Every year at some point I crash with friends on the beach at Cley, fish for an evening meal and then fish for the freezer the next day. The weather is always fantastic, the water clear and the catches good. That’s why I didn’t bother checking the weather forecast, that and the fact we were going anyway, it was arranged. It was my only window too, next Friday I’m back at work and the following free weekend my family will be home from France. Others checked it of course, I knew it wasn’t marvellous but you know what? Kayak fishing isn’t just about the fishing. There was a competition planned too, Norfolk Vs. Suffolk with mercenaries coming in from Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and even a German flying in from Cuba with an Italian name. There were nineteen of us around the fire that night…
…back to spinning my yarn…
I’d just caught my brown trout with Dav and left the 27 degree heat inland as we headed for the coast. There had been thick fog at home that morning and up until lunchtime at least when I’d dropped a smoothound off for Si once the car was loaded up, inland and out to sea where Brian was catching hounds and as far up as Yarmouth where Marty was anchored off Scroby catching a tan. Somehow. This fog had evaporated as I headed north so it was a crying shame to see it reappear a mile from the beach. Oh.
I followed Dav down the track, he passed a couple of cyclists and a teenaged girl then decided to pull out as I was coming up behind, saw me, wobbled in shock and fell off. I’d had a feeling though, or noticed it before it was clear and slowed then stopped before the wobble had really started. Poor girl looked shocked and waved an apology but I gave her a smile and hopefully she wasn’t too upset. A minute later and I was on the beach, yaks on roofs everywhere. Tangleweed had just landed for a break after a fruitless hour and I got worried. The man’s a fish magnet and he’d not caught. He went back out and one by one we followed, two by two as well, like Noah’s Ark, for those without GPS who needed to stick with someone in case.
I’ll just point out now that we did have a few hundred yards of murky visibility so there wasn’t a danger of collision especially as this is a shallow area, it was low tide and there are wrecks, variously pots, lines and nets that would keep most people a lot further out. There’s also limited traffic here by all accounts. Pots. Yes, I went and hooked up to one. I knew where it was and was able to spot it – we’d caught there the last couple of years so it was worth a try.
Wag and JayJay came out together and anchored up nearby. Came out? Loomed out more like.
Fog…and chop! Messy it was. Windy you see. Oh, the tide was hammering through as well. Really poor conditions but I was already hungry and had only brought ingredients…but there were no mackerel here right now. I headed for the wreck, feathers and lures, try and get a bass off the Vera.
Hell that tide was down, I’d never seen this much of the wreckage showing before. I anchored up and tried feathers, wedges, spinners; nothing. There were a few of us milling around and then Dav paddled past, letting me know I was in about 7ft of water – but I knew this from my feathers running from the surface to the bottom!
Right, forget it. Anchor up, drift the wreck with feathers….and I’m hooked in and getting pulled towards a prominent piece of structure…
I paddled up and past, slackened, tightened, pulled, slackened and got it free. Turned and off I went, accompanying Andy in.
A few of us had now landed and were milling around, fishless and perhaps ashamed that we’d given up. Especially with the English holidaymakers nearby who weren’t letting a little bit of bad weather ruin their holiday!
No. We were back in but my plan was just to have one small beer and wait until slack before running out at primetime for another go. I love a cold San Miguel on a hot day but a hot one on a cold day? Just not the same. Still, it was a drink while we set up camp and got the fire going to build up a bed of embers for cooking on hopefully.
Word passed through like wildfire…Flat had a bass! A couple of pound it was, held forward it might just feed nineteen; Tangleweed had a beard and Si had sandals, between them we could manufacture a messiah to make it stretch…
I mean, look at the state of him! The sea really was rubbish!
Okay, three pictures for a schoolie? Times were hard!
We sat around talking, swearing, moaning, drinking, adding wood to the fire and forgetting what we’d come for when Alberto informed us that Wag had just let him know they’d had four mackerel in the last ten minutes…he was still out with JayJay and Tony, where I’d been initially. Slack was around eight I’d said to Paul and I was thinking to go back out then…I didn’t check the time until then; it was five to! I threw on my wet wet gear, dragged the yak down to the water having dumped unrequired kit and before it had slid to a halt I was in and going through the waves, hitting them head on and getting soaked. It was 19:58.
The lads were three hundred yards straight out. I was on them at eight, they’d had one or two more. I passed around the back of them, both rods now out and trailing feathers. I was off to hook up to the buoy fifty yards away. As I passed them the starboard rod started to rattle. YES! Then the port rod! Double whammy! I left them, got to the buoy and hooked on…starboard up, multi coloured Fladen feathers, my favourite of all the rigs I’ve ever used. Full string! Less than ten minutes had passed from sitting with my beer.
Into the footwells. Feathers wrecked, leaving them while I hooked up the wedge on the bottom had pulled them to the bottom and the slack had tangled them irretrievably. I pulled up the port rod. Full string! Hokki Pink Tails.
