A rather silly day...29/10/08

Sometimes I have these strange ideas. It’s not like voices inside the head or anything like that...or becoming a Morris Dancer...but still kind of unnecessary. Today was one of those days. I woke up quite early this morning and decided that as it was zero degrees and there was frost outside I really ought to get out from beneath my nice, warm duvet and take a Yak Board down to the park for an early morning paddle. As you do.

I was on the water for around an hour I’d guess, which is quite an achievement for the size of pond that they have in the park, and as my maggots had frozen to death I didn’t take a rod with me – but I did have a master plan.

Balls.

Well, they were only part of the plan. I’m running low on floats at the moment and the park is always a good place to replenish stocks – people cast into the vegetation or crap that lines the island in the middle and get snapped off. Footballs also run down the slope and into the pond too and I thought I may as well grab a couple of decent ones while I was at it.

Well, I launched. I paddled about. I got cold hands. I took two good footballs out of the twenty or so that were floating around and gathered up a dozen floats of all sizes. Chuffed with that I went home to thaw out. (I later gave the balls to some of the [s]vermin[/s] neighbours kids down the end of my road.)

An hour later I went into town to buy some Ragworm for tomorrow's excursion. That gave an excuse later on for an impromptu session…

After dinner my wife took the children around to a friend's house for afternoon tea and face painting. Then stupid idea of the day number two popped into my head – go fishing in the sea…and take a Scarborough reel…and use a light weight…and a two hook paternoster rig…and a spinning rod…and just to make it more interesting take a different kayak to normal…



None of those Dorado or Scupper Pro barge shenanigans for me – nope, todays kayak of choice was the fast and scary Ocean Kayak Sprinter - the plastic matchstick! I recall someone saying nobody would want to fish from it the other week and figured that I didn’t wish to be a nobody any longer…I was going to be a somebody and go fishing in the Sprinter. In the sea. In winter.



Luckily the sea state was forecast as slight to moderate. On launching I’d say it varied between slightly stupid to moderately mental as I broke through the small, but perfectly formed, surf. There were actually three surfers in the water – clearly they believe the bullsh!t that Magic Seaweed has become. Once out into the sea it was actually quite pleasant with just the gentle roll of the swell and so I figured it was a good time to start the drift – at a random point – with my old KP Scarborough centrepin.



A beautiful reel this and one that I’ve hardly used since I got it half a lifetime ago. I must air it more next year. It spins beautifully and you have a direct link to the fish – none of this five to one retrieve nonsense, you are directly connected.



Drifting wasn’t producing the goods and the current was starting to pick up so I made the ridiculous decision to anchor. Ridiculous as I not only had a mere half an ounce of lead on but also because the only place I could put the anchor was amidships. Ah well, it was that or nothing. It was somewhat interesting but…it can be done! And, after a short wait…



Well, no monster but a fish for my efforts.



One pretty little Whiting had saved me from a blank - is this the first UK fish to be caught from a Sprinter? I guess so.



Back it went and with no further bites I came in a short while later, after retrieving the anchor of course (and answering the phone while doing so!). A quick paddle back to the beach and then a few minutes trying to work out how to land without swimming…the surf was rolling in with decent gaps but was a bit larger than when I went out. Long and thin I didn’t much fancy my chances but what the hell – I had a drysuit on and a decent one was coming up…I paddled for it, caught it and as I started to accelerate away from it it broke and rolled under the stern pushing it up and dropping the bow straight down and under the water…the kayak began to rotate to the right and just before it tipped me my foot hit the sand…I was in 30cm of water as a sandbar had built up! I remained upright and came in okay after that – a good hour of yakking in preparation for tomorrows morning session of Gorleston.