For Fog's Sake…19/02/2013

For Fog's Sake…19/02/2013 Wilmy was bugging me, we needed points, he was free all week and the weather was nice…was I coming out to play? I was on my last shift, I would have to sleep after work but yeah, I could come but I’d miss the tide…that night the fog rolled in and I figured I was safe, especially with the frost that came with it. But oh no, it wasn’t going to be that easy! Nope, I woke up after a couple of hours and it was bright and mild and practically windless. Damn. No excuses…coffee and then I’d be there. We decided on Pakefield for no other reason than that being where we decided upon. I pitched up with him and Andy just about ready, whipped the yak off the roof, the gear out of the car and the drysuit on and we trolleyed down to the beach. It was flat. I put Whippersnapper’s hat on to enrage Cam. The sea was pretty clear and only the gentlest of ripples broke on the shore…the surface was almost like oil as we paddled out and north looking for the hole I remembered from a few years back. The depth increased and then as we came to the bank shallowed off again. We carried on, looking for the drop off into the hole. It’s not there anymore and a mile offshore we still only had 8-10ft of water; keep going, it’ll deepen the closer we get to the buoys. Yep, there are banks and here they change all the time and there was no hole. Yeah. A mile and a half out, 2 miles from the launch, across and uptide, it headed down to 20ft, 22ft, 25ft and then finally 30ft. Time to get on then. I got Andy anchored up then paddled back uptide, dropped my own down and released warp until I was level, 50 yards offshore from his position, Wilmy going the same distance inshore of him and down went the baits. I have a new toy, a little 5m waterproof HD camcorder reduced from eighty quid to twenty at Asda the other day. Best of all it came with a handlebar clamp that tightened down enough to fit a rod butt…I’ll show that bugger Cam I thought ; It went on and was lined up on my Fladen reel just for him ;D Well, maybe partly, I just figured it was a new and different angle that might be worth trying out; so what if it made fishing a bit more difficult…shown on my baitcaster rod because I planned to use those the next day. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHCtoiUB5qk[/youtube] Paddling out I heard a familiar voice answer the radio…then I called in, got moved to 67 and those dulcet tones rang out with officialise followed by ‘how are you mark?’ Yep, finally the proof that Mario occasionally does some work – had plague hit the coastguard?!! A quick chat and I was fishing again. Ten minutes later and the penneled black and squid rod tapped once. It took a while because the fish have run away for a while. A few more minutes passed and another tap. Nothing developed and I struck the third tap a short while after and reeled up without a fish. I checked the baits, changed for smaller pieces of squid to tip with and sent it back down to the bottom. I wound in the other rod, the one with the camera attached, rebaited and cast my spreader wishbone back down. Another ten minutes or so passed and finally my patience was rewarded with a small whiting. Just about sizeable but I wasn’t in a killing mood today and it went back alive. We were 300 metres or so inshore of the South Holm buoy, 300 or so the other side were a couple of boats, one that looked very familiar, the upturned bow and stern, blue hull and white gunwhales of Lead Us trying another mark. I wasn’t certain but figured it was Colin and sent him a text…no cod but 50-60 whiting aboard. Maybe we’d get some action ourselves then…the others were biteless. I guess we’d been anchored a couple of hours or so, I was 2 whiting in, when I looked around and saw another bank. This one was moving. It went up quite high, was wide and looked pretty thick. It rolled in swiftly, the temperature dropped and the sea picked up, the flow with it. A fog bank, 100 yards visibility at best. Andy relayed over from Wilmy, what do we do, are we going? No, sit tight, wait and see if it goes through, besides I’ve just started getting bites. Big bites. Good bites. Cod bites. I missed them all, one after another…allowing time to develop, three bites and a strike, felt the weight and then it was gone, same again five minutes later. Two decent rod-benders, either good whiting or codling, missed. We stay there half an hour, listened in as the boats decided what to do; one was going in, Colin was staying a bit longer. We sat there a bit longer, the rods weren’t twitching, the wind was constant and cold and the tide seemed stronger...and this fog was clearly staying. I called Wilmy, said to get ready to go and informed him of the plan. With no cleat on Andy’s yak I’d locked it off further back so would need to up-anchor him myself and with the fog as it was we’d need to be sticking together so… 1. I swing around and haul anchor, staying in sight and, if losing site, calling myself back into them. I did have my position logged on gps so it wasn’t too dreadful. 