“Fuck, I’d better wash this undersuit later!”
The second was to wake Westie who’d camped over and Hungryfisherman who was frozen inside his car (bloody mad man). Both would need a hot drink and once mine had reached my toes I even pulled myself together sufficiently to make some fried egg sarnies for us all. Now, is it just me or is ketchup on a fried egg sarnie just plain wrong? Worcestershire Sauce (Lea and Perrins, naturally) is de rigeur in our house and Tabasco is allowed but surely Tomato sauce is ghastly on it, no? Enough, it’s time to go to Gorleston and launch...
The night before there’d been no beach and a strong swell so I’d asked Richi to post an alternate up on the forum (cheers mate). Pinkfoot had texted to say he’d headed to Gorleston which was ideal as the flood would take us down to Hopton and the ebb would bring as back up again. However, Lureman was expected and I figured I’d best check to see if he was waiting at Hopton. Lucky really, as he was and so was Sharkhunter, who’d driven overnight from Wales! Bloody mad, the pair of them ;) With FatFlyFisher having come from Oxfordshire too the fishing had better be good...
The sea was halfway up the wooden slip at the bottom of the ramp but the sea was a lot less bumpy so we decided to go ahead and launch here anyway. Of course, it was snowing now so the BeardHeads sported by Westie and myself were appreciated. Lureman was first in, followed by Sharkie before we followed them down. Seal launching was not my priority so I launched normally straight into a couple of waves that washed the cobwebs away. I then hung around to watch (and film) Westie and Hungry...Westie impressing with his launch!
We paddled out, aiming for Steve’s mark...and missed. Five of us were all anchored up within 100 or so yards of it once we’d settled and in theory should have been in a good position. For those of you wishing to know where we were, here is a photo:
The first hour passed with nothing at all. No bites, no rattles, nothing. Just weed. What the hell? Had we caught them all last week? The second hour proved no better. Finally though, two and a half hours in, I had some excitement as a starfish took my bait and started to shag it presumably.
Enough. I slipped my anchor and wandered over to chat to Sharkie for a bit before paddling uptide to Pinkfoot’s position, he and Spiny having come south from Gorleston. A pleasant paddle of around a mile and a half had burned off some of the festive flab and they were also blanking! Well, it can’t be a double every week after all!
Onto Spiny, the first time we’d actually managed to hit the sea at the same time – hopefully the first of many as his cat is very hungry. The ice-breaking duck seemed to have worked wonders as he’d broken through the Baltic wastelands of North Norfolk, traversed the snow on the beach and navigated the icy waters southwards into the heart of the Codlands...
I headed back and hooked back up to my anchor, the tide was easing as we started into slack water. Westie and I were pretty close to each other and with the swinging we ended up bouncing off each other at times. We still hadn’t had so much as a sniff of a fish!
Heartened by the news that Lureman was in with a whiting we began to tremble with anticipation. I was mostly trembling in the toe area although my fingers were starting to anticipate too. The excitement was building...
...and an hour or two of building excitement got me up to such a frenzy of anticipation in all ten of my toes and all ten of my fingers that I decided that enough was enough and I needed to return home to lie in a darkened room . Not only did I (and most of us) blank but we blanked in style – it was a beautiful day, a beautiful sea and I am sun and wind-tanned. Besides, I have some cod in the freezer!
Now, where’s my Yak Board...
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