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Sunday 23 May 2010

Further Afield. Great Scot! 23.05.10

There are times when my job ends up being even better than it should be through the opportunities that can be added onto it with a bit of thought. This weekend provided an excellent opportunity of doing something I’d wanted to do for a couple of years, namely meet up with some of the Scottish boys. It’s not just the surroundings they fish in but the whole full-on session they seem to report on – sleeping out overnight and putting in the hours on the water, calm or rough, catching good fish and doing it year-round. They’re also a bunch of guys I know through the site but who I never get to meet at shows or demos. Well, having to be up in the Highlands for Sunday evening meant I could get on and fish with some of them.

Saturday saw me leave the house at 7am with a couple of deliveries to do in the Lake District en-route to Monday’s work and by the time I rolled up at the place Stargaizer and Jose24 were fishing over twelve hours had passed – twelve bloody hot hours too! They were just coming in as I arrived, fishless and covered in mud having had a battle getting to the water on the way out through thigh-high mud. Their kayaks looked admirable – wet and dirty! We chatted for a bit and then headed off to a different mark to fish in the morning, a mark where we could roll up in the vehicles and sleep in peace on the surrounding area...

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...quite a popular peaceful place this; especially popular with the large number of teenagers who had set up for a late-night beach party with loud music, weed and shagging. Friendly bunch they were though – they had to come past us with our portable barbecue to get to the ‘Beach Pish’ (a hut with proper toilet, sink etc) and were all polite and willing to chat for a while. Their party sounded really good but obviously us old bastards and Sophie the dog were better as there were anything up to seventeen people in our group at times ;D Come sometime between two and three am though we got rid of them and got our heads down ready for the 4am launch, no tents or anything, we were in sleeping bags under the stars.

Up at 6am in time for our planned 4am launch at 7am we looked a bag of sh!te, as did our surroundings which we soon got tidied up. Next we had a quick bite to eat and got ourselves kitted up before heading down onto the beach, the tide up high enough to ensure a quick and easy transit to the water. The water was crystal clear and there were big boulders and smaller rocks covering the seabed as we paddled out – these remained visible until we were in reasonable depths.

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Having not yet given the Prowler Ultra 4.7 a proper test myself and having some spare space on the van I’d brought one along with me. I figured that a reasonable paddle out and back, some anchoring and some proper fishing would give me an idea of it’s capabilities and use as a fishing kayak. I dragged it down to the shore, loaded my gear into the central hatch (very useful storage area) and floated her. I sat aboard and immediately felt stable even though I was a lot higher than I’m used to; I didn’t fit a seat though as I wanted to feel all the nuances of the boat. We paddled out with me using a longer shaft than normal (225cm overall paddle length) on my paddle to make up for the width and height difference from my Scupper Pro (215cm overall paddle length) and the big Nordkapp blades pushed me forwards at a decent rate of speed, the kayak tracking beautifully through its long waterline and slicing through the water with that sharp and uplifting bow. It certainly didn’t hang about, that’s for sure!

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The idea was to begin with a drift for some Pollack as bait about half a mile out before heading out another mile to drop anchor and try for something else. On went my eBay-bought Fladen mackerel feathers (bought in bulk a couple of years back) with a Dexter Wedge on the bottom to provide the weight and in went my line, dropping it down to the bottom and just bringing it up slightly before jigging it up and down for a few minutes.

Bang! I was in with a Pollack of maybe 1.5lb, the first of the year and a PB.

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I had a juvenile later – such a difference in markings!

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A couple more followed and then I had my first ever Coalfish ;D

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I was chuffed. Feathering is not an option off my usual grounds so to be catching fish in this way was doubly pleasing. I dropped some off (including some bigger fish) and released some but ended up with a bunch of fish in the tankwell for bait. I even managed my first feathered-up codling! Around 1.5lb it was a lot darker and more vividly marked than our home fish. It went back in and we went out.