2. I paddle over to Andy, remove his anchor and he stays alongside while I haul. 3. Wilmy spins around and up anchors at the same time. That’s the plan…I spin around, mid-tide and start hauling, I have to be quick because I don’t want to drift out of sight and I can’t trail the warp because I need to go alongside Andy – it goes into the footwell. The anchor reaches the top and I’ve got warp crossing beneath the hull. Not great so, with me and Andy rafted I drop the anchor back down (closed) and haul it back up, winding it on this time and it goes into Andy’s hatch. I pull my Scupper along his to the end and grab the dive reel which is up against the carabiner at the rear. The weight of two yaks, the water pressure and Andy being a bit heavier have the stern down lower than desired but a quick fiddle and he’s free and paddling; I flick the warp over my forward cleat and haul the anchor up. Andy stays around, a couple of boats pass us close by, slowly (they knew we were around) and it becomes clear that Wilmy has a problem. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s6H2HEE9cg[/youtube][/ Over I go. It seems that the yak is swinging alarmingly as soon as he tries to shuttle forward – too much slack in the trolley as it has stretched and is in need of shortening. I paddle up to his stern, grab the reel and scoot backwards freeing line – I pass him the reel and tell him to release it as I pull the trolley forward and we spin. It was going so well until it went under the side cleat! So he’s concentrating on that, I’m banging on about cleats, it’s not coming forward, things are hectic, I’m not making sense and Wilmy draws his knife. A bit dramatic I thought, I wasn’t shouting that loud! Anyway, I make it clear that we don’t need to cut it and that it’s jammed and he gets the message, frees it off, we spin around and I go free and he hauls it up. The disconcerting part of course is that once you get two yaks next to each other you channel water between them and everything appears stronger, faster and more frightening than it actually is. So, here we are, three tiny little men in a big patch of water under a large blanket of fog. We’ve got a possibility here of going one way, getting a smoke and a blow, but it’s a hundred miles or so to Holland. The other is to go home which is somewhere over there. Ish. Roughly. Good points are that we are inside the shipping channel so no danger from that quarter, the two boats in visual range beforehand have now gone past and in so it’s unlikely we’ll see any more, especially as we’ll be mostly over shallow banks where most couldn’t go and that we can see or hear any that do pitch up before it becomes critical because no-one goes fast in this. The bad points are that there are two jet-skiers in the area who may still be out, and blind, all our vehicles are in the same place and the tide is going at around two knots. So, collision danger is minimal and as long as we go west we’ll hit land. Piece of cake. Which way is west? The flow and swell (what little there is) is going north to south. So we stay across it from the starboard side. The sun is to our south so we keep the lighter part of the sky to our port (occasionally we can see the sun as a disc). The fog horn is off our starboard quarter; if that changes position so must we. They’re the indicators we have…and of course once we get close we start to smell chip fat from the sea front but by then it’s less of an issue. I have my VHF and the coastguard know our start point so as long as we stay together we’re fine; batteries are full. I have my PLB so if things go bad we can get people right onto us even through fog. I have a pocket GPS with our co-ordinates too but can’t use it to find home because I didn’t mark the launch and it’s set for course to the top and has no chart loaded. So it’s back to compass and dead reckoning. 2 miles to launch point, say half an hour. West to hit land. Offset to the north to reduce tidal flow effects, add ten minutes or so to counter drop in forward speed…forty minutes or so. Off we go. It’s disconcerting because you have no idea of progress and in fact we didn’t see the shoreline or any groynes until we were almost on the beach…what we did have was memory of the depths between us and home and once we crossed the banks and got the deeper water again we knew we were inshore again…and there we were, about forty minutes later, near the shore…a bit closer and we could make out the cliffs and then the buildings. There’s the millennium beacon, the pub and to our left the church. We landed 200m north of our launch point. Sweet.

