The Early Worm Catches The…28/01/2012

Early. Low water is early. Alarm is set early. 04:30 is early; I can’t leave it later. An hour further into the day and I’m on the beach; it looks worthwhile, the sea sounds gentle enough, the wind feels light enough, if it wasn’t so dark I’d be able to check the sea state visually but it’s okay, I’ve been here before.

I’m on my own this morning and go in my own time at my own pace. 0.82 statute miles to the mark according to the GPS. A few minutes of paddling and no effort required while the ebb still runs. There’s no water over the deck as I launch and the paddle out is easy. Yeah, there’s swell but it’s nothing to be concerned about. I approach the mark, 500ft and I stop padlding, 400ft and I reach around for my anchor, 300ft and the tines are splayed, things are clipped into place and I’m ready to drop, 200ft and I drop down…It takes a moment to bite and I settle nearby; perfect.

I’m using a quick release set up today, people keep extoling the virtues of it though I have no need. Still, there’s no harm in giving it yet another go. As with all previous occasions the additional complications add another minute or two into the mix and though it allows me an extra 50ft of warp it’s just a pain in the arse, especially as I end up holding off at an angle. Still, I’m making the effort.

Twin 9 inch booms with 4/0 Vikings and a lead sail down to the bottom carrying a frozen black and a squid head apiece…soon after a wishbone heads downwards carrying the same worms and half a larger squid head on each hook. I sit back and wait for the nodding, it’s peak time.

Yeah. Peak time. I wait 40 minutes for my first bite, on the wishbone and it fails to connect – I feel the weight of the cod that made the tip nod and then I feel it no more. It’s grabbed part of the bait but not the hook. So much for the expected irresistible offereing of half a lare squid-s head.

I wait twenty more minutes and then the boom rig jerks a bit; I pull something up that might be a cod but someings nor right…It feels okay whatever it is; it turns out to be a 45cm 1lb 9oz whiting, perhaps a PB. You’re coming home with me love! Got to really, I haven’t got any way to take a picture other than the phone.

I have a couple of nibbles and another bite but that’s it and I as it moves towards slack I decided to haul anchor and head in. Again things take ten times as long with the modified anchoring system but I get there in the end and start heading home as Lead Us approaches from the south to no doubt do the business once again.

I land far too calmly around 08:30 and head home to have a proper butchers at my roe-filled whiting.