Corton Scraps…19/10/12

I knew that Mike was off on Friday and text confirmed that Wilmy was free as well so the final decision rested on conditions in the morning. The wind had stopped at least but the problem we faced was the rain. At 8am when I knocked off it was raining and had been for a while. There was no point launching before 10:30 because of the tides so at least we had the option to wait and see and this was what we chose to do. It cleared. We went for it. I pulled up behind Mike and started to unload. Things had already gone awry though, the rain was just the first issue and now the coast road had been closed just shy of the launch point so I’d had to double back and come around in a loop. Would it be one of those days? Well, with my finder/plotter not bursting into life it may well prove to be so. Wilmy turned up next and with bits and pieces loaded up we walked down the ramp to the beach where the sea was perfect. Flat as you like, low offshore wind and clear skies. This followed a few days of rough water so expectations were high and we took the tide down to Corton to fish off the church. This would be Wilmy’s first time anchoring and so I stuck around watching and talking him through while Mike dropped down then went uptide and dropped down myself. We drifted quickly initially and left Mike out of earshot but then with the Scuppers swinging crazily in mid-flow we ended up being magnetically attracted so rafted up to make things safer. This also put me in the ideal position to smoke Ian’s fags… Blacks and squid, wishbones and pennels and we started off with a rod apiece. Straight away I had a decent whiting that dropped off at the bow and then it went quiet. It was too quick for regular bites but we had a few and the fish were coming in, Ian having his first yak whiting soon enough. The whiting have thinned out a bit now so the codling are going to become more likely soon and with that in mind I hooked my smallest whiting of the day and dropped it down as a livebait; one can but hope. Ian was doing fine as he was though and pulled up a nice doggy. As the tide finally started to lose strength the colour dropped out and the sea got clearer. We split the raft and I was able to deploy all rods and Wilmy was able to get a proper feel for things. Then with slack water upon us Mike up-anchored and paddle dover as we did the same and took the start of the ebb back north, making it just in time before the rain started, hammering down once I was on the road again with my tea and a bunch of decent whiting to be enjoyed at a later date.