Four for the Thirteenth…13.02.2013

I’m fed up with the cold, fed up with the wind, it’s been like the winter of 2011 all over again. My new Fladen kit’s been sitting around underused, the sea gear getting blooded with charter trips on Lead Us where they, and I, have been protected from the sea far more than normal. I had to get myself back into my usual seat, get the gear into the rod holders and take them through the waves. It was time to test them properly. But still I couldn’t get going. The window was in the morning and I intended to go as soon as I’d dropped the kids off at school…but my wife had continued her day off by going back to bed and I figured this was no bad idea; I joined her and we both slept a couple more hours. The tide was getting away from me though and apart from coffee there was no other excuse I could find, after all I‘d looked at the sea on my way back and it was spot on. Worms, squid, leads, knife, priest, coolbox…drysuit on, boots on and out the door. The wind was building…Corton? Hopton? I was just so indecisive today…sod it, Corton. Might get some tide then without too much paddling around wasting time until slack. Everything off and out, car parked up and down to the beach. I could hear the sea from the top. Marvellous, a shore dump and a south easterly. Could be interesting. I rigged up, stuck all three rods securely in their holders, watched a bit to work out the gaps and hauled my Scupper in between sets. I thought I’d screwed up for a moment but dug in and got over the top. Then I was off, straight out for half a K, drop anchor and see where things go. There was still a bit of the flood tide left so my lines went nicely downtide. Trouble was the wind was pushing my nose around the other way and I was weathercocked almost beam-on to the very short swell, 3ft at 3 seconds in the main, blowing a force 4, wind against tide. 2 rods down for now, black and squid, the third rod coming along purely to take a livebait if I could catch one. I lit up and then took my radio out, called up the coastguard and had to ignore the thumping great bite that slammed the rod tip about. I finished the call and then reeled it in, a decent enough whiting to put in the hold and my second point for the AA comp. A smaller one followed while I was bringing the lines in as I started to drift along with the weakening tide so I dropped it straight down with the other two wound in. It did no good and I lost the bugger on a snag. I’d cracked off another rig too by fishing like a twatt and was now out of spares – three traces, three rods, no more screw ups! The tide began to run and I crossed my fingers, another good whiting came aboard and then a tiddler which got lip-hooked and fed downtide on a plain lead, the line spooling off as smoothly as it wound on, so far so good. A while passed and then a bite followed by my line going uptide past me…oh my I thought. Then I pulled into the snag, went beam-on, heaved and broke free, I was on the drift, anchor had pulled. I wound up rod two and then rod three snagged and wouldn’t budge; the tide was running hard already and I had to pull for a break, dammit. Three sets of end tackle lost. Wind over tide now, four gusting seven as it turned out and not a lot of fun. I spun around, hauled anchor and headed in against both…then sat there for ten minutes waiting for a safe, clear run onto the shore. Nothing too glorious but dinner, salted Fladens and a wet arse is enough to keep me happy all the same. And I’d got another point.

Colin’s Coffee…04/02/13

Well Colin had some space on Lead Us again and they’d had cod the day before and I think he serves up Gold Blend…I’d made plans but when they got cancelled I couldn’t resist letting him know I was free…and then it was time for a fairly early night… …early maybe but I slept so damned soundly I didn’t hear my alarm. If the kids hadn’t have kicked off I’d not even woken up…time? 07:30. First word? Fuck! I was supposed to be there…three shits and a bollocks followed and I called Colin: “I’ve just woken, you’d better go without me”. He’d just arrived himself so he said he could hang on if I was quick – I was half dressed anyway and said I’d come right away but to go if need be. I called to my wife to make me a coffee as I grabbed things together and headed for the door… “What’s wrong?” “I’m supposed to be on a boat” “Are you?” Yes! I only mentioned it a dozen times yesterday, I should have been there by now!” “What about the dishwasher?” I’m so glad I wasn’t born with tit’s instead of priorities! Well I missed all the lights, drained my coffee (she should know I have it strong by now, surely. It’s only been seventeen years, (at least there was coffee aboard Lead Us, not like I’m used to when I don’t even take a flask with me), got through the roadworks with no bother, sweet…then parked up, ran down to a dock that wasn’t there, ran back to the car, drove down the wrong track, reversed up, parked, legged it down to the boat, ran back to the car to put it somewhere suitable and then, with loads of apologies and feeling like a twatt I hopped aboard and we left. Now if there’s one thing I hate it’s being late or other’s being late. Making others late is the worst…shamed, I busied myself rigging up instead. We took the tide out and down to Corton, a comfortable swell, plenty of colour and a bit of flow, things looked promising. Anchor down in the famous secret spot and the Coble swung around, laid off a bit from the wind which was blowing with some strength from the northwest. Cold, but flattening the sea pretty much though there was white on the tops of the water all around. My days of launching the kayak in that for a fishing session are gone though I’d have had a brilliant