Speed Codding…10/02/2014

Speed Codding…10/02/2014 Dylan said the answer was blowing in the wind. Lots of winds about. Hurricane. Tornado. Typhoon. Tempest. All great Hawker aircraft though out in the West land they’re reaping the Whirlwind. I shouldn’t make jokes at the expense of the rest of the country by using names of wartime fighters but as they’re also known as warbirds in the historic aviation scene and I’m fishing with a Warbird 220 in the armoury it seemed somewhat appropriate. If irrelevant. Enough. Fishing. I had the contents of a box to try, a new Aleutian Drysuit from Palm. So it was windy. Everywhere else. Except here in the eye of the storm where a brief window of a few hours of light westerlies gave hope for some great cod action after the whipped up frenzy of sea that I’d been watching – and occasionally playing in – over the last few days. The fish were feeding and we wanted cod. We hatched our plans, Shaun, James and I. I turned down a night shift beforehand, James failed to book his off and Shaun, well, he doesn’t do nights, he just works offshore. But we were going. Dag MIdWay off the roof and loaded up – the Warbird 220 as mentioned, the Maxximus KM christened on a cod last week and the Maximus 11+1 christened on a species hunt the week before. Fun stuff, none of it really suitable for winter codding with 8oz leads. The tides didn’t look too bad and so we elected to go an hour earlier than normal just to make the best of it. Down to Corton, one of the roads a man must walk down (!). It looked flat. With James remarking how clean and shiny I was in the new suit I had to pose, with my grimy (twice washed the other day) Symbiant Tour PFD to show the difference. I think the PFD was what kept the sailors at bay. Off we went, launching straight off the beach in line with the ramp, straight out and slightly north. Others had the same idea – Katie Louise was out, Newcombe was out, another eight boats were out including a commercial or two. And us three. ‘They’re a rum old lot, those kayak boys’ being overheard on the radio, fondly. We didn’t stray too far in case we drifted and ended up on top of the boats or started catching anchor warps. Six and a half minutes of paddling and I dropped down the anchor. Seven minutes later the first bait went down. Two and a half minutes later the second bait hit the water. Five and a half minutes later and a cod was on it. That’s a record, a minute quicker than last week which was a record! Only a young’un at 39cm – in size but not normally my choice of keeper but with a 4/0 right down in the gills I had no choice. It tasted nice but I’d rather have released it to be honest. Bait three had only gone down a minute before that rod had knocked; this bait lasted just over eight minutes before a better cod at 45cm was banging away on it. A lovely scrap on the miniscule Warbird 220 and Ice Pike rod. Keeper. Oh, the rod I had the first fish on…remember that? Eight and a half minutes, bang bang. Cod aboard, 45cm again. Three cod on baits – frozen – in under 22 minutes! This was going to be the day of days…and two were on the MaXXimus KM30which is only a small reel designed for, well, as Matt Hayes says: "float, light general feeder, or light spinning/jigging work. The clutch is very precise and the 8 ball bearings makes it very smooth. An absolute winning product that is suitable for all abilities from match angler to pleasure fisherman." But...reeling in 3lb codling from 3 knot tides and 40ft depths with 8oz lead and braid in the sea tests many things and it was fine. I'd forgotten how fixed spools transmit so much feel through the braid to the rod and I keep thinking they're larger fish than what I've become used to through years of multipliers, ie winches! I'm loving it. But it’s hard work. Then it went quiet. For me. Half an hour later and James, after a baby codlet and two dropped fish, was in. I phoned Marty instead. I’d tried Brian to see how he was doing – he was out with his son Paul and skipper Rob and his brother on Katie Louise just up from us but his phone was stuffed. Mine was driving me mad and I kept phoning everyone else, texting Greek and playing scrabble with all and sundry because of the aquapack and damp fingers. Never mind. I missed a fish because of it. James caught some more though. And some more. Fifty yards inshore from me though Shaun was struggling and managed one small bite…he gave up and headed in knowing his luck had been lost somewhere. We didn’t give it much longer ourselves, half an hour or so? Then with James nodding off and cold we up-anchored. The wind had picked up and so had the sea by now too. He set course for home, I ran downtide to say hi to the Katie Louise bunch. That is one BIG boat from the water! Beautiful it is too. I thought about boarding and using the restroom for a quick bath but with lines everywhere and swirling water (I was being a pain I’m sure) I just drifted, chatted, paddled, drifted and snapped and generally took the micky out of some of the things heard of late, not least some abuse a commercial who was netting there got from someone unknown an hour before – Brian even had the cheek to ask if it was us lot! Like we’re big enough to give abuse over the radio. So it’s a mystery who it was, even if the feