B4IT AND SW1TCH: London's 4am Tackle Shops Are the City's Strangest Handover

At 03:47 on a Thursday, Holloway Road is doing that thing where it looks like a film set after the crew has gone home. The kebab shop shutter is down. The 43 bus is idling with two passengers and a driver who has seen everything. And outside a narrow tackle shop, four men in matching camo fleeces are queuing like it's a sneaker drop.

This is the handover hour. The last of the night is bumping into the first of the morning. On the same stretch of pavement, you'll find a woman in last night's glitter arguing with an Uber app and a bloke called Kev explaining the difference between a bolt rig and a running ledger. Neither group knows what to do with the other. Both are, technically, waiting for bait.

London's surviving tackle shops are not nightlife. They are the anti-nightlife: fluorescent lights, thermos flasks, the quiet rustle of a plastic bag full of maggots. But for a few hours before first light, they become the strangest meeting point in the city. The night bus is still warm. The reservoir gates are about to click open. And the pavement is a neutral zone where a hen-do survivor and a carp angler can swap notes on the weather.

The 4am Queue Is a Personality Test

We started at a shop off Holloway Road that opens at four because the owner says he 'got fed up with people banging on the door at half three.' By 04:10 there were nine of us: six anglers, two clubbers who had mistaken the queue for a taxi rank, and a man who just wanted to buy a newspaper and was deeply disappointed.

The anglers are easy to spot. They carry rod holdalls like they're smuggling a cello. They speak in a low, unhurried code: 'two pints of reds,' 'a pack of hooks to nylon,' 'have you got any of that groundbait that smells like a bin fire?' They are not remotely bothered by the woman in sequins who is now sitting on the kerb eating a Greggs pasty she found in her bag. They have seen worse. They have seen the M25 at 5am.

The clubbers, by contrast, are in a state of wonder. One of them, a lad called Marcus, asked me if the shop sold 'anything for a hangover.' The owner, without looking up, handed him a bottle of Lucozade and a bag of prawns. Marcus bought both. He is now, I suspect, a fisherman.

Maggots, Monsters and the Politics of a Thermos

By 04:40 we had moved east. A shop near Blackhorse Road opens at five, but the queue starts earlier because the owner has a habit of letting regulars in while he's still putting the shutters up. This is the kind of place where the bait fridge hums louder than the radio and the walls are covered in photos of fish that look like they've been Photoshopped by a man with a grudge against reality.

The conversation turns, as it always does, to the big one. There is a reservoir in North London that allegedly holds a pike the size of a Labrador. Nobody has caught it. Everybody has a mate who has seen it. The night bus crowd listen to this like it's a ghost story. In a way, it is: a story about a city that keeps its wildness hidden in plain sight, behind fences and under grey water.

The practical stuff gets swapped on the pavement, too. Where to get a day ticket. Which canal towpath is too muddy after rain. How to avoid the swans on the Lee Navigation, who are organised and aggressive and have no respect for a £200 rod. One angler tells me he once saw a fox steal a whole bag of boilies. 'Didn't even run,' he says. 'Just walked off with it. Like it was a Deliveroo.'

Same Pavement, Different Species

What strikes you, after three shops and two thermoses, is how similar the two groups are. Both are dressed for a climate that doesn't exist: the anglers in waterproof everything, the clubbers in coats that are technically jackets. Both are running on adrenaline and bad decisions. Both are convinced that the night is not over yet, even though, for one group, it very much is.

The difference is what they're waiting for. The clubbers are waiting for the night bus to take them home to a bed they'll regret leaving. The anglers are waiting for the sun to come up so they can sit in silence by a canal and think about nothing. It's the same city, the same hour, the same wet pavement. But one is ending and one is beginning.

At 05:30, the sky did that thing where it turns the colour of a bruise. The queue outside the third shop, a tiny place near Catford that smells of aniseed and ambition, had thinned to three people. One of them was Marcus, the clubber. He had bought a starter kit. He was holding it like a newborn. 'I'm going to catch a fish,' he said, with the confidence of a man who has never been fishing. 'Probably a big one.'

He won't. But that's not the point.

The Practical Bit: How to Do the Crawl Without Getting Kicked Off a Reservoir

• Check the opening times. They are weird and they change. Some open at four, some at five, one bloke in Walthamstow opens 'when the dog wakes up.' Call ahead. Or just turn up and hope.
• Buy something. This isn't a museum. A pack of hooks costs three quid. It's cheaper than a cocktail and it lasts longer.
• Don't be loud. The anglers are not your audience. They are trying to buy bait. Talk to them if they talk to you, but keep the volume at 'library' not 'kebab shop at 2am.'
• Bring cash. Some places have card machines that look like they were installed by a man who doesn't trust electricity. Cash is king.
• If you actually want to fish, get a rod licence. The Environment Agency does not have a sense of humour. A day ticket is often available from the shop, but the licence is on you.
• Respect the water. The reservoirs and canals around London are not set dressing. They are working habitats, and the people who fish them are often the ones who look after them. Don't leave litter. Don't be a wally.

Last Cast

We ended the crawl at a greasy spoon near Walthamstow that opens at six. The anglers went in for a full English. The clubbers went home. Marcus went to find a bus to a lake he'd found on Google Maps. I went home and slept for four hours, which felt like a moral failure.

But the handover hour stays with you. It's the moment when London stops being a city of clubs and starts being a city of water. The night bus rolls past. The shutters go up. And for a few strange minutes, everyone on the pavement is waiting for the same thing: a bit of peace, a bit of luck, and a reason to stay out a little longer.