time with the sail up! Line sin and…nothing. Funny. It was the ideal time for the whiting. I was amazed it took so long, maybe twenty minutes and then, with a lovely bite up came one of around a pound, plump and kicking all the way into the air next to the boat. Which is as close as it got. More swearing. Then one of the other lads had one. A few more followed before slack water saw the leads bouncing and snagging and the boat on the turn; I pulled up and made a lovely bait up, a whole squid, skinned and with guts and spine inside for scent and shape, a frozen black shoved up inside and the hook passed twice through the mantle to stitch it closed a bit and then a head hooked through the eyes to drop some scent and colour into the water and keep the hook point clear, some guts streaming out the other end from the tentacles. A few jabs with a knife in the side to help the scent leak and it was ready, my favourite cod bait. Now to await the flood to start. Half an hour or so later I decided it was time to fish again and, fishing braid and with us laying off the wind still I crossed over to the lucky side, casting across the tide and keeping it fairly short and behind the other lines and waited…for the bloody nice bite that followed! Lovely bend in the rod, the smooth running of that Fladen multiplier with the big handle winding in something that didn’t feel like a cod but did, if you know what I mean…it broke surface and bugger me if it wasn’t the biggest whiting I’ve seen! A pound and three quarters, 45cm, as plump as you like and with some marks on the flank where something had had a go at it. Damaged fins too…that was a whiting to have a photo with! Sod it. It was worthy of three. Then Colin leapt into action and the first of the cod came aboard…nice fish! The others started picking up whiting and with the boat laying better I went back to my spot and cast back out again…five more minutes, that same bait and the rod started to buck…get in there my son!!! Cod…what I‘d come for; it was the same length as my whiting and though it looks a lot smaller the fillets aren't dissimilar in size... ...five minutes passed and then one of the others hauled one in, a better fish around the 4-5lb mark…three in fifteen minutes. I had my other rod baited now and in the water and then as the tide started to race through things quietened and then went dead. Wes at there a good couple of hours with nothing much happening, just weed pulling the rods down and jamming against knots and baits and leads…the fish just went right off the feed. The reels and rod just sat there, unmoving... Finally we started to get a few little taps; I had a reasonable rattle and as the really small leader knot (I’m using 20lb braid so have a 20lb flouro leader on for resistance against the abrasion expected from the rough ground here) cleared the surface I noticed a tenth of the weed I’d hauled in ten minutes before…and on the end, a fish. Then we all started getting them. Whiting mostly but one of the lads then pulled up a codling, another managed a whelk – his multiplier casting had come on from nothing to respectable during the day as he was determined to learn and had people to teach him and picked it up with no bother…for a whelk! You have to laugh sometimes. Soon after, Colin pulled into a another bite and passed the rod over to let the one person still waiting for a cod to have a feel of what they were like; another good 4-5lb fish was soon boated. A cod apiece, can’t ask for better than that on a day like this! The whiting carried on for a while and then the bites started to get lighter and strikes were coming up empty. I had half a dozen good bites on one rod in five minutes but nothing connected and then it came time to head in, the sun starting to set over Corton, Gunton, Lowestoft… Our entry was smoother than last week but then we got caught out. The tide was far higher than it should have been, perhaps from those northerlies we’ve been having and we wouldn’t make it under the bridge. There was nothing else for it but to go into Hamilton dock, tie up and sit it out. Well, that may sound like a pain and normally it might be. Personally I was an hour late for bed by now (being on shift at half nine at night) but what an evening to be stuck – huge flocks of starlings wheeled and turned over our heads for twenty minutes of more and I filmed and photographed them from the best position in town. I’d often been glad when the lights turned red on my way home before and I’d seen them but it’s over the water that they play and that was where we sat. Absolutely marvellous. They stopped and Colin set about gutting; I learnt a new and quicker way. I’m not slow (for an angler) but he took a quarter of the time I do. Granted I gill them too (I learnt in a hotter climate and with fish that required bleeding and weren’t sold with gills in) but still, this was rapid. That done we hung around another ten minutes and then made our way under the bridge with a foot to spare, in the dark now and motored down past all the moored boats to the space on the dock where Colin ties up. Bit of nifty manoeuvring against a strong wind and we were tied up and we were on our way home, all with a fine dinner in the bag. ----- Now I’m not the excitable type really, it takes some adrenaline for me to get going. I was dog-tired and had three hours available to sleep before getting up for work so you’d expect I’d be out like alight really. I wasn’t. I managed about an hour and a half. It’s now nearly half one and the sound of my fingers banging the keyboard are keeping me awake on shift. I’ve got another seven hours to get through as yet. I wouldn’t have it any other way! Thanks again Skipper, very enjoyable session!

