Ness Messing…17.04.2011

With a report of a wrasse being caught of Ness Point, clear water the day before on my way in from the Barnard buoy and bass moving in I’d arranged with Uptide for a nice gentle session in the morning. Neither of us had a lot of time so a couple of easy hours was all that was required.

We launched at Dogger and paddled gently south towards Ness Point. The tide was running quite hard on the flood and we covered the distance in no time. There was a hell of a rip around the jetty that comes out from the Ness and I went straight for it, being pulled round at quite a speed and skidding in sideways the other side; brilliant fun. I had no time for fun though, there were wrasse to catch ;D

We were in an eddy and static now. I rigged up with a size 1 triple flapper and a size 1 pulley rig, baited with a selection of mackerel, squid and fresh ragworm (bought specially from Angling Mad in Pakefield) and cast in. The yak bobbed around and moved about slowly and I spent half my time unsnagging the rigs from the rocks below me – this is a good hunting ground when the bass are in but does eat tackle. Unfortunately the water was very coloured up so lure fishing wasn’t really feasible but my main focus was wrasse anyway.





Mark was anchored a bit further away and after a while I wandered out and tied up with him after being invited over for coffee, being all sociable and civilised and everything. We weren’t getting bites at all but it was absolutely lovely out there. The sea was flat, the sun was shining and we could see for miles. Then the silence was shattered by my rod tip gently rattling; fish on!

I struck into it and as I pulled it up from the depths (we were in at least six feet of water) I was hoping it would be my wrasse but as it broke surface I realised that it was that other great denizen of the deep, a majestic pouting, my first of the year ;D



That was it and we started to head in as time was running low. I flicked a popper a few times near the rocks but expected the lack of results I got and as the tide still had a bit of a push we decided against paddling back to the vans and headed south around the harbour and landed at the beach down from my house giving the perfect opportunity for coffee and home-made scotch eggs. It was one of those really pleasant, idle mornings that are so much more fulfilling than they ought to be and set us up for the day.