My last cod fillets were eaten for lunch on Wednesday, battered and deep-fried with home-cut chips and mushy peas; being the last for the time being I wanted to cook them in my favourite way for cod and as poncy as I can get in the kitchen at times I really don’t think there’s a better way to taste this fish! I’d heard of one or two coming out over the last week or two and knew that the whiting shoals would be in now with the start of the dabs too; I’d pan-roasted the last of these two species from the freezer the day before so needed some replenishment of them too. I only had two smoothie meals left too. With the wind finally dropping after a fortnight, Wilmy’s anchor trolley needing to be tested and Si desperate to get out I got a pass for a Saturday morning, a day I don’t usually fish any more.
I’d got two nights off so it was ideal for an early start to catch the tide. I didn’t realise that I was so tired though, and I had every intention of watching a film, the conversation running along the lines of “what are you doing tonight?” “getting drunk and watching porn” “what?”. Being an old man with a re-aligned sleep pattern though I failed drastically and for the second night in a row collapsed into bed at half-eight. At least that’d make the 5am start a bit easier.
I got up with no problem, made a coffee quite happily, had a quick nibble and got my bait out. I was feeling rather upbeat; rested, fed and back to my most familiar fishing. Then I went into the conservatory to get my drysuit. Then I noticed it was raining. I hate the rain.
I considered cancelling but checked the forecast again first. It was going to stop at some point in the next couple of hours and, seeing as I was up, coffee’d and needed to stay up and tire myself ready to get to sleep before another nightshift I decided to go. I loaded the last bits into the van and headed to Hopton.
It was neaps, small tides and a moderate westerly. I’d thought of doing Corton, the tides being perfect for it but I kind of wanted to start my winter whiting wonderland and codling captures off the traditional mark, especially as it’s around the time I traditionally had a bunch of people anchored off here for a meet. Pulling up on beach road I had a look at the sea. I didn’t really need to, the sound was reassuring enough and I knew from experience what it’d be like from the forecast but I had a look all the same and it was lovely.
I was on my own. It was still too dark for Wilmy to load his kayak onto the roof and Si had been hit with man flu so I’d have the place all to myself. With thoughts of Flat and Norfolkboy loading up with bass a couple of days before up north I figured on making up for my turning down of the invite to join them! Now, not many people would class bass and whiting as being equal, certainly many locally get really fed up with the latter but I do in terms of the plate. Now, I have a fair few silver fillets in the freezer to last me the winter and these give the options of certain dishes. The co, when they pitch up, give me another set of options but if there’s one meal I really enjoy, and enjoy very regularly, it’s whiting fillets dipped in egg and rolled in breadcrumbs, deep-fried and served with Langans chilli sauce, sweet hoisin or plain ketchup. The kids love it too and it’s perhaps their favourite fish meal. So a meal of whiting or a meal of bass is all the same to me.
I paddled out and dropped anchor. I’d replaced the starboard trolley lines the day before and re-attached the port rear bungee after my last disaster in a big tide a few weeks ago when I’d had the bungee snap and had to cut the trolley free on the other side. It was all a bit tight now so it’d take a few trips to stretch and bed down but at least I was running again.
I baited up and cast out. For some reason I couldn’t tighten up the line and then, in the light of the headtorch, I noticed that my line was coming towards me. I reeled in and checked; my anchor and buoy were missing. Great. I immediately knew what the problem was having had this before, the spring must have gone in the carabiner. Now I just had to paddle back uptide and try to find a dark blue buoy floating in the dark somewhere over there. That’ll teach me not to take my electronics out! Amazingly I found it with no trouble, countering for wind and tide instinctively (upstream and into the wind of course) but it did help that I was in my own backyard. At least it had stopped raining.
I reattached and stayed attached for at least a minute before it gave way again. Okay…so, do I connect from the port side? I prefer not to, the starboard side is the one I use unless I have to, so I decided to swap the carabiners over. This sounds easy but was a bit of a pain, involving a bait knife holding two rings together and jammed under my leg while swapping one to the other. Still, it was all good fun and worked fine once done. I cast the first rod back in, a 2/0 wishbone with black lug tipped with mackerel while I stuck a 4/0 pennel into a whole squid in the hope of a late smoothound or a cod that might have some food left by the whiting. There was a third rod too, with a single 4/0 attached. This was going to hold a livebait in the hope of cod or bass passing by if I could catch a suitable one.
The first fish took all of five minutes. It was a bit large for my choice of a livebait but needs must and I could always swap it later. The whole squid kept banging away with whiting bites but I concentrated most of my efforts on the wishbone rod, tipping variously with mackerel, squid and sandeel as I was using up a frozen lump of assorted leftovers. Bites were constant, the whiting coming in were a good size, averaging around a pound or so; it was a struggle to get a smaller one for bait in all honesty but I finally managed. It’s rare that I want to get a smaller fish! A few double shots came aboard to the wishbone and one on the pennel but mostly it was singles. I had a couple of dabs too and one was a lovely specimen. Let’s hope they turn up in numbers soon, lovely to cook, serve and eat.
The tide started to slow an hour after low water but the bites continued to come until it stopped dead for around fifteen minutes as the tide turned. The flood started to pick up but the bites were far fewer than they’d been on the ebb. The wind had now turned to a north-westerly and was over the tide, the flow was faster and the sea had roughened up slightly. Not by much, but noticeably. The whole squid was getting constant bites but they were sporadic on the other rod. I listened to the chatter on the radio and it seemed that the charters were just getting started. I let High Flyer know what was happening inshore with me and, once he started, he let me know that they were incredibly getting mackerel! There were loads of herring shoals showing on his finder too. Meanwhile, Cleveland Princess were inshore at Corton and waiting for the tide to start running. They’d had a couple of codling a few days before so were hopeful.
As the tide speeded up I decided to head in. My tankwell had filled up nicely with fish and I hauled anchor. Halfway in I spotted a familiar vessel tearing along from the harbour. Five minutes earlier and it’d have been easier for me to hang around and chat to Marty who was also headed for Corton where he and Richard were going to catch a couple of codling and a few score of good whiting. Bloody hooligans.
I paddled in and landed smoothly, not losing a single fish out of the back. 31 fish for around 20lb, I had a bit of filleting to do when I got home, not including the half-dozen roasted on the bone with cherry tomatoes, celery and mushroom for lunch.
I do like the whiting shoals.
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