Westie and I paddled out from the beach near my house heading south to a hole off Pakefield that had served me well back in the spring. The usual baits of unwashed squid and frozen blacks were onboard and we launched at around 7:30 for the ¾ mile paddle. The tide was with us and we lazily wandered down with me scanning the seabed on the way to look for any likely areas that might hold fish.
The seabed here was rather different to what I was expecting as I know it to be shallow sand and figured it’d be fairly flat whereas it in fact turned out to be very rippled, perhaps only down to the recent pounding it had got from the 5-6ft waves Liam and I had been Yakboarding in a few days prior. At night.
Tim peddled his way down as I paddled and we soon got to the mark and dropped anchor. I had my new dive reel which had arrived that morning and my spare 1.5kg anchor which I’d had to go back to now that the 2.5 is awol off Hopton. As Ti m baited up I headed south at a leisurely rate. The reel didn’t want to pay line out quickly and so the anchor wouldn’t dig in. Time to haul up and try again... what a piece of shit for winding with. I ended up hauling the warp by hand and pooling it into the yak as I used to do on occasion.
Back up to Tim and I dropped down again...and spent the next 15 minutes undoing a massive birds nest that ended with me cutting and retying the warp – soft string this, great. All the while my anchor was dragging...
Back I went, borrowed Tim’s spare 2.5kg and settled down to start fishing. First up was a whiting. This was followed by a few more before a good Dab jumped on the hook. This is a good year for dabs it seems – I’ve had eight myself and I’m using 4/0 pennel rigs with quite a large mouthful of food on them so there must be good numbers around and certainly I had a lot of dab-style bites that night that didn’t result in fish. Tim was doing better and outfished me totally – 2 codling to 5lb and I think he beat my tally of whiting too.
Come slack water and we paddled back, passing out launch point as I wanted to survey the area by the pier. We played first amongst the piers supports, going through from side to side and down the centre...always good for some images as they show the sonar shadow (indication of height) quite well.
I wish I knew what this was...or that I’d got my bait in its gob! If only I’d recorded a track so I could really look closely in detail.
Having left the spare card at home I only had the chart card in so had to rely on snapshot mode only but did see a few things worthy of note along the side of the harbour.
The best, however, came when I ran along the edge of the boulder breakwater.
(The white marks in the black of the water column are my paddle turbulence – the transducer is not sited where it would be if I was able to keep it).
In, drink, chat, bed...a good session even if it was beset with anchoring problems and a paucity of cod.
The morning saw me on my way south and after dropping off some kayaks en-route I pulled up at Rockley Park where I spotted Fatflyfisher in his van. I peered in his window and finally persuaded him to get kitted up to paddle over to the others. I suppose it was around 3 when we launched and the easy paddle on the flat, calm, mild waters of Poole Harbour was deceptive as I noticed when glancing down – we were doing less than 2 mph! We were heading straight into a 2+ mph current without noticing anything other than slow progress. Todaymueller, Lureman and Seagypsy were out there somewhere and going to look for them instead of fishing was probably a bad decision in hindsight ;D No matter, it was good to have a bit of a workout after being stuck in a van all day.
First up was Seagypsy who was then starting a slow drift home. Then Today Mueller called over that he had a fish on...
Snapping and filming I heard Lureman calling a bit further up. I figured he didn’t know I was busy and that John had a fish so didn’t rush over immediately but when I did he showed why he’d been calling; he also had a fish, and as luck would have it the right type too!
Not long after we all headed back to the car park in the dark, with me picking up the others on the side imaging unit, the white lines on the bottom half of the screen:
I was also able to pick up the holes left from anchoring:
We were illuminated at the last stages by some headlights shining out onto the water...and then it was off to the accommodation, Simon following me to the premier Inn where he decided to book in on account of the temperature. With the others heading to the Foundry we hatched a plan to meet up there for dinner and drinks although we decided at the last minute to eat before heading over for the latter only. We arrived shortly before the disco man started doing his thang and managed a bit of a natter between the ever growing crowd of yakfishing flotsam until finally I think it was time to leave.
Next morning breakfast was followed by the short drive back to Rockley Park where a large number of yaks were being offloaded. At least two of those who’d slept there overnight had apparently been awoken by a foreign gentleman asking if they were there to meet him...who’d have thought there would be spies around a secluded public toilet in the early hours eh?
After the usual greetings I started pulling kayaks out of the van and was soon met by Morag from Bournemouth Canoes. We’d met a couple of times and being a keen paddler himself it was great to have him along. With most people out on the water we both got a little bit of water time over the course of the day too, which was a bonus although my half hour of fishing/snapping resulted only in loads of crabs while Pugwash, whom I was accompanying, was pulling out the odd schoolie.
Zzippy soon turned up for a chat having been out since the early hours – it was 18 months since we’d last met!
He was soon followed by Maver who paddled out and anchored up with us.
My small amount of bait gone I headed in. I picked up the conversation I’d been having with Moonfleet earlier – it had started when I’d spotted him surreptitiously photographing my specially tied flounder rig – a well blinged, spooned wishbone innit! We had a good chat about it and I promised to let him have it after I’d fished. No real loss – it blanked on fish ;D I also had a look at some of his and can see where his reputation of ‘rig-wizard’ comes from.
John soon arrived back and – while looking like a cock – proudly posed with his supper, a nicely marked flounder:
Being kitted up Morag asked me to help one of his customers try out a Hobie tandem kayak. Not really too sure about it I did agree to give it a go but after about 20 yards it was clear we weren’t going to get along and by 50 yards we were turning around for me to get back out again. It’s not right for me to give an opinion on another company’s products so I won’t.
I don’t know what possessed me but I decided a seal launch was in order. Now don’t get me wrong, people do these from far more than the 4-5ft or so that I attempted but usually in sit-inside-kayaks away from nasty piers that the wind and current are pushing everything towards. They have also usually done it before ;D As it happens I had, many years ago (as in 18 or so years ago) done this a few times around a mates house that backed onto the river but I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to control it on hitting the water and didn’t know what to expect – other than a soaking – form a sit-on-top. Morag pushed me in and more by luck than judgement I went nose first into the water before popping up again in the upright position. I paddled in feeling smug ;D I had to have another go and when seagypsy kindly offered to push me in I didn’t really twig to his plan...mine being to do it as before then paddle out to clear water and do some re-entries. Of course Ben allowed me to combine both into one ;D His protested innocence being exposed when viewing John’s video! To be fair however, I should have fallen off the first time so it just evened the balance...these things have to be done after all!
Pugwash needed some Toque time and so with his camera in hand he went out while I directed him around the water to get some shots for his next article but one. Then it was time to get Moonfleet afloat for the first time and, ably assisted by lureman, he paddled out for the first time on a fishing Yak, a Trident 13.
I hadn’t twigged that carpyken was missing but he was out in his SINK with some others. After paddling around all day I then made him paddle some more and, good sport that he is, he did so while I took some photographs of him in his new toy:
Ken, I hope you passed your 3 star today mate.
Following the Barbie and the raffle I got myself soaked and headed off to Bournemouth canoes to drop Morag’s bike and kayaks off before heading back to the hotel for dinner. A good day over!
Sunday was originally intended as a morning fish before the long drag home but after a horrendous night of crap TV and bad sleep I changed my mind and checked out after breakfast.
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