Sealed with a kiss…29.06.2011

Yesterday. That was the plan. After work. I’ve been patient. I’ve done lots of hours, lots of days, driving, carrying, demos…it was 12 days since I’d been fishing, 17 since I’d last chased down some food from the sea…I had to go, I was going mad. A caged lion, that’s me without my time on the water. A sweltering day it was, absolutely gorgeous, too hot in fact for unloading containers…four more hours, three more hours, two more hours, one more hour…

BANG! Thor brought his hammer down on the clouds and it pissed down. Thunder, lightning, rain. It stopped…I knocked off and headed to my mark anyway. It started to spit again, then I heard the thunder and drove home. Five minutes after it started in Lowestoft an inch was running down the road. I’d made the right choice. As an idea of how strong it was, how loud, there was a fire in a bedsit a hundred yards down my road just after 8pm and we heard nothing. Oh well, tomorrow maybe?

Sweltering again and though it looked iffy at one point things held together and so I left off and headed off to Gorleston and my parking space on the cliffs above the White Swan.

The sea looked good, flat with a slight rolling swell, the sky looked pleasant and the wind was within limits but there was a dark brown shit-stain right over the wreck. Bugger.



Lures might not be too effective tonight. As it was the tides were wrong, it was on the flood, a couple of hours in already, about opposite to what I wanted. But I was going fishing so tough.

Scupper. Trolley. Paddle. Rod. Lures: Check. Boots, sidewinders, cag, PFD: Check. Five minutes after pulling up and I’m on my way. C-Tug broken down and in the hatch and I’m paddling out. No faff, just straight in and no messing.



A brief troll to start, recceing the extent of the swirling brown water. Yep, it was pretty dire. Trolling was going to be a waste of time too, seeing as how I had a seal blowing through its nostrils a couple of metres off my stern for a few minutes ;D I was pleased, I’ve never had one come so close before and there must have been fish about. I went and clipped onto a marker buoy.

I flicked a shad for ten minutes without a sniff so changed to a Dexter. Pow! Straight in and along came a 41cm bass. Perfect size for Flo and I. On the head and in the hatch. I carried on flicking across the wreck, attaching more and more wedges and shads to the superstructure – she was hungry tonight. It took another hour of constant casting before I again had a take and after the best fight I’ve had yet a 51cm bass joined its younger sibling in the hold. Family-sized, this one.

Another age passed and then, finally, another take and a 34cm bass came in. I was happy to have persuaded him to take and with a quick measure for curiosity – I could see it was too small – back it went for another day, flicking its tail and shooting away strongly.





That was it. But what a pleasant evening. There I was, clipped up, legs over the side with just a gentle rolling swell. It was great as it was but along came my new buddy…





Bolder and bolder, it came closer.





Staying up then flipping over and diving



It was great! Really making my evening special. I was giggling, turning around to try and spot it. It would pop up next to me on either side, or down the way a bit, or behind me or I’d hear it snuffling in front of my bow, playing hide and seek with me! Brilliant fun. Then the cheeky bugger glided up from below and nudged my foot, over the side, and I jumped ;D I was laughing my head off now, such great fun and then it nuzzled the other foot, more gently this time. It doesn’t really get better than that – unless it stays still long enough for a good photo:


That last nuzzle was it and off it went. I hung around a bit and then headed in myself. Here’s the 50cm:



I hit the beach, trolleyed up and headed for my van, being greeted by a nice fella who asked if I was Pinkfoot ;D Now I know I’m handsome but I’m not that good at fishing! We had a chat and were then joined by a friend of his, an RNLI crewmember who pulled up and asked if I wanted a coffee from his campervan – nice one! I didn’t as I had to get home but the offer was appreciated and I forced him to see my VHF, Flares, Solas tape, PFD light…well, no point having the stuff if you can’t show the officials once in a blue moon!

I headed home, said goodnight to my wife, made something to eat and then dealt with my catch. The larger of the two fish had a couple of crabs inside and I was amazed at the size of the larger one. The smaller coughed up a mostly-digested fish.



Brilliant evening, one of those really special ones. Not only that, the rain held off until I got in the van and drove off.

