Fast forward to this week and I’m still on about Cley. I was planning to go up the night before when lo and behold! Brotherwarren has clearance for an overnighter from his wife and is looking for suggestions. Cley it is then – mackies don’t feature down his way either. So, the current usual suspects of Tim, Paul, Si and I make plans with Tony, Mark and Steve and everything starts to gather speed rather than moss as none of us are rolling stones.
It comes to me in the wee hours somewhere down south while I’m driving. I have nothing less than 40% proof at home so I send a text out to offer to prepare and serve dinner in return for the others’ drinks…it’s agreed that this is a good deal and aside from Paul (bread and water) everyone’s happy. So Saturday morning sees me gathering the items on my list from the notes I’ve written. Sorted, I text Tony to order two bass and six mackerel if he’d be so kind, no pressure or anything, but if we’re going to eat, well…
Well things don’t go quite according to plan on Friday and so I end up getting back later than planned. This means I have still some work to do and offer to do it on Saturday afternoon on my way to Cley if it’s okay to sling our stuff in the van and use it for the weekend. This works well all-round and so Paul and I pitch up in the yellow peril, unload and head north.
Tony is already on the water when we roll up around 17:30, followed soon after by Si. Everything out and then it’s time to get on the water.
What a sea awaits us! A bit of an offshore breeze is keeping it almost flat and the sky looks fine. Even the water is crystal clear with darkening blues as it stretches out into deeper water. I’m not hanging about! Well, maybe just for a moment as I see a couple of Paul’s home-tied flies. I was impressed.
I paddle out to the wreck with a J13 and a Magnum. I decide the Magnum is going to snag the wreck of the Vera and I may lose it so I remove it, sling it up front and attach a Big S. Never used one of these in the sea before but like a complete twatt I’ve left my lures at home. This makes the nose-diving Magnum’s escape through the scupper hole even more annoying; I watch as it lands on the bottom 20ft down. I’m not getting a good feeling here.
The wreck is devoid of fish.
I paddle about. I get a Mackerel!
Tony is on 3…we have hors d’ouevres.
We paddled around for a couple of hours and slowly we start increasing, one at a time, the size of our dinner. I’m still on one though as the sun starts to sink.
I figure there may be some attraction coming from that pot buoy over there and decide to have a last go near it before heading in. It’s flat calm now, oily, inky. Wonderful. I get close and it’s 6 on a string! I pass again, another 5, then again ;D I’m happy. 1 more on the way in and I’m home and dry with dinner, 19 mackerel to my credit!
It’s dark when I land and so we head up the top of the shingle bank by the car park to get on. First task is to get these mackerel ready for the kitchen – sabattier knife in hand the heads, tails and guts go flying (ending up sleepin’ wiv da fishies) while the mackerel go into a catch bag and get a thorough rinsing in the sea. Then it’s back up to get the fire going.
We had some smashed up pallet wood in the warehouse and I’d loaded it into my van to use on my barbecue a few days before. This would be ideal and with a few more bits from my garden and some more that Tony brought we had a very good fire available. A pit was dug and thick pieces went around the perimeter that would allow grill trays to stand on for cooking and then I set to work..
First up was the starter. Sashimi. I opted for shimi saba – this is mackerel cured in mirin and rice vinegar. I began by filleting 3 plump mackies and marinaded them before thinly slicing bone-free slivers which were set aside.
Next came the nori seaweed strips which were laid out on a plank of wood. The shimi saba strips were laid on these, topped with pickled ginger and finished with a smear of wasabi.
A dip of Japanese soy finished this and we tucked in. First time for Si and Tony…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I was smoking some fillets for a smoked mackerel pate. This consists of mashed hot-smoked mackerel, salt, pepper, lemon juice, parsley and mascarpone. Delicious!
The smoker was duly placed atop the fire next to Si’s jacket spuds.
Then it was onto the main course. This was to be a curry inspired by Cambodian and Vietnamese cuisine but was to be of my own ‘design’. So more fillets were prepared then halved for the curry.
Two onions were halved and sliced. A good piece of root ginger was chopped. Half a bulb of Chinese garlic was chopped then crushed by Paul who did the same with the two lemongrass I diced.
