Steve was already out so we paddled out to join him over the rough ground a few hundred yards out. The tide was still fairly slack and all he’d had was a whiting so we were hopeful but not excited. Neil (Spiny) had been out earlier and been inundated with whiting but we knew the codling would be around. We dropped anchor and ended up either side of Steve in a reasonable swell…
…it didn’t take long.
First codling in the bag, and a decent fish – a perfect christening. This was followed soon after by a good whiting that I also kept. Another few had minutes passed when the rod tip went again and another codling came up after a bit of an effort, followed by a smaller whiting that went back for next year. There were very regular bites, knocks and rattles and things were going great. This all happened in maybe half an hour – I almost up anchored and headed into shore there and then, satisfied! The plan was to head back in, land by the beach anglers and ask if they had any spare worms as I’d only taken two worms and had run out already ;D Optimism and the pleasure of being out decided against it for me though and I stayed. The next fish on was another decent codling but then it went slack…up came my trace only to find that my snood had parted. A combination of rough ground, codling/whiting teeth and line that was too light cost allowed one fish a lucky escape.
Things started to quieten off as the tide picked up and then Steve was into a fish – and a bloody good one. He got dragged south about 50 yards (and ended up alongside me) before finally boating a beauty! His scales at home didn’t go high enough but he got it weighed this morning at 7lb 7oz gutted, so that would have been over 8lb fresh and ungutted – his PB.
For some reason our yaks kept swinging into each other after this. I had one more codling that saw me tightening my drag and actually fighting a with abnd then I just sat around for an hour. I was getting no more bites although I lost a big crab on the surface but Steve caught up with me. Tim had by now broken his duck with a whiting and soon after we heard him get his first codling. Perfect – the night was complete…or would have been if Steve didn’t immediately draw ahead of me with the final codling of the night. We then up-anchored and paddled in to the beach landing in the right spot with no dramas.
Back on the beach the camera came out again and I actually took some pictures of dead fish – not something I normally do. My haul:
The same fish in the tankwell:
Steve’s fish added for scale:
not bad eh?
No real surprise he’s smiling, is it!
Tim also had something to smile about:
Big hands that fella ;)
Back to Steve’s for a drink and then off home around 2am, fishing cancelled for the morning due to the weather predictions. Lucky really as I had stuff to do ;D
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