Suffolk Skive…16.06.2011

16th June. That’s a day to take off work if ever there is one. Like my birthday I really ought to not go in and as usual I didn’t. I booked a day’s holiday (having done 39 hours and 1500 miles in the 3 days prior) and arranged to meet up with Tim and Amos in Beccles like last year for a troll up to the Lock Inn and back via haddock and chips with local real ale. 9am and after a wander around Beccles, my old stomping ground, I started to get unloaded at the quay.

The water was brown, the sun was out and an angler I know had had one fish in 4 hours. Hmm. Off we went.

I had out a blue J13 and a redhead J13, hand painted restoration job. That was my secret weapon and I had high hopes for it. I didn’t get much by the time I got to a hotspot so started to flick a popper out. Nearly had a swan but not quite. We carried on and through the good spots and we both blanked.

Quarter of the way, nothing. Half way, nothing. Three quarters, nothing. We got to the Locks, nothing.

We went into the Locks and they were out of Gone Fishing!!! Disaster! I ordered two pints of Trawlerboys instead and we sat and waited for Amos.

My old muse Rae phoned. I met here for the first time twenty years ago in August. We had a chat, on speaker and I told Tim about how wonderful her tits were and how gorgeous she looked. She laughed. Steve phoned, we told him how rubbish it was. Then Amos arrived and he heard us tell Amos to piss off back to London as he’d caught and we hadn’t ;D

Still, it was good to see the cocky bastard and we ordered food – I had the haddock, always huge and good here and to be honest I thought it was my only blank-saver ;D they both chose the cassoulet. Then it started to get cool and we went inside. Then we ordered some more beer. Then it rained and we stayed inside.

I didn’t troll very straight on the three miles back. Perhaps the extra ground covered helped me when the fish hit my lure and I felt the rod bucking in the holder. I reached around and grabbed my rod and yes, she was hooked! I tightened up and battled this double figure (ounces) to the side and held her out as far as I could for a photo. I’d not blanked, anyway. I figure it was more than likely trying to shag my blue Rapala Jointed Shad as it was pretty similar in size ;D

We carried on. It was still crap and the usual good stretches failed to give anything and as we approached the home straight I started to wind down. Chatting to Amos, we passed under the bridge and seconds later he was in! And what a fish, a cracking perch that made up for most of our disappointment! I'd say a pound and a half but I’m not really sure. It was good anyway. Tim got a pic or two I think and between Amos’ phone and mine (my battery died before my first pic on the usual camera) we hedged our bets.

We went in. Great banter and fun to be out and the fishing will pick up sooner or later.

Wrecking with Muppets. 11.06.2011

It was all planned meticulouslyish. Neap tides running no more than 1.5 knots offshore, winds of 4-6mph gusting to 8mph in an offshore, flattening westerly. Swell measured in inches and the last of the tide in our favour. Oh, and nice weather too. That’s why Tim and I decided to head offshore for some wrecking. 2.5 miles offshore to be precise. We figured on a five mile paddle each way down to the wrecks off Kessingland – we had the choice of the Axminster, Christopher, Secret, Yucca, Nominoe, Astrologer, Alto and Tunisiana. Axminster was my first option. 246ft x 34ft, lying in a 20m hole and standing 4m proud (maximum) it struck a mine laid by the German Submarine UC4 on 13th November 1917. Tim was getting over around 9 and I set my alarm for 5…he turned up a couple of hours later after everything went wrong and with both of us knackered we didn’t even have a whisky. It was bed time.

5am the alarm went. I wandered down, bleary eyed, put on the kettle and noticed it was pissing down. Wind I do. Waves I do. Snow I do. Rain I don’t do. I switched the kettle off and told Tim not to wake up, bastard that I am, and went back to bed for half an hour. I got up again at 06:30 and the rain had stopped. Coffee washed down some hot cross buns because I couldn’t be arsed to hurry and we’d missed the tide anyway. We planned another pair of wrecks close together but more or less straight out from the beach, again at 2.5 miles or so. Summerfield and Alacrity…both struck mines laid by UC5 the day after they’d been set and sank close to each other. Alacrity went down on 3rd January 1916 and measured 225ft x 32ft, Summerfield on 13th August 1915, slightly smaller at 188ft x 29ft. They lie in around 16 metres.

So there we have it. We trolleyed down to the beach after waking my wife up unloading…





It was still a bit moist but the sea was calm. The tide would be running a bit by now but the prediction didn’t seem a problem and we decided to cut across it and slightly against so that we could drop anchor and drift down over it. I wasn’t going to repeat the experience of my last attempt on the Tunisiana so had my new Richi Reel loaded with 400m of warp. Off we went…as you can see I was carrying my usual minor amount of kit.