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We dropped anchor and I dropped my feather rod down while I got tackled up for the main target. Immediately my rod started to buck and I wound in a couple of Coalfish. One of these immediately went on whole as a livebait and was sent down to the bottom on a 10/0 hook with wire trace – we were toping!

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With my reel set to ratchet and knocked out of gear I got on with the feathering and got constant, immediate hits as the Coalfish bag mounted with anywhere up to five fish jumping onto the hooks.

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These were being released as they came in with fun to pass the time being the objective. It was great sport but too easy – thirty seconds would see me into a fish and this attracted more and I watched them zooming in and getting hooked up too; I was in a good spot! I was starting to ease off when I got myself a couple of Mackerel in the 1lb bracket – the first of the year.

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Mackerel, a superb bait. I wound in the live Coalfish and sent it on it’s way, turned the first Mackerel into a flapper bait by removing the spine up to the head and sent it down to the bottom to leak it’s juices out into the current. The second was cut into a head and half section, a tail section fillet, some bait strips and some sashimi (deboned, skinned and rinsed in the sea). Lovely it was too. As I began to think about changing traces to fish baits on the bottom (if I could get them down before they got pounced on) some movement began on the tope rod. I put the feather rod out of the way, switched the Oregon Action Camera on (Mounted on a paddle shaft resting in the rear flushmount) and picked up the rod and waited. It was like that scene in Jaws:

Click

Click

Click Click Click

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

The line started to scream off the reel and I waited. It took a hundred yards or so and then stopped briefly before moving off again. I struck, wound down and all hell broke loose – Fish On! This Tope (presumably) went mental and screeched off downtide as I started to fight it. A minute or so passed and then the line went light. It had dropped the hook, the Mackerel being at the top of the trace now, jammed up against the swivel.

Another, slower, run occurred half an hour later and although I felt some weight initially I ended up pulling in a mainline that had been scraped through against something - whether it was rock damage or fish damage I don’t know for sure but I suspect the latter.

I changed baits to the head-half, thinking that maybe the fish would have been more likely on a smaller bait. Down it went and I did some more feathering. Then Stargaizer was in and hauled up a nice tope of an estimated 30lbs+. Shortly afterwards I got a small run that saw me hooked up into a snag and then my day started to go awry. I broke free from my anchor reel and ended up snapping my rod at the spigot.

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I got the gear back up eventually. My buoy disappeared in the current and I paddled back up to Stargaizer and Jose who were tied up together. Jose’s anchor buoy was available as he’d abandoned it for some reason and so, after transferring some of my 60lb mono main line to my braided feathering reel as an emergency Heath-Robinson rubbing leader, I clipped off to it and sent the tail fillet down to the bottom and waited. Nibbling began fairly quickly and so I took the rod in my hands. A tope bite started and I turned on my camera. The line started to come off the reel and after a hundred yards stopped. I waited. It started to tighten again and I struck, giving the line a few swift jabs and then I felt the tope moving off...stay on please...

...the fish swam away and I started to wind it in. Pumping it up from 75ft wasn’t difficult but did require the drag to be tightened a bit more. The theory that I was always taught is to set the drag to 1/3 of the line breaking strain but this of course assumes that rod, reel and line are all balanced and having snapped a rod already that morning I didn’t feel as confident as I could have even though I’d been applying a lot more pressure than I would have needed for this fish. I tightened up enough to start raising her but still allowing her to run – of course I’d now gone to a star drag instead of my big lever drag so didn’t have the near-instant pressure adjustment that I had originally intended but it wasn’t a fast fight so I had plenty of opportunity to fine tune the reel.

I was surprised at the fight really as I had been expecting screaming runs, head thrashing, crash dives and the suchlike as I’d heard so much about Tope and had waited so long before getting the opportunity to fish for them; I had expected a fight like a Smoothound. Instead, I was treated to strong, steady pulls and dogged resistance as it came towards the surface. Herein lay another problem as swapping over rods earlier now saw me with a knot that wouldn’t go through my rod tip under pressure! This meant I’d finished reeling but still had the fish 20ft below me, out of sight, and still quite fresh from not running for the horizon...I tried to haul the knot through the rings from the top but this was not happening and so I handlined it up. Finally I saw it and the magnification of the water made this majestic and large fish look even more so – it was a beautiful sight which I savoured...and then the tope finally woke up and started to dive.

