Friday…Tim has got himself a day off, suggests the river as the forecast looks poor up north but a quick check and it looks fine this side; he’s pleased. Si is off too, his car is going into the garage but subject to a lift he’s in…hmm, wonder if Paul’s free too? He is! Good good, a gang of four for a smut hunt. Though I’ve been favouring Corton for a while the beach at Hopton was finally open again after sea defence reconstruction following the storms earlier in the year and with Garry having left an anchor out there the other day I was hoping o go and recover it for him even if the fishing had been poor.
So there we are, me red-eyed from work and with my foot flat in my gutless Astra, Si beside me and Paul in the back, three yaks on the roof, doing 26mph up the small hill leaving town. Things improved though, I managed nearly fifty on the dual carriageway! Oh well, we got there eventually and met up with Tim. There’s a huge turning circle down Beach Road now so that was a good improvement but the lack of a ramp, smashed to pieces by the construction crews, was not. The sand had built up again though so it wasn’t an issue today and the four of us assembled by the water’s edge and prepared to launch. Paul looked happy enough at this point, was having a good day it seemed…
Good to see my old regular fishing mates again too, encroached upon too much by life of late. Daytime work sucks.
With no sailors around it was safe for me to pose…I need a shave before they hang me as a pirate. Aaarrrrrrr!
A small dump behind us, the leftovers of the northerly swells running for the last few days and we were on our way out to the usual ground, the sabellaria beds that attract cod in the colder months, smoothound in the warmer. We had to paddle against the tide and wind and it was a bit slower than normal but didn’t take too long though it was more of a struggle for Paul in the shorter, wider boat. Swell was around 3ft but no chop, lumpy but not twutchyNo sign of Garry’s anchor (which would have come in handy as it turned out) even though it should have been in the vicinity of the mark I was headed for but no matter, could look some more at slack before we came in. I dropped down and settled twenty or so yards offshore of the spot stored on my GPS, Si fifty yards offshore from me, Tim, 30 yards inshore. Paul? Umm, well, he appeared to be doing something and then appeared to not be as he started paddling back uptide. I just fished.
It transpired that he’d dropped anchor and while clipping on the combined swell and flow had snatched the winder from his hand and sent the whole lot, unbuoyed, to the bottom. Oh no! Disaster, none of us had a spare and Garry’s appeared to have gone. With the tide running hard for now rafting off wasn’t feasible which left attaching to the buoys a few hundred yards uptide of us but without a leash between trolley and buoys Paul didn’t feel happy with that and was left with no option than to land and get a pick-up. So he was called in and tasked with sharing out some of the leftover frozen hermit crab I had. Despite his valiant attempts to crash into and sink us all (perhaps in response to the ragging he was getting). Next, I asked him for one of my rod holders which I’d had to fit to the tetra, having left the tubes at home, as he’d not need it now; he promptly managed to fling half of it overboard . grinning in sympathy, the rest of us settled down to fish while he headed in … Si being first in with a smoothie pup.
It was so slow! I wasn’t on the fish and nor was Tim. So had a second and then Paul called from the beach to say he’d managed a rockling from the shore (something I’ve never had from the yak, not seen in twenty five years and desperately want to tick off the list this year!). Oh well…
I had three rods out. A pennelled 2/0 in the centre with whole squid, a 2/0 wishbone with defrosted herring brought by Paul (had eaten my fresh that I’d netted on Lead Us earlier in the week) and another wishbone with hermit. Si’s had come on squid and with nothing happening after half an hour I changed the herring to half squid, persisting for now with the hermits.
Then Tim caught; he’d not seen a bite but had his first smut of the year, a pup. Moustache-sized.
I had one a couple of minutes later too; it had tried to attack Tim but I tempted it away:
Then Si started to go south like usual. This time it wasn’t a dragging anchor, the bruce’s hold so much better than the grapnels we used before, but the carabiner had released. He reeled in, paddled back to the buoy, went to clip on and then somehow managed to have the warp part. Now he was stuck. Tim offered to let him raft up, the tide having eased and the swell having dropped considerably by now and as he got to him I started reeling in the tightened line and pulling rod in the centre; smoothie!!! Lucky I hadn’t got as cosy as those two.
A great battle ensued, there was still enough flow for the effective weight to be increased somewhat and the fish didn’t want to come up and kept taking line every now and again but then a disaster of my own. It snagged one of the other lines and I had to unhook my lead from it. I passed the rod through and then the loose line from the other got caught on the reel and then into the coiled leash. What fun! A few minutes of line being pulled from the reel and the rod banging away ensued while I unclipped the leash at both ends and sorted the lines out before getting back to the fish. Still pulling but without the battle I’d been expecting I spotted the issue – spinning in the flow it had put the top hook around the other side of its head, wound the trace around a few times and pulled the lead into the mix as well, lines getting through to clips and so on…marvellous! I landed him and spent a while sorting everything out. Happily this fish was destined for the table so instead of trying to do it as it thrashed around it was dispatched straight away.
I re-rigged, re-baited and dropped down again. Still strange tides here, they pull like crazy then drop to almost nothing for a few hours, the time until slack increasing more than I’ve been used to and no real pressure on the line to pull the weight taut. Something to do with the nearing equinox perhaps? A heavier lead would hold it tighter but isn’t needed for the strength of the flow and would just detract from the fight. No matter, I was chilling…
Nothing came along bar one little knock on the hermits. I got fed up with them, haven’t had a fish on them at all so reeled in and with the water really clear for here and the flow backed off I stuck on a set of small hokkais and baited them with squid and herring, dropping them straight down to the bottom and giving a few feet of slack.
Still nothing on the smoothound baits. Then, after half an hour, a couple of bites on the feathers; nothing hooked. Fresh squid and down again…five minutes and a dab grabbed hold! Yes, a meal size and another point for the competition! Number 13, twelve days into leg two, and now over halfway to my hoped-for twenty five species. Can I now find a thornie?
I gave it another half an hour then offered Si my anchor as I was going to go inshore and try for a rockling on baited feathers where Paul had been. Half an hour passed with nothing but a shore crab to show for it and I called the others in, I had to go to bed ready for my next shift even though it was now a glorious, warm, bright and flat clear water day, ideal for trolling lures or feathering in fact.
Si’s landing was messy, wet and very amusing. I surfed mine in and Tim, on camera, took the dullest landing option feasible! I enjoyed mine though and paddled back out for a few more, as you do! With Tim crouched down in the surf I paddled for and picked up a wave straight away, shooting right in at him! Foolishly trusting me I had to lift my paddle up to clear his head as I passed by and round him a foot or two away…great video but I gave a wider berth on the next two runs!
Satisfied with my two fish and my play it was time to go. A pity it’s now the weekend as the weather has finally broken and I will have to wait until Monday before I can launch again…but with a mark a mile and a half out producing forty or so smoothound to 16.5lb and a 5ft starry to a local boat at the same time we were out I think I know where I’ll head for if the conditions allow!
Such a beautiful fish.
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