The alarm went off at 05:20 ‘yesterday time’ which was anywhere between 04:20 and 06:20 in ‘today time’ but quite frankly that sort of philosophical debate is for afternoons. Coffee down the hatch, drysuit and mukluks on and I was in the van headed for Hopton again.
Pinkfoot (Carl) was getting sorted out as I arrived and headed down the track to the beach, Eastangler (Paul) arriving a few minutes behind me and by 6:30 in old money we were on our way. I paddled out to where I reckoned the rough ground was (didn’t bother with electronics this morning) and stumbled upon some pot buoys a few metres away – on the money ;) Not bad going in the dark. Carl pitched up soon after, wondering where I’d got to as I’d turned my head light off for the paddle out and ditched the nav light for the hour or so it’d be useful (the head torch being more than sufficient to fulfil safety issues). Five minutes later and I was into the first codling of the day. Frozen black lug tipped with squid strip on a 5/0 pennel plaice rig (similar, but with a couple of extra swivels, beads and attractor blades a few inches further up the line). A bit of a thin fish that’d have gone 4.5lb in better condition – I figured the fillets would be a bit thin so popped it back to feast some more before coming aboard again. Meanwhile a Whiting had jumped on the 5/0 pennel. That also went back. I didn’t photograph either - or in fact either species all morning - for once; I hope I’m not getting blasé about them!
Next up was a stonking bite – ‘codling’ I thought! Pulled it up, battling all the way:
That was a keeper. Gutted and gilled immediately pout are good eating and not to be sniffed at. Decent fillets too.
The sun started to come up (I love that time and have missed it – there’s no way on God’s earth I’m watching sunrise in summer!) and Carl was determined to catch up with me – it seemed that the 20 metres difference between us was enough to change the fishing at this point of the tide.
More codling followed, more whiting too, and another Pout, a bit smaller this time:
…and then a dab! My third of the year…
The first 1.5 hours was good sport with plenty of fish about…come whatever time the tide slackened off ( 8ish?) it went dead and because of the strong (25mph+) wind in the opposing direction the bloody yaks wouldn’t swing back around fully …after at least a couple of hours of this I decided to call it a day after trying to uptide – the result being a nice, pink anchor line… ;D
Carl was getting excited – all his rods were bending and pulling and he was frantically trying to catch whatever it was on the end – had he turned and seen me hauling him towards Paul and I (we were chatting) he’d have not bothered ;D We chatted for a bit and then I up-anchored as Paul got ready to drop down again:
A quick photo shoot (cheers Carl) and I wandered back to the beach. Lo and behold there was Mr Sleepy! Steve had wandered down to the beach after a nice, leisurely lay in (not been married long) and was there to see what I’d caught (4 codling, 7 whiting, 3 pout and a dab) and to see me judge a wave wrong, over-compensate the stern-ruddering, over-power the brace and end up on my arse in the water. Oh well, the drysuit needed a rinse!
Loaded up, we ranted about the tossers who’d left the beach looking like a sh!thole overnight and stuck all of their crap in my tankwell to be deposited in the bin 150 yards up the slipway on the way to where they’d most likely have parked the night before.
Excellent, back in time for lunch ;D
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