The bass ain’t playing this week. Marty’s found thornies. Mackerel are offshore. Smoothies are still about…what to do? Where to go? The wind is forecast to be low enough and the weather good enough to hit a thornie mark offshore and with the tide fitting with my return from work I suggest a Tramp’s launch to mark. I must point out that although I look like a tramp I’m referring to the local spot known as Tramp’s Alley though it ought to be rechristened Back In Alley seeing as it’s now a well-known dogging site for gentlemen who don’t look each other in the eye. Not that we expected that kind of smut at nine in the morning I must tell you.
Nah, other smuts were on the board. Now, we had a choice – offshore for the thornies, a couple of miles out and the times would be perfect for the ebb to push as down for an arrival as it slowed down or inshore in the area I had my monster spiky and we hit the smuts before. I couldn’t make up my mind, Mike was easy either way (though he whispered this conspiratorially in deference to our location) and it wasn’t until we studied the horizon and saw the less-than-straight line that we decided to plump for the latter. We launched and headed out to the foul ground.
We dropped anchor, paying out line and landing slap bang on Mark 47. Good skills Mr Crame. Mike was slap bang alongside 20 metres away (2 metres with some swinging until we got the rods down to steady ourselves). Good skills Mr Sillett. Down went the baits; mackerel on my one rod, squid on the other, and we waited.
For bloody ages. Then the first missed bite. Waited some more and missed another. Repeatedly. Wrong rod too and the bastard was causing me issues. Salt build-up I guess, dunno, got to strip it down later, perhaps something has come astray as I’ve never had it get so bad before and this one doesn’t usually go out on the sea. Great, it’s a lever drag and they’re a bitch to strip and reassemble. Ah well…
Mike’s anchor had dragged once and he’d paddled back uptide. He went north again with a bust weak link. Finally back, and some distance away (enough for yachts and cruisers to run between us so as to avoid grounding on the Dutch coastline) he yelled over that he’d got a smut. Way to go! A pup but at least he’d broken his blank, unlike me. This constant nibbling with no connection was starting to get on my tits. And I was tired. I wanted to sleep.
The water started to clear as it eased off and once slack water arrived it was as clear as I’ve seen it here. I drifted around very slowly. Mike u-p anchored and paddled over, he’d had enough. I had too but I wasn’t going in on a blank if I could help it. It’s been a shit week for fish but I was buggered if I’d have a third blank from four trips in five days. That’s not allowed. I cast again; “I’ve never seen anyone cats with such a look of utter disgust” said Mike. I gave him the look normally reserved for my beloved wife – Withering Stare 5/5©.
There were some funny taps and pulls on the end of my rod but still nothing came in. Two squid left; I pulled up one rod, rebaited and cast out – I wound to high, the Gemini clip was the wrong side of the tip ring and the whole lot went sailing off the end…I rebaited the other and finally, a few minutes later, in came a fish, a small smoothie pup. Oh was I happy to see it!
I pulled anchor and we paddled in. What a load of old bollocks this week has turned out to be.
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