I removed the rod from the flush mount and tightened up again to bring her back up to the surface, on the right side for the camera ;) I just had to hope that it stayed in position and was pointed in the right place as I wanted some good footage. This was quite likely as once it was up on the surface it thrashed, rolled and shook it’s head in an attempt to get free from the hook. It was quite exciting to say the least but also had its ludicrous moments – it rolled in the trace and wrapped it around its head leaving me to turn it the other way to unroll it ;D then it was time to come in and be unhooked...

...I put my foot under her, grabbed the trace and a pectoral fin and brought my tope up onto the yak. 4ft of sinewy, muscled sandpaper squirmed and writhed, twisted and rolled in my lap as I hung onto the fin and the wrist of its tail, waiting for it to quieten down when turned on its back. It was having none of it and insisted on giving me a hard time as well as a huge ‘shark rash’ on both arms into the bargain! Eventually I managed to gain the upper hand and removed the hook from the bottom of the jaw before holding up my first tope for Stargaizer to photograph. Then it was time for it to return to the depths and I lowered it in head first. Twisting around still I felt the pressure on my toes as a mouth started to clamp down and, grateful for my Chotas, I yanked my foot back to safety as she slid away into the depths. Mission accomplished!

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I didn’t need to fish any more. The tope appeared to be on the feed now but I figured it best to go out with a bang and on my first tope, photographs kindly supplied by Stargaizer:

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...and so we headed back into the beach against the current and loaded our kayaks up ready to depart along the coast road before branching off to the Highlands.

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So, how did I get on with the Ultra? Well, comparing it to my Scupper Pro it wasn’t quite as quick, wasn’t quite as responsive and wasn’t as light Nor was it as wet and short on workspace. That’s not a fair comparison though as it is not a similar boat – for that it needs to be compared against the Elite and Trident 15. It’s faster than both, drier than both and has more useable storage. It cuts through the water better and I would say has a very slight edge in speed but with less effort required than the other two. It doesn’t catch the wind a great deal either so control is maintained and it sits beautifully straight at anchor. Very stable too – I never had to think about compensating or balancing even leaning over to bring the tope in and I had plenty of space to deal with it once aboard. My overall opinion is that it is a very good fishing platform indeed. (For clarity’s sake I work for Johnson Outdoors so this definitely needs to be considered when reading my opinions on one of our products.)

I’d like to really thank Jose24 and Stargaizer for the welcome and the good banter we had – a real experience that I shan’t forget in a hurry, it was great and I think I’ve fallen in love with Scotland. It was easily the best day’s sea fishing I’ve had in the UK with four new species for the year, two new species, a PB and my biggest UK fish. The final total (I lost count of coalfish so that’s on the light side!) was 8 Pollack, 62 Coalfish, 1 Codling, 2 Mackerel and 1 Tope.

Sunday 9 May 2010

Surf’s Up! 08-09/05/2010

By Wednesday the surf forecast made the weekend look outright useless for a fishing session but at least offered the prediction that there should be some half decent surf at Lowestoft. This doesn’t always pan out but I decided to go along with it in the hope that it would be the case as my new paddle really did want to see some use having only had one Gorleston session so far. A beautiful, 200cm full carbon, 4 piece double torque cranked Lendal Mystik surf paddle; it was positively crying out to be played with again, not least in it being far too good for a balding fat knacker like me to use on a sit on top...Oh, and Tim had one as well ;D

Around 6 on Friday I swung left instead of right when almost home and took a look at the sea. Blimey, Magic Seaweed had underestimated! The waves had 5ft faces, nice gaps between them and were the cleanest and best I’d ever seen here. I was now officially aroused...I went home, asked my wife if I could grab an hour before she went swimming and was told where to go...bugger.

