05:00 hours and the alarm goes off. Clothes, coffee and into the family car for the quick run north to Hopton to meet with Pinkfoot (Carl), Steve111 (Steve) and possibly Hungryfisherman (Amos) who’d texted during the preceding evening to see if we were launching. Onmas, who is also mostly kitted out now unfortunately unable to join us and with Eastangler having a cold we only managed a fleet instead of an armada. Heading down the track I spotted the Scupper Pro on his roof rack and woke him up minutes before his alarm did – my werewolf impression wasted from leering in through a rear window. A quick hello and it was time to get rigged and ready. Then Steve arrived followed by Carl who had wandered down to grab some bits before getting himself rigged just up the road. The temperature was hovering around bugger all degrees.
Down on the beach Steve and I launched while Amos finished off a few bits. A minor shore break and we were heading out to the deeper water about ¾ mile out, Steve resplendent in his shiny new Trident 13 with bells and whistles attached!
Getting out he dropped anchor and after seeing he was fine I paddled upstream and dropped mine…promptly drifting past him before settling down and getting baited up. Semi-frozen squid on a cold morning does wonders for the circulation in your fingers and I was pleased to have not lost my baiting needle when it came to getting the worms on! With squid and double frozen black lugworm on a pennel straight ahead and lugworm tipped with squid on wishbones out to either side I sat back and waited for a bite, all the time wondering what Amos was up to, having joined us by now.
It took about half an hour and then…knock knock knock on the right hand wishbone rig…just as Carl was getting close by…happened last time as well…fish magnet that man!
Lovely, the first fish of the day, a codling of around 1 1/2lb. It looked as though it might be a good session.
Steve followed with a Whiting, his first kayak-caught fish…the investment made worthwhile! Ten minutes later and I figured I ought to take a look at my left hand rod…the second one of these I’ve had here:
I dunno, must be mating season and a shortage of pretty whelks! Extracted, it went on the hook.
Rattle! Same rig, ten minuets later…I figured the old ‘use what you caught’ had worked again but it was the other hook that had got my first Whiting of the year. Neatly hooked it went straight back in.
A while passed and a couple of missed taps resulting in the squid tips being removed from the hooks and then a lovely bite! 12lb class rod, braid and a good run of tide coupled with a big mouth meant I had a lovely scrap bringing up this one, undoubtedly the hardest scrap I’ve had from a codling to date…yet not a massive fish, maybe 3 1/2lb…lovely all the same and the fillets are in my parent’s fridge.
Amos was back after some running alterations and he set off to drop anchor again.
Meanwhile, Steve was in again…was it a fish? No, it was bigger than that…I let out some warp so he could unhook me.
Carl of course was happily sitting it out waiting for the fish to bite. Confidence in his equipment ascertained after his first radio check. November Foxtrot November!
The tide started to slacken and having missed a couple more rattles things settled down to a long waited punctuated only by Steve getting a Whiting, perhaps by craftily snagging discards from a passing commercial boat…
Last casts done and dusted, with a second Whiting coming in, it was felt by all that the ice forming around our anatomies needed thawing and so we all up-anchored and headed in. The sunshine was glorious, the sea state perfect and the fish while not plentiful had at least showed. We turned and came in, with the current still pretty weak; I had a happy man alongside me…
Amos was first in, then Steve and I and finally Carl bringing up the rear in the most watertight Malibu out there.
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