Kayaking Angler: The Cod Light of Day…23/12/2011

It was a bit of a struggle really, getting out of bed. The previous two days had involved driving to Edinburgh and back on tacho, a staff Christmas party (the football of stodge still lying heavily in my stomach) and a lack of sleep. Still, you can’t catch fish while farting under a duvet.

Coffee. The saviour of all mankind.

I got into the van and headed north. The idea was a launch at Hopton, take the remainder of the flood down to Corton and fish until the tide started to ebb then come back on it again. The trouble of course was that this wouldn’t provide much of a session at the beginning as high water was at 07:44 with slack coming maybe half an hour later. Still, a session is a session and I needed to burn the stodge out…

By 07:15 I was ready to go and, still dark, I began to paddle out. Things felt most strange and so I took a look at my paddle. Yep, right hand side was the right hand side of my cranked Nordkapp and it was curved in the right direction. The left hand side, however, was the right hand side of my double torque Mystik facing in the other direction. Oh how I laughed as I tried to figure out how to turn and land again without swimming.

Back up to the van, back down to the yak and away I went.

No navaids and with my VHF left on charge it was down to the mobile to let the Coastguard know I was about and where. I lined up nicely with the church, dropped anchor and cast my right hand rod out. This had a 2/0 wishbone on it from the previous week with the black lug still threaded on and nicely smelly by now I guess. I popped a squid head on each hook before casting.

Now to my other rod. Well last week I bitched so much about circle hooks that as I’d been drinking my coffee before leaving the house I’d opened an envelope from a fella I’d never met with two traces tied for me inside – thank you sir! I of course felt honour bound to use them and baited up the left hand rod with one attached.

I was just about sorted and ready to cast when my first rod started to buck. Oh, okay, fish. I cast out and clicked over once I felt the bottom then dropped the rod into the holder. The other rod was still moving and I picked up, wound down and struck.

Yep. Codling.

The tide was running faster and stronger than I expected for the time – It was now high tide and it should be stopping soon. This put quite a bend in the rod and every nod and shake of the definite codling was transmitted up the braid; the hold was solid though and after taking my time I had it up on the service and brought in a beautifully-conditioned 3.5lb’er. Success! That’s what I’d come for, in shape and size. Not bad, not bad at all. Definitely worth the early start and less than ideal times.

Oh, I’d been fishing round three minutes.

Well, ten minutes passed before the next bite, identical so another codling probably. It didn’t come again once I had the rod in my hand. Another ten minutes passed, more squid added in the meantime, before the next bite, same again but this time the strike failed to secure a hold. No bites on the circle rod though.

Then I heard something give, looked back and grabbed my anchor reel and buoy as they drifted past. Somehow my warp had given way. I was now on the drift.

Rod two up, rod one snagged. Rod one freed then used as I drifted very slowly. Come 08:30 and with the tide still not stopped I decided to call it a day and head back in to Hopton. It wasn’t a quick paddle so more stodge burnt off before an easy landing and a chat on the beach with a future yakked.