6am. My alarm went off and I dragged myself out of bed. I didn’t want to, you understand, but I had guests arriving. Tim was first at 6:40 followed closely by Liam and then Steve. By the time we left the house at 7:15 I had consumed two coffees and was in need of letting off the absorbed steam.

Minutes later and we were at the beach – two Yakboards, a Mysto and Steve’s Green Coffin...and the waves were superb! We headed onto the shoreline and I went straight in, paddled out, rode in before going right out and then went out again with the others. A couple of surfers were out but we soon scared them off and had the water to ourselves ;D I’d never had it so good here. Every wave we caught – and most were catchable – gave us a decent ride of a couple of hundred metres at least and were of sufficient shape, power and speed to allow us to get tricky as the morning went on. Usually the quality of the waves here doesn’t give much scope for much apart from running with the waves but for this morning – the first morning that Lowestoft waves had been Conservative in 13 years – we were able to carve at last, and we certainly made the most of that.

My Yakboard had been pimped a bit the night before. I’d got the drill out and set to work manufacturing an attachment for my Oregon Scientific helmet camera. Trying it on the helmet last week had proved my footage to be difficult to work with as my head was constantly having to move around to take stock of where the waves were. It took me all week to work out a way around it and so a couple of strap eyes, some webbing, a pair of buckles and a piece of pipe lagging (to tighten things) were installed. I was away, with the camera strapped to the front of the board...it took me most of the session to hit upon the best plan though, that of pointing it sideways to film others or the waves as I ran in. The positioning had been all wrong when forwards as I was pointing it too high and when turned back most of the time it was too low, which made me realise why they are called cockpits ;D. What was useful was being able to switch it on and leave it to run for an hour with only the occasional adjustment to the direction of the lens. I expect it’s going to see a lot of use (haven’t even looked at what’s on the Olympus yet!). In terms of quality, all the attached video was shot on it and even though compressed by Windows Movie Maker and Youtube it looks good to me - and the camera lasted two hours in heavy surf being battered, submerged and hit square on by waves more than a few times too!

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Westie was out on his maiden Mysto voyage and was loving it – an amazing site that I watched, slackjawed, while riding the same wave was Tim run down the wave face then hang with the arse of his yak in the wave and a good chunk of air underneath from (at the very least) his knees forward. I just couldn’t take my eyes off that ride and forgot about my own one! My memory doesn’t record whether I stayed aboard ;D

I also had a go on his Tunisian Mysto (with thigh straps). I’d only ever tried them on flat water and was put off a bit by the high seat but my opinion of the Mysto had a rapid overhaul. It was quicker to get out through the breakers than the Yakboard, quicker to accelerate onto a wave, it tracks straight with the minimum effort and can be leant and steered with ease...he’s chuffed with his purchase and I’m tempted...

The new paddle was a beauty to use too – so firm in the water yet light in use, the double torque crank orienting the blade where it needed to be and allowing me to put power on without exertion to my wrists and those big precision blades with a larger catch than the nylon-bladed Kinetic XTi I’d been using previously were an absolute delight. I’d been promising myself one for months and know that I made the right decision.

Come 9:30 I was starting to feel the effort in my shoulders. I couldn’t even guess at how many runs I’d had and I wasn’t convinced I’d be able to get back out many more times...to cries of ‘Full Carbon!’ Westie and I screamed in on a wave as Steve watched from behind ;D

We came off the water and headed to mine for two more coffees each and a fried egg sarnie. It’s terrible when you can’t fish because the wind’s in the wrong direction ;D






Sunday morning saw Liam and I head out for another session. The forecast was for it to be an anticlimax compared to Saturday’s session but water beats bed any day in my world. The camera was charged and had a blank memory card and was set to film sideways or forwards at a steeper angle...we were rolling, although the surf wasn’t.

Mostly we had breakers to get short rides on. Carving rarely happened but we found some rides that were fun enough. Desperation after too many long waits saw us head in towards the groyne to play in the maelstrom there – the trouble being the waves were heading into it so we had to avoid wipeouts at all costs...here we got plenty of rides although they were lumpy and difficult to control other than steering. It was nothing on Saturday’s surf but who’s complaining?


