Too Much To Ask…09/10/2013

Too Much To Ask…09/10/2013 The BBC were scaremongering. Waves crashing over piers and stuff like that. Originally we had thought about trying Southwold but changed this to Gorleston to take advantage of the shelter offered by the pier for both wind and tide. I was intending to go light and try for rockling and flounder for the competition while Bruce would anchor a bit further out and bait fish for the usual stuff. So off we went. Now this is a good place to have some fun on a southerly wind and ebbing tide when the water kicks up, rebounds and forms explosive peaks but that wasn’t on the cards today. We pulled in, sorted our gear out and pulled the kayaks down to the water. I was hopeful here, it’s where I first started sea fishing as a teenager with my brother, my mate and his granddad. It’s also the only place I ever caught rockling and though I hated them then I really wanted one now. We launched, it was flat. Quite windy, the breakwater arm offered cover. A few people were fishing off the wall and I managed to catch one while drifting with a lug-baited spoon. I felt a bit guilty especially as I thought I was far enough out to avoid the lines but the fella took it well – if you read this, my apologies again! I tied off to some ladder rungs with my anchor trolley and sat there with a 7bb float lobbed out, a size 12 hook on the end about 5ft down with a piece of fresh lug tipped with a sliver of yesterday’s sandeel. The other rod had a 4 hook flapper with size 4 hooks and plenty of beading with a chrome spoon and trailing size 6 on the bottom. A mix of lug and sandeel went on the hooks and I waited, fingers crossed. Sounds technical but the carp fishing background of Bruce was starting to show...not sure about precisely aligning your baits by degrees but... Bruce started with a troll about and got caught in rips, blown by wind and generally messed about. He wasn’t anchoring after all so came and hooked up to my anchor line as well, lobbing out a bait and waiting. I, meanwhile, snagged my float on the wall and snapped it off. Time to try a lead straight down instead. A great plan, I hooked a velvet swimmer that dropped off next to me once out of the water. No fish though. Bruce got a bite, no fish on it though. I dropped another crab. I rebaited here and there, dropped another crab and eventually went over to pinches of frozen black lugworm. Finally I got some small rattles but nothing transpired. Same for Bruce. We ended up chatting to a drop netter and he gave us some live shrimp to try. That didn’t work either and so, less than three hours after we started, we headed back in on a blank as the wind picked up even more and it threatened rain. Not sure I’ll try there again…