3 chillies from Si’s garden were duly sliced and this was set aside while, devoid of my can opener (ok, I couldn’t be arsed to go to the van!) I hacked my way into the tin of coconut milk with my rescue / bait knife…
The first load of ingredients went into Si’s wok, lined with olive oil, to brown.
The kitchen was a hive of activity…
It would be with my idea of campfire food on an overnighter ;D
So, the pan’s contents were browning nicely, time to throw in the coconut milk with a load of palm sugar, nam pla (fish sauce), kaffir lime, shrimp paste, squeezed lime, concentrated tamarind, salt and pepper. Then to let it simmer.
Paul took over stirring while we set about the gravy.
Gotta have gravy.
Then it was time for the mackerel pieces. They don’t need as much cooking as the rest; fish is easy to overcook.
In it went for a few minutes and then, with a handful of chopped coriander and some crushed peanuts it was ready to serve.
It looked like flatfish, so well did it blend in!
It may look like puke but it was anything but. Paul doesn’t eat fish. I persuaded him to try a tiny morsel and eventually he did. I asked him what he thought:
“Fucking fantastic!”
He had a serving as well ;D
It went down a treat and we didn’t even have space left for the smoked mackerel pate – lucky really as I gave it to my youngest daughter when I got home as she expressly demanded some!
Well now, it was time, following that, to load the fire up and we smoked ourselves out of our shelter for a while. Quite a fierce blaze we had going at times.
Around 2am we got our heads down. I elected to sleep outside on the stones with a mat beneath me, next to the kayaks to keep guard from burglars. Si was in his car, Tony in the back of the van and Paul decided to spend most of the night smoking me out by burning the rest of the wood ;D
6ish. Time to wake up.
Wake up, get up, open your eyes…to this:
It looked like it’d be a good day.
I spoke too soon, Uptide pitched up!!!
He got himself rigged as we tucked into breakfast.
That last sentence is a lie. While I tucked into ibuprofen and we all waited for Si’s kettle to boil. Next time I’ll bring some milk. It gave us time to contemplate the development of the morning though.
And so our intrepid gang finds itself at the water’s edge, joined now by Tim as well. It was flat calm and it was clear. Couldn’t ask for more.
Nothing on the wreck and then Tony’s in with a Mackie. I’m blanking and the tide is against us as we paddle five miles east to Weybourne.
Now why would people choose to paddle five miles against the current? Simple really…
Tradition. We stopped there last time and walked into the village for a coffee and we did it again after blanking on the wreck (and I had added 3 sets of feathers and a Dexter plus weights to it). Uptide had managed a nice bass in open water on a lure but apart from that and a handful of lone mackerel we weren’t doing great. Still, the coffee wasn’t bad.
We wandered back an hour or so later and launched again. The tide, as we now headed west, was against us again as was the wind. No matter. I paddled further out than the others and hooked into two good mackerel. One managed to lasso its tail too and while dealing with it the second got off. I got another soon after. Then it was a hard slog back to the start point, at slow, trolling speed. I had occasional, very occasional, excitement and lost fish next to the yak, bumped off on my other line and even one that took fright at the sight of my priest and jumped overboard. Things weren’t going great and I’d only managed to boat 6 of my 11 by the time I finally made it back to the buoy I’d had luck on the previous evening…most of the last hits coming when I shortened my lines to fish further up the water column. As I approached the others who’d already got there I saw them pulling out fish – we’d finally found them.
I was straight in. Then again. And again. Then, as Tim spotted a feeding shoal on his finder and I passed nearby both rods started to buck – five off one and the other one had some bumped off when it snagged Tim – two came in. Multiples were the order of the day now as we dropped into the shoal for a few minutes until they disappeared and we were back to sporadics. Another 19 mackerel came in with me and I’d lost a fair few.
Heading, gutting, placing in the icebox; it was time to load up and go home where I was to prepare more sashimi followed by mackerel fillets rolled in oats and shallow fried in butter served with horseradish. Use it for bait? You won’t catch anything tastier on it!
All in all it was an absolutely cracking weekend. Great fishing following hard fishing, a hard slog and good workout with the paddling, beautiful weather and seas, great company, good grub, alcohol, chilling with mates and crashing out on a beach under the sky for the first time in over a year. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather have done.
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