Sunday 2 May 2010

Bank Holiday Sunday Surfing...02/05/2010

By Sunday I was pretty much back to my usual self and with some food inside me it was decided that I’d pick up my mate Liam and we’d take the Yak Boards out for a blast at Gorleston. It was a pretty windy day and on taking a look at the beach near my house it looked like it was reasonably big, so I jumped I n the van and picked him up.

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We arrived at the beach, kitted up and headed down to the water’s edge. Liam hadn’t hit the water here yet and was a bit concerned about heading into the cauldron but as we had some reasonable, surfable waves at the beginning we played in them first of all. I had a new toy to try out too – my aunt had passed her largely unused Oregon Scientific Action Cam onto me and I’d strapped it to my kayaking helmet ;D

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What a blast! We surfed a bit, hit the rebounding waves a bit, tried to get caught in the 6ft ‘boomers’ and tried to avoid getting taken out by Steve who had his kite surfing gear out. The Action Cam had a decent workout too and alternated between mine and Steve’s heads. Is it any good? Judge for yourselves:








And a bit of Steve’s kite surfing:




Oh, and you know that question of whether you can use a kite with a yak? Well, don’t try this at home kids...



The weekend was a blast and Monday was spent more sedately on a demo, marred only by my knowing the surf was going to be bigger and cleaner at home...

Saturday 1 May 2010

Mid Tide Express...01/05/2010

The weekend was on its way again, the plans were decided upon and I just had to dot the T’s and cross the I’s by getting my arse back from Torquay, abstain from the majority of the alcohol at the party and get home early enough for a 5am wake-up...the plan was simple, I’d get up, get the coffee on and await Tim who’d pick me up and perhaps load my Prowler 15 onto the roof for Amos who may arrive from London without a yak whereupon we’d head to Hopton where Steve would be ready with his Trident 13 and my Scupper Pro having dropped my van off at Dogger to allow for the fact we’d sail out to the banks, anchor up, fish until it got hairy then paddle and sail south on the mid-tide express to pick it up and ferry ourselves back to the launch point. Simple, yes? It was simplified further by Amos not coming up meaning we didn’t need to load up my spare yak and so the scene was set and by 11:30 I’d arrived home from the party for a kip, sober.

It was a pity I couldn’t sleep. It was an even bigger pity that I was up in the night with diarrhoea too. It was an even greater pity that I still had it in the morning...but I’d promised Tim coffee so got up anyway – the poor bugger has a bit of a trek to get here. So, as he drank his coffee and I explained why I wouldn’t be coming I had a change of heart – drysuits are dry both ways, right? I got changed again and we left for Hopton ;D

Arriving to no wind we unloaded, kitted up and the three of us headed out towards the banks. It was a big spring and after a while we decided that we’d be best not continuing and instead may as well drop down where we were. This we did, in 45ft+ of water, and sat to await developments.

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Developments were slow, the current still being fairly slack but finally Steve was in and brought up his biggest east coast dogfish. At least he hadn’t blanked. Tim came next and after a bit of effort brought in his first ever Thornie and the first we’ve had off Hopton! Not a keeper but very welcome all the same.

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Me, I just sat there trying to keep the inside of my drysuit clean ;D This became progressively harder as the wind picked up and the sea state got more of an issue, the odd wave breaking into the cockpit. By this time the current was picking up...

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We up-anchored and headed out and inshore to try again. Drawing level with our landing spot we dropped down again. Once more it was impossible to keep my baits on the seabed and so I hauled anchor and paddle dup to the others, against the full flow of the tide. It’s the strongest I’ve come up against and progress was slow. On reaching them eventually the decision was made to head in and so we did, landing a fair distance from the ramp and having to drag our yaks some distance. In my state (and with nothing inside me) I was totally drained by the end of this and was pleased to get into the van and away ;D Mind you, it beat going back to bed and missing the morning on the water and in the sun with my mates.