It was a definite south south westerly. This wasn’t as forecast and it was over 10mph, again against the forecast. The tide, also, was about double the forecast…it was okay heading out straight for the channel and fun over the banks but coming close to the Stanford Buoy the tide was starting to show its strength. We had to get some pics though:








We still had a mile to go. It looked like a charter, which we’d watched launch, was now on our mark but it turned out they weren’t, being still half a mile short. As we passed them we saw something I’ve never seen off Lowestoft. Clear Blue Water. Bollocks to the wrecks, another half an hour paddle at least with this current, this was too good an opportunity to miss especially with fish all over the screen and we both dropped anchor. It was screaming through! I tried feathers weighted by a twin tail leadhead briefly while waiting for the yak to settle but settle it didn’t so I baited one rod with bluey and flung it over the side. It was bouncing off the bottom and my anchor hadn’t exactly caught yet…Tim’s had though and, swinging like a pendulum he called me up to ask if I was aware I was drifting. Oh yes, I was aware. I knew my cable tie had snapped when I snagged something on the bottom so had decided to drift for a bit and see if it’d hook up on something. A mile later I called Tim up again (we had radio problems inasmuch as my channels swapping themselves in my pocket ;D ) and said I was going to head inshore and fish off the point near the wind turbine…he was in agreement and had just started winding in his warp – he’d cut the anchor free rather than risk turning in the tide, the pressure was that strong.

We got to the cardinal markers that warn of the outfall and I dropped anchor again. The tide was no weaker here but I snagged up in no time and Tim came alongside and tied up alongside. We settled down to start some fishing. Sadly this was murky water so feathering was out but it bode better for the demersals. We sat there for ages until it weakened enough for the whiting to come on the feed.



By ‘the’ I refer to the lone whiting ;D black lug and squid, 2/0 wishbone.

I sat there another hour and then struck into a welcome starry smut, my best off here but only a couple of pound tops. I’d had a fair few small bites but Tim was getting nothing. We were tied alongside each other and our rods were mere feet apart. Same bait too. It was odd.





As the tide eased towards slack I stopped getting bites. Tim was getting them all the time now – there must have been a small feature that we’d fished in turn as we’d swung around. I would have been pleased with his eel, having never had one from the sea and not having one off the yak for four years.



Cheeky bugger tried to shag my paddle.



We were now on slack and it was close to time for heading home. It was time to play Tetris and troll the rocky sea defences north of the harbour. My anchor was well and truly in the rocks so I cut it off from above (getting to be a habit this) and off I went. Tim brought up the rear and brought up a schoolie on a blue J13 which went back.



I snagged my J13 and the line was cut through by a rock. Tim scooped it up, over reached while passing it to me and insists he was nowhere near to swimming ;D Seeing as I pushed against his rods as he hip flicked I guess I’ll give him that one ;) I followed this with my own bass just over the MLS at 38cm that looked about right for us to have for a shared lunch…an hors d’ouevre compared to what we usually eat to be fair but I had no time to go shopping ;D



It was bloody tasty too. My wife had used some oil from a jar of sundried tomatoes to roast some red peppers and I used this pan. I slashed the flanks, dribbled on some olive oil, ground some sea salt and five taste pepper on the flanks, squeezed a lemon over for good measure and then rolled it in the remaining oil in the pan before setting them onto a handful of fresh bay from the garden. A couple of tomatoes were halved and chucked in along with some left over roast spuds and the whole lot went in the oven to roast while we had a coffee. Asking Tim if he wanted butter on his bread he said he’d just use it to soak the juices up on his plate…that was a stonking idea so we made bruschetta by wiping the pan with it instead…and that was superb! Not bad for a quick preparation, Jamie Oliver could do well with that in his five minute meals ;D



So, 2 schoolies, 1 whiting, 1 smut and 1 eel between two people paddling around nine miles apiece in completely different conditions to those forecast and being unable to carry out plan a or b. As for the muppets…well, we didn’t fish with any. We were they.

Sidenote. An hour later the sea was whipped up into whitecaps and 2-3ft peaks. Again, not predicted, and by evening the wind was strong.