Not Quite Sensational…18/11/2013

Not Quite Sensational…18/11/2013 Which is no criticism at all. Sensational, you see, is a totally different thing half a world and half a lifetime away. Sensation was Denise, my aunt and I was there when she was starting her charter business waaaaay back a couple and a few years ago. I’m second left, she’s second right. She taught me how to really fish. So, different boat, different skipper and certainly different weather. But it’s Monday, it’s three days after Denise passed away and there was nowhere I’d rather be than on the sea with a good skipper and friend even though I’d taken a cover shift the night before and had only agreed on the proviso I got relieved an hour early so that I could make the boat and this was granted though I was already tired. So there I was on Lead Us in my Sensational hat steaming out to the familiar stomping ground of Corton, or ‘the roods’ as I’m starting to call them! The cod aren’t showing themselves much right now after that initial run of multiples around the 45cm mark but there’s still plenty of other fish about. I’m confident though, Denise is with me, in spirit, in the form of the KP Scarborough reel she gave me way back on Christmas 1991. I’d strtaed the repair work after smashing the handles off bass fishing, replaced the fascias but I was kind of stuffed for handles so it’s sat there without any. No matter, it was going out for one last fish before retirement and shelf angling. I lined it up at work, 90lb braid chosen as the most useable thing for this occasion and with Colin anchoring us up I set to work with a pound of lead, chosen as I was going to have to fish pretty much straight down, and a 2/0 pennel with a frozen black and a diagonal of squid. Well, I missed a whiting bite on it so dropped it back down without coming all the way up; Alan next to me was to have the first fish, a whiting. Alan hasn’t been out all year so he was pleased. Turned out he was to do best on the whiting of all of us this time. Colin was watching, waiting and so were the other two onboard. I decided to get my two other rods set up – as soon as I’d got my fish on the KP it was coming in and I’d start to fish properly. Bang bang…I struck and could feel it on there and I knew immediately she’d done her magic…I started inching line in with my palm. I’m not joking, 1:1 retrieve and a small spool, no handles, a pound of lead and fifty feet of line out, Inch by inch and I got to feel every one of them. “It’ll be time to go in by the time you get that up” said Colin. They all thought I had something else on there but I knew different. [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tHaTsL4vzE[/video] Since when did she not outfish the men? There it was, a cod. At 47cm the best of the winter for me so far. Best she could do for her nephew for now, the larger ones needed chasing in but there were no record cod for Denise to pull out today, not like when I was a kid and she sent this over to go on my wall. Right, KP in and trace off and it’s time to get to work. Out flies the lead on my Uptider. Not sure where the fish are but finally after a wait the first whiting comes up. Brian came past and said hi to us all, out on Iceni Spirit for a run and as we’d had a cod they settled down for an hour or two to get a spot of tea while we carried on, mostly waiting. It was very slow and a very strange kind of movement to the water in my mind. Now I’ve blanked at Corton before but this all seemed way slower and I have no idea why. We had good bait and a selection of it, good anglers, good tackle and yet…dribs and drabs. Slack came and we figured it was just the tide, the start of the ebb would surely fish better. A couple of snags and a lost set of gear so I pulled up and waited, rebaited and once we finally swung I stuck my baits out again. Even live whiting, liphooked, has failed. Mind you, it always does unless there’s bass around for me. Colin stuck a bait downtide. Keep an eye on that rod… We waited and as it started to run; four rods went; four whiting and they were plump and roe-filled ones. We only really saw big or tiny. Then it dropped right off and we sat for an hour staring at the rod tips, willing them to move. Colin kept up the coffee and although it was a cold and misty day and the fish weren’t throwing themselves at us we weren’t complaining, it was flat and serene and pleasant company all-round. We knew the fish were there but they just didn’t want to feed. I dropped down to one rod, as had my neighbour. With him on one I figured I’d abandon the cross and downtide fishing and belted my bait downtide at an angle and waited. Thump thump. Yep, that’s a cod bite and sure enough I’ve got one of my own now…51cm…Now you know I said to keep an eye on Colin’s rod? Thump thump…he’s got one too, same size…then me again thump thump but I missed it…then, twenty minutes before we had to come in thump thump once more and another 47cm for me. Well, everyone went home with some fish and though the cod weren’t thick and fast to my knowledge we had more than any of the other boats, possibly even the commercials working further down though I may be wrong from my take on the radio chatter. So our luck was in, that combined with patience. We rode back in and entered the harbour just as the light went. The boat was already scrubbed down inside and most of the outside until I knocked the head off the broom so it’s now like Trigger’s broom – another new head on one of the replacement handles but still the same broom. Then Colin started gutting everyone’s catch as Mike took the helm back down the water to Lake Road. I noticed something new to me which was a delight, a nighttime reflection that wasn’t of a point of light. If only the camera had recorded it, in the still water ahead of the Sulisker I had the perfect mirror image. Well, home I went after another good day afloat and having seen off Denise, in the form of that old KP, in style… …and I’ve just eaten the evidence.