I woke up early and looked out of the window at the high wind and the rain…and promptly went back to bed, getting up instead to go and buy a salmon from the supermarket with my father-in-law and youngest daughter. Oh, and beer.
Back home and it was out with the knives…at least something fishy was happening! Filleted, cut etc and the off-cuts in the smoker, I then got on with my next task, preparing a nice lunch of cod. The plan was to prepare it in different ways and the end result with four of Saturday night’s refrigerated fillets were battered and deep fried, floured and shallow fried, hot smoked and en-papilotte with cherry tomatoes, dill, sea salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil. Rather a nice selection for lunch and while the former came out tops for me the latter was my wife’s favourite. The béarnaise sauce I made was good too,
I needed a paddle to get rid of all that butter! Rather oddly my wife said I could go that afternoon if I wanted - and by now the sun was out and the wind a bit less. I figured that I wouldn’t have time for a proper fishing session though and decided instead to just go for a play.
I launched from the end of the road in the Prowler 15 into some quite nice breakers. Nothing really surfable, quite choppy 3-4ft dumpy stuff that gave me a faceful constantly and I took my time going through it all nice and slowly – it was the ideal day for practicing going in and out and I did so for the next hour or two, practicing sitting in the surf, going in and out forwards and backwards, fast and slow, straight and angled and surfing, bracing etc here and there…good fun and good practice. I only got knocked off once and that was paddling in the breakers parallel to the shore…I learnt quite a bit in that session.
Back home I took out some of the salmon and began preparing sushi…a time-consuming meal that is sufficiently endearing to allow passes…
…passes that needed cashing-in straight away as Bootster informed me that he was catching off the beach…and caught while talking to me. My evening was written in stone – we were off out.
Bootster (who’d landed five codling to 6lb) arrived around seven and we set off for the beach. A quick launch through a sea that had calmed greatly since lunchtime still saw us getting flooded laps but once out we turned south and headed for Pakefield to an almost full moon.
I was pissed off to discover that I’d misplaced my baiting needle – with long frozen black lug this was a disaster. I then missed the first bite while Bootster was still tackling up (my rods are ready constantly). In no time at all another rattler and I wound up the first fish of the night. A Pouting.
Shortly after Bootster also got one, bigger than mine and then it quietened off. The swell was quite calming; although not flat-calm it was pleasant enough and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach in an otherwise quiet night just made things more enjoyable.
But there were no more bites and we were getting hung up with weed. I decided, being quiet now, that I ought to sort out my finder. Id knocked the transducer off with the battery while playing in the surf (didn’t know it was in there!) and had snapped a wire while connecting up before launch. I couldn’t do much about the former but I didn’t think we were in the right place so crawled up to the front hatch, pulled the battery and cable out and stripped the wires. I then re-wired the battery and checked our position. We were off the mark by maybe 75 metres. A miss is as good as a mile so we up-anchored and moved.
Somehow or other I managed to unclip the carabiner of my right hand trolley and so had to revert to the left hand one – my carabiner out the back. It wasn’t the only problem, it was one of those occasions when I was fishing like a twatt! I even caught a tankwell bungee while casting at one point! Next thing I knew, after getting settled down after anchoring, was a bite… a Whiting that was quite deeply hooked. I unhooked it and, hopeful that it might survive, returned it. I then realised that I hadn’t got a pic…I needed another now…
…and I got one. I missed a cod bite too, bringing up just weed (and lots of it). The lines were literally covered in a few minutes and I think this affected our chances greatly. I then compounded things with a nice little crack-off while casting. It was going nicely until something caught up and a freshly hooked black went sailing out, with trace and breakaway, into the night. I was less than happy. Still, we persevered until the tide began to slacken and then I decided it was time to call it a night as I had work in the morning. I up-anchored and drifted towards Bootster then paddled in and tied off for a natter, my remaining rod just sitting in the water from a flushmount all this time.
After a while he brought his lines in, having brought in the only codling of the night and I got mine in ready to separate. It felt heavy and I figured I’d got a load of weed on it. Up near the surface though I felt it kick…then I saw the weight…and the trace…and the beads and blades…and the worm. Must have been the weed after all. I swung it in.
Something wasn’t right though; there was a tangle of some sort, so I started trying to work out where the braid was to get it back on the reel or whatever. Then the braid pulled…and I pulled back…and it felt heavy but the rod didn’t move…bugger me if I hadn’t snagged my earlier crack-off! Not only that but…yep, you’ve guessed it, that freshly hooked worm had done the business!
With luck like that and a night like that it was a happy pair of yakkers who paddled in (and a happy pair of office girls who took home a couple of fresh fillets apiece for Easter weekend)
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