Good things come to those who bait…08/11/2013

Good things come to those who bait…08/11/2013 [i]“I had a fixed purpose when I put to sea. As I sat in the boat with my band of men, I meant to perform to the uttermost”[/i] I like to read. I find many useless words and sentences which make me think “Aha! I can use that!” Well, I have time to read when I’m on shift, lots of time in fact. I also get to see the sun come up and sometimes the caffeine is present just enough that I can put to sea, and like Beowulf I tend to do so with a fixed purpose. Well, today was going to include sitting in a boat with a band of men. A small band, to be fair, Brian and I in fact but for someone normally alone in a kayak that’s enough of a band to suit a quote. The quest, as this was, was to find a large cod or winter roker from a bit further out, intercepting them on the way in. Kind of a game of roulette here, a gamble. We both have enough in the freezer for the time being so we could afford to be patient. For me I could go a lot further out than normal, chase the tide and sit out conditions that otherwise would have kept me inshore or even ashore. Not to mention only out for 3-4 hours. But I’m one of those simple-minded souls who’s always happy whatever as long as I have a rod in my hand. Leave off work, exhausted, home, try to grab ten minutes, too excited, grab gear, bait, get changed, lock the door and down to the Yacht Club; in through the gate, down to the pontoons, engine warming up, kettle on, ropes off and away we go, out of the Yacht Club, out of the harbour and off to mark 1, out near the Southwest Holm. I’ve rigged up and baited up ready while Brian’s been ploughing through the swells, heading for where the fish might be. We’ve got quite a mixture here, longshore herring and mackerel, both fresh, stale herring from the freezer, unwashed loligo squid, Lancashire black lug and two life yellowtail lug. They’re, umm, in reserve or something… I whack pennel out uptide and a wishbone across, 2/0’s baited with blacks and squid rings/heads, and drop a downtide pennel off the back. The water is running hard out here. Brian’s first, a huge great whopping bend in the rod as the first whiting takes off! It’s ignored. It’s a nice keeper – a lot of them are out here, around the ¾-1lb mark as an average maybe – but no, something bigger is wanted. Not just by us though. Surrounded we were, anywhere up to five seals around us at any one time during the day. They didn’t want our whiting – there’s plenty of those and herring around – they were just waiting for the same thing as us, cod. With Brian in the lead I checked my rod; double shot on the wishbone. Again decent whiting but the flow was so quick I had the traces quite twisted. Better under 2 knots, those rigs. Still, it untwisted and went out again. Then one hell of a bite on the cod uptider, one for the mantelpiece for sure: Next was Brian’s roker rod, his big roker rod. Head and guts sent downtide ona balloon… Things were really picking up!!! The tide slowed, we’d had plenty of decent whiting but not found our quarry so it was off now to the Three Mile Bank. The promised land where the spurdogs and tope had come in the summer, where the hounds and roker had been in numbers. The good fish come through here but what a nightmare when I tried it on the kayak, absolute nightmare, the depth and tide had me struggling and quite frankly it’s unlikely I’ll paddle out there again. Well, we had more of the same; more good whiting, and I mean all the way through the day a few minutes apart, some tiny ones but mostly decent keepers, and more seals around us but we just couldn’t find a roker or cod this time. But that’s fishing, we tried. Inshore the others were struggling too, two small codling from the roads, another further south from us so ahead on a safe bet but not by much. One last try perhaps, down to the South Holm where the ebb should be starting, slack having arrived out here… Brian went out to drop anchor and noticed the wind – it had built up considerably. The sky had darkened, there was heavy rain in a few places around us on the horizon so we hung back and waited. Then it started to hammer down with no telling how long it would last; we came in. You know, it’s marvellous to come in without having to make an effort after you’ve been busy all day; none of the up-anchor and paddle, wait for the surf to be how you want it, drag everything up the beach and the slope. Very genteel this way of fishing and I’ve rather come to love being spoilt! Just a quick wash and brush down of the deck and a bit of tidying up and we’re away. Part two to follow soon no doubt, will the cod join us? Nb sorry about the photos not being up to the usual standards, mostly video captures and even then I didn’t film as much as normal as we didn’t get the bending rods this time. Marvellous day though nonetheless, haven’t a clue how many fish we had all in though, but there was certainly a lot.