulham trench) fresh water (down to Wandsworth), brackish to Dartford and salty from there. Plus you're never short of flow

All we need is for that extra capacity at Modgen to make a difference to the water quality when we return to normality after all the flush-thrus/floods we've had.