“Low water Saturday is around 06:30, that means an 05:00 launch at latest sadly; that’s gonna hurt! Tide should turn and run again by 08:00. Large tides. Sunrise just before 8, first light soon after 7. Forecast is westerly turning northerly but very light winds predicted. Northerly swell, not tiny so possibly a little bit of surf if we’re lucky :D
I’m looking to go from Tramps, take the ebb up to the Corton mark, the rough ground half a mile out in 35ft and try to bag up on the shoal that’s hanging there. The charters are catching plenty and there’s no reason why we can’t do likewise. Apart from being rubbish at fishing, dragging or losing anchors, forgetting bait, falling asleep or capsizing of course. Think I’ll take a spare anchor this time too…and extra bait…tempted to get some fresh lug…does my excitement show?”
Yeah, it did. Tim wasn’t available but Si, Mike and Paul would be meeting me down there. Great, in bed by ten Friday night, awake at 03:30 and back to sleep for another hour – excited – and then down for coffee. Lucky codding socks pair number 2 have been fished out of the washing basket, washed and put on the radiator to dry and go on underneath main lucky (most lucky) codding socks.
I’m a couple of minutes shy of socks and drysuit; Paul texts:
“I’m not launching in that surf. I’ll come back down when it’s light”.
Fair one. He hangs fire while I head down, drysuit flung in the back, wetsuit, boots and surf paddle grabbed from upstairs and flung in and I’m away. Mike is also there when I arrive. We wander down to have a look. Looks okay to me, a small dump by the beach but the rest seems okay though it sounds somewhat worse. I can relate it to what it looks like in daytime by the amount I can see. The others aren’t so sure. Si, aware now that he’s up but maybe not going out has instead stayed home and gone back to bed. Paul and Mike decided to follow suit. I’m awake now, have been excited about this one for days and don’t want the regret I had last week again.; I’m happy with conditions for myself and am pleased that the other two aren’t going to be sheep; instinct is not to be ignored.
I suit up, minus lucky codding socks number 1 and with the wrong hat – this is work hat number 1, not lucky fishing hat no.1. The colour is wrong and there are no holes. I leave the polar hood too. I’m going to regret both.
I launch. I don’t even get a wet lap. I knew it was just the dump. Out back and I paddle into some fair swell. Pretty quick and a couple of feet high, perhaps a tad more. The tide is still running. I move the cursor, hit goto and track right in to the mark, dropping anchor 200ft short. I land up 20ft inshore of the punched-in numbers. Things are improving! I call up the coastguard, let them know where I am. I sing Moon River. I edit it out; I can’t sing.
I rig up, bait up, switch the Humminbird back on to see what’s happening. I’ve drifted a bit, am moving ever so slowly. I finally settle 150ft north and slightly more inshore. Not as happy with that but I’m within a few feet of a fortnight ago when I had four cod for the smoker. I cast in and settle down to await the nodding of the tip lights.
Having waited I change my baits, or rather add to them. I cast out again and wait.
I wait some more.
I’m starting to get cold now.
Here comes dawn.
Here comes some daylight.
Finally, with the sun comes a bite. 07:30, I’ve been out a couple of hours. I strike and haul in a whiting on the wishbone. It’s a keeper but being lightly hooked and having saved me from a blank I decide to let the little fella go back down. Well-deserved freedom.
Ten minutes more and the tide starts to drop right off. I was going to fish through slack and into the flood, that was the original plan. The plan involved those socks and hat though and quite frankly my feet were freezing. I switched the camera on and decided to do a talk-through up-anchor clip before setting off back to the mark. Some other boats were starting to pitch up now, hopefully they’d have better luck. The one I passed was pitching and rolling a bit, it certainly looked more uncomfortable than the kayak felt in terms of roll (which surprised me). I guess there is more to move and more above and below the waterline.
The cam still on I paddled into the beach. The swell was heading in the same direction and I knew I could have a bit of fun if I wanted. After the boredom of the fishing I wanted. Oh yes, I wanted. I did another talk through and then gunned it on a couple of big waves I couldn’t get ahead of. The third took me in though and it was great but not quite dramatic enough.
I launched again and waited for a bigger wave to come in on, one that I could keep properly seated on. It soon arrived.
I went for it.
Caught it.
Couldn’t get the paddle where I wanted because of the rod, purposely left in place, had to lift up and over but things weren’t going to plan, I wasn’t pulling up over the lip this time, oh no!
The nose slammed into sand and the arse went airborne! I went into the water, the Scupper passed over me, upside down and I could see the rods still in place as it went scooting in towards the beach. I picked myself up and wandered over; no damage, no losses. All appeared well. I dragged it up the sand and went down to film the shore dump.
That’s when I noticed a problem with my camera. The screen had gone black. It turns out that the waterproofing is not waterproof and it is now dead. It was inside the upper chest pocket of my drysuit so should have been more than adequately protected. Hopefully the warranty will be honoured, it’s only a couple of months old; back to the old one with the knackered lens again.
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