Six and five, eleven fish. Three disappeared, either overboard or through the scupper holes. Down to eight but at least I was eating! I cut off the feathers and tied on a string of silver flash. Unclipping after ten minutes casting and jigging I trolled again, managed one more on the silver flash and headed back in. I should have done that straight away with my eight and lifted morale, perhaps the others would have come out and fished too but it just really hadn’t been tempting and they were all breaking out the emergency burgers and sausages!
Nb here’s a link to a description and photo of the various feathers I have, I had surplus so gave everyone a set in the morning, except those I didn’t see. I still think the multi colour feathers are the greatest of all! Traditional maybe but they work!
http://www.fladenfishing.org.uk/a-bunch-of-feathers
Right. Break out the knives and boards…break out the ingredients…break out the pans…shallots to Stu and Si, red and green peppers to me, then onto the filleting. Mine were beautiful, no wastage. Mario arrives from Cuba at this time. I go into insult-the-German mode immediately (knowing he’s a great sport). Tony takes a stone axe to his, blindfolded, and with little accuracy when he came in. That’s why you had some bones to spit out fellas!!!
He needs to target bigger fish if he ever wants a proper meal. I took his tails off and mixed up the marinade. Juice of 3 limes, tablespoon of minced ginger, same of minced coriander and crème fraiche…put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Dave filleted his bass, I skinned it, sliced it and did the most basic of ceviche with it – only had the limes. Once it’d been left it went out and was tried with trepidation and met with great success. Meanwhile 1966, 1918, 1945 all get mentioned.
The cherry tomatoes, shallots, peppers and chillies had by now been chopped and mixed with the rest of the minced coriander and ginger, a load of turmeric, coriander, cumin powder, garam masala, yellow mustard seeds, salt and also had creamed coconut, a small amount of milk.
Three dishes ready to go. Chef needs a drink! Alberto thrusts a peach Badger beer in my hand. WOW! That’s a great beach drink if ever there’s one. I proceed to insult our German friend some more.
Meanwhile a starter of Marinaded Norfolk venison shot by Wag…unbelievably good! And various burgers and hot dogs on pans all around. Then the fish went on. The crème fraiche marinaded ones barbecued, the other two in the woks, cooked then mixed before serving. The barbied mackies went out first – and didn’t last long. Then to serve up the main course. Quick, another beer. A Spitfire goes into my hand…where’s Mario? Spitfire ale, ‘Downed all over Kent, just like the Luftwaffe’!
Note that kayak anglers don’t buy plates like this. They steal them from other family members in the hope they get lost, broken or thrown on the fire afterwards.
Right, that’s me done. Time to eat!
Alberto gets the board up:
Stu does something to it later with a bottle in his mouth. I forget why, I was half cut by then.
Cooking done it was time to stoke up the fire for warmth and to combat the rain…
The partying lasted until one then, with most drifting off to their vans Ian, Paul and myself camped out in the shelter and Bill amongst the yaks in a pop up tent... Sadly the threat of rain kept me off the shingle this year.
First light. I awake to Spark tramping through shingle and asking me if I’m getting up. I use two words.
Half an hour passes, he’s back. One better word this time. Gimmecoffeeyousonofabeach.
Half an hour passes, still no coffee. I get up. Best get the rest of this wood on, ready for breakfast. No rush, it’s blowing here. I put the remainder on and suddenly the fog of yesterday returns. A warm, choking fog that has Ian and Paul awake and out in seconds…oops. Sorry fellas. No matter how amusing it was both unintended and regrettable.
Also amusing was Bill getting untented…
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v0qkj6hGV4[/video]
We milled around with no enthusiasm to launch. It was blowing, the sea was speckled with white. It was looking stormy. We ate bacon, we drank coffee, we took paracetomol. I sent abort texts to those coming in the morning, as did others. Tim turned up, and another, damn this weather. Alternatives? The heart had gone out of it. I didn’t want to go even. I knew I’d blank if I did. Some tried fishing from the shore. The second exposure is the most accurate.
The comp was supposed to be on the Sunday. I guess we could give the victory by proxy to Norfolk as Wag outfished us with 13 landed which beat mine and Tony’s combined 12 for Suffolk plus JayJay had 7 for Norfolk and Dave had his bass. Dave and Wag both had a lure as a prize for being such providers of food the night before so it made sense! I decided to leave after a few hours of no improvement but figured I’d give it a shot for half an hour seeing as I’d have to crawl into my wet wet kit on the way home when I went for a minnow anyway. Down to the water’s edge…and away. It started okay then picked up out of the lee of the shingle.
I tried jigging and trolling to no avail – as I expected. I hooked onto the buoy, I was getting a soaking. I tried trolling again, the wind was pushing me, the paddle was getting snatched by wind and waves. I caught the buoy rope with both rods and had to haul the rope to retrieve the feathers – safer to cut them off for me but the person lifting them would not appreciate hooks in his hand I’m sure. I turned for shore, it just wasn’t feasible
One more job to do before the departure…fire extinguished and cooled with water it was time to remove half a ton of nails with hands and magnets, there’s just no excuse that can justify leaving a rusty nail for someone to walk on let alone a mess that wasn’t there before. It went in the sack with all the other collected rubbish.
So. was it worth it? Ummm, yeah! What a fantastic party we’d had!
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