It was hammering down when we got up; early to get a parking spot. Normally in this weather I’d have rolled over and sworn before sleeping again but we’d not travelled this far for nothing. Straight down to the bay again with no food and we sat under cover chatting to the other early risers, Mark and Ian (Tanglefoot) amongst them before getting things prepared. Two rods today, both 10-20lb Maxximus Nano boat rods with the LD15 lever drags (spot on for jigging shads, pirks and hokkais) with my Xtraflexx and LP Mgnet baitcaster rod left in the van. Only able to fish one rod at a time I figured the likelihood of snagging up and possibility of breaking a rod in the wind-driven swell was reasonably high (though I’ve yet to bust any of the Maxximus rods) and I didn’t want to carry three with me. I rigged one with jumbo Fladen hokkais and one of the large leadheads that fellow RTM team member Jeff had given me and the other with a large cannonball weight and a luminous Fladen Portland Eel on a flying collar rig on the other, allowing me to swap between them at will (or when I snagged and lost them on a good drift).
Now, AndyM is someone I consider a mate though we’ve never met so when I jumped into him and his son Jack I decided plenty of pictures were needed. After all, Jack is an angler on the rise. They’ll keep popping up…
Eventually the café opened and coffee was bought before the rules and safety briefing was carried out after the usual milling around…
Of course I was in my usual bored state and had only a thin top under my Palm Ion bib and Oceana cag (I’d changed my mind about the Aleutian drysuit as I would be paddling a lot and wanted an unrestricted throat) and in need of a warm up so I grabbed Fi’s demo RTM Disco for my first go in one in maybe five years. I’d forgotten just how nippy they are! I’ll stick to the Tempo and MidWay for fishing I think but I might decide to add one for playing now and again maybe.
… and then we were off.
Jeff and Martin headed out south and centrally while I headed straight for the north side of the bay to try around the kelp while the water was still up over the rocks. Padlding out I figured my chances of an early fish were reasonable as I saw a couple of good-sized silver shapes leaping a couple of feet straight up and clear out of the water – bass or sea trout? No idea. Feeding or playing? No idea. I swapped to a wedge for no result then started on the Portland Eel over loads of marks on the fishfinder.
Half an hour bitlesss I let the wind push me across the bay over the clean ground working the hokkais for no result. I was fishing in swells of three to four feet, the odd one cresting, when the safety boat announced it was better further out and the initial boundary could be lifted the exact words were “Set them loose” which seems to sum up kayak anglers rather succinctly! So out I went. I caught sight of Jason and asked if he was getting any joy (it’s not as secretly competitive as most fishing disciplines) and then assisted him with an anchor warp that had found its way between hull and rudder on his Stealth. Pretty tricky in the swell and I had my Tempo leaning right over on its side to a line almost up to the gunwhales for a few minutes before I finally freed it and then headed out and north and found Jeff in the Tempo that ‘d originally ordered; I like the standard Grey Storm. You get a good idea of the sea conditions in these too:
Jeff was doing alright – nothing large but plenty of fish and was soon up to five species though none would put him up in the leaderboard just yet. Still, he at least had some experience fishing this style and was our best hope! Not that we couldn’t do better than yesterday now we had been given some pointers and gear out of his boot beforehand! I carried on into deeper water and towards the point, jigging all the way.
Three hours had passed by the time I found Martin and joined him. He’d not done well as yet and had in fact only found his first fish a few minutes prior – small Pollack. He was in around 30ft over some rough ground that was up and down and working his rigs on the drift with his new drogue slowing him well. I put mine out – a heavy duty carrier bag that his clothes had been in, tied up with string as I’d left my drogue at home – and sat there twenty yards away, chatting.
I changed rigs…a Fladen sandeel rig that I always thought looked fishy and which my mate Jon did alright with up this way off charter boats when he came. Two minutes and it was me off the starting blocks! A cod of a couple of pounds tops/, a good pan-sized fish but I looked at it and figured that it wouldn’t put me in the money and I wouldn’t be eating it while it was at its best so I returned it after a photo.
Then Martin was in with his first cod of the day, a similar sort of size, and we hauled in the drogues for another pass.
A couple of minutes and the rod slammed down again, a better fish this time. It looked somewhere in the three and a half to four pound bracket for now, though it would sit drying out and emptying itself of digested food in the back of my boat for the next few hours so would drop a bit of weight; we were all in the same boat though and it could get me placed somewhere.
No more came over the next hour so I paddle doff again, stopping now and again and jigging or drifting shads, eels or hokkais, losing them regularly. I passed Mark and got the camera out; he was getting fish but nothing special.