Missing On Action…03/02/13

With a horrendous forecast for the cod match the best option seemed a swap for a day on the river chasing the pike...a charity day with food and prizes on offer something god would come of it and all the signs at home were that it’d be a pleasant day out. Pass duly signed by Missusnapper I venture froth for the 10am start by way of my brother’s to collect Eloise’s yak, thwarted only by the lack of straps to stick it on the roof. The worst laid plans… Five minutes early I pulled up by the pool to see four others ready to rock…I didn’t even get to finish my coffee! Yak off the roof, rods out of the car, drysuit on and it was over to the pontoon. The water was up, running quick and dirty; lures were going to struggle so hopefully the poor maggots I’d picked up the day before would find me a livebait or two. Ah well. Flat was there, Wilmy too and both Alex and Wilmy’s mate as well, neither of whom I’d met before…five out on a day like this wasn’t a bad result at all! Off we went, some upriver against a strong flow, some downriver with it. I started down but couldn’t get the lures down at a speed sensible to troll so turned and went back up hoping that the boathouse stretch might produce. It didn’t. Someone had left their taps running... I headed for the quay instead. I stopped in the dyke just short of it for a while and after half an hour was rewarded with a four inch roach. What a bite! What a fight! The feeder rod had produced... …a treble under the dorsal and I tried for a pike sheltering out of the flow to no avail. I moved on up to the quay. And there I sat, anchored up opposite Flat who managed roach, ruffe and perch...I sat there a while unable to get my livebait positioned where I wanted due to a bank angler and failing where I did put it and gave up, moved and tried further up. Nothing, no bites, no nibbles, nothing at all. I moved again, heading for my little bay by the iron bridge that holds chub, a fish a cast on the drop in summer…out went the feeder and I sat back and waited. A bite! Missed! I cast out again. Ten minutes later I began reeling in; snagged. I paddled over, pulled clear and felt the fish – a nice chub, a pound or so and feisty as…I brought it up to the side, went to lift it in and the hook pulled…that could have been point three in the AA comp but it wasn’t to be so we’re still last with two species so far. Embarrassing or what! I tried again, snagged again, lost the feeder. Snagged my livebait, pulled it clear and cast it off. Tested out the extra flex on my Xtraflexx rod... This was starting to suck. Flat joined me so at least I had company. He then started to pull a few silvers out, roach and perch, just to make me feel bad. I changed over to a float; lost one of those too and a couple of hooks. I blagged a couple of perch and rigged up for livebaits, trotting them downstream. Nothing. Another goon the troll…nothing. I tried a slow drift. Nothing. None of the guys on bank or boat were smiling either; Beccles wasn’t fishing at all well. I carried on up and, as I approached the launch, I saw all but Alex standing on the pontoon. I joined them, hauled the yak out and we just chatted instead while we waited for Alex. He’d managed run on a smelt! A decent fish too but the line had parted and he’d lost it. Feeling generous I figured that was close enough for a prize and gave him a couple of rod holders; after all we’d all made the effort and even if none of us had a pike to show for it he’d at least seen one, we’d had a pleasant if cold and unproductive day and there was another forty quid in the pot for Caister Lifeboat. Thanks for coming guys, sorry for the lack of fish!