Gotcha! 02/11/10

Well there I was, another day off and a reasonably flattish sea. Windy, force 4 gusting to 6 but a WSW so perfectly comfortable off Hopton.  With the codling playing hide and seek this year I decided on different tactics to normal…if they wouldn’t play fair then it was time for me to pull out all the stops. I put on my LUCKY SENSATIONAL HAT.

Now, for those of you not aware of my varied yakking headgear it consists of the following:

 Ushanka (extremely bloody cold lucky hat)

Green Watch Cap (nearly twenty years old, as holy as a nun, responsible for my largest pike)

Lucky Sensational Hat (South African ex-navy (blue) cricket hat, embroidered with my Aunt’s charter boat logo).

Beardhead (Whispered-about headgear)

Black watch Cap (two of these. Good hats but no mystical powers. Worn when skill is relied upon.)

AKA Watch Cap (too new to judge)

So, with the Sensational Lucky Hat plonked firmly upon my head, sides folded up like a Chindit in a cupboard and held in place by the neck cord over the top and tied off I was ready to go. I also had a different yak too – My Prowler 15 was on the roof instead of the Scupper so I took that to sea for the first time in ages. Then I tempted fate. My ‘new’ Shimano spinning rod and reel combo, bought in the summer to replace a gift to Davy Jones, was swapped for one of my cod rods. Now this rod hasn’t done the business yet as the bassing seemed to go off with the purchase of it…but I figured it might be fun for the whiting.

I launched around 9am I guess. The sea was fine and until I dropped anchor the current didn’t seem that strong. It was though. I baited up, chucked out and waited. For a fair while.

Then, with a rattle, the first whiting appeared…on the spinning rod ;) Maybe it had broken it’s curse? It seemed to be the case as it had the next fish too, a lovely dab…and the next. In fact it outfished my other rod by 3 or 4 to one over the course of the day.

Anyway, the fishing wasn’t that fast and furious but it was regular enough to keep me interested. There wasn’t a lot else happening on the sea anyway ;D

Then a decent bite and pull followed a trembly bite. I’d got the rod in my hand by now, the spinning rod. This was a better fish. In fact, as it turned out, it was the target fish! At last!

After more whiting I had a second and finally the other rod brought in my third. Come slack water the bites died and I returned to the beach, the final tally being 14 whiting, 3 codling a dab and a big pout. Lovely stuff; glad I chose that hat!