I tried a drift and had a different hit; Pollack. Not big but enough to give a bit of sport.
I started heading back into the bay, drifting and jigging here and there until I was down to an hour or so left. My large stuff had all gone by now on the hokkai front so I had 2/0 Fladen hokkais on. Then I found a cracking fish! The rod lunged down and started to bang away in my hands. This was a definite cod and a good one at that, an easy six to eight but probably bigger and perhaps my first double cod and potentially even a winner…it fought strongly and I had to crank while raising and lowering the rod – it was pulling some line off against the drag – and I started to feel more confident with my standing. Then it bumped itself off the small hook, now bent a bit and was gone. Outgunned I decided to just get myself some mackerel to take home.
I spied Andy and Jack on the Stealth Duo and called him up:
“I’m bored ‘witless’ with this cod-jigging malarkey, are there any mackerel about?”
He’d not found them but he was getting coalies, should try a hundred yards back from where he was…and I had the coalfish I wanted from here in minutes. No biggie and not a PB but a beautifully proportioned fish that I was happy to look at. I thought about live baiting it but with so little time left I figured I’d be benevolent instead. Meanwhile jack was pulling coalies, cod and Pollack on a diving lure and Andy passed one over for me to borrow as I’d taken mine out of the box after yesterday as I didn’t think I’d get a winner on them.
I trolled for a few minutes when I got a good slam and the fish dived. I know that’s a Pollack. I’d found it just above the kelp and it went straight down into it and snagged me up. I spent a couple of minutes trying to pull it free to no avail then pulled harder and at least got the lure back. I tried again, a few hundred yards and it banged down hard a second time…same thing, into the kelp and drag the lure out. How could I do this? I may still land a cracker yet…
The next hit I was ready and waiting for with a plan…it hit, the rod whipped around – 10-20lb remember and halfway down the length so not a baby bite! Harder than any bass or pike hit I’ve had. I dug in and paddled hard, hitting six in seconds and going for ten or so…see if I could tire it by dragging it through the water and keep it up top and then while still gliding I grabbed the rod, held it high and wound like a dervish. YES! I had it in the boat and it was a PB Pollack (we don’’t get them at home). I was amazed at how small it was compared to its strength but it was in the bag and my first of the species on a lure.
Well, that worked so let’s do it all again! And yep, the rod banged around in no time – great nod from Andy and Jack – and I paddled a bit then grabbed the rod as it bore straight down into the kelp….and so did the next…time to be getting in now so off I went, being joined by Pete (Bigcod) and Buzz (don’’t trust me on the names, I spoke to so many people but I think that’s right) and chatting all the way in to a beach filled with kayaks.
I landed and there was the winning fish…what a belter!
As for me…well…we’d see on the weigh in. from third place down it was going to be ounces.
We loaded up, dragged things the long haul up the slope smelling the clutch of one car that preceded us, loaded up and headed to the campsite for the weigh in, my fish drying out in the sun. I should have taken more care of it.
The weigh in, my cod went three and a quarter but would it be in the finals? Sadly not but it was respectable at least. The great news was that Jack took eleventh place out of seventy five or so anglers at 3lb 10oz for a Pollack and got himself a nice little bit of pocket money:
Heaviest flatfish went to one of the Heroes on the Water guys, Liam, his first time too and a half pound dab took the prize.
The winner? Brian Welch again with his cod at 11lb 2 5/8 oz and the Raymarine Dragonfly he won looked a cracking bit of kit when I looked at the demo version.
Well…time to drink and eat after giving my fish to Bill who’d been doing the safety course and was looking forward to coming out with me back at home. So off went Martin, Ed, Chicky and I for Whitby cod, chips and mushy peas…because it’s the law…
…unless you’re an Essex boy with a flip-top head!
Back to the site and I sat chatting with the ECKA lads, a cracking bunch, before the midges scared me inside where we sat around talking until work called and asked what time I’d be there as I was late…unaware that I had booked holiday and was seven hours away. Not my problem; I opened another can before another night in the bivvy bag next to the van, sleeping through the rain and setting off early with martin for the long drag home.
Cracking weekend, so much fun with all those mentioned and not; it made no difference if you were Mark from the Jackson team, Ian, Keith or Sam from OK, us from RTM, whether you’d met before or not, whether you were from north, south, east or west, things were as good as always so thank you all for making my weekend great. Thanks also, of course, to the organisers and sponsors, especially Fi at 1st Wet and Wild who’s always a delight and special thanks to Jeff for his help and bits and my two chauffeurs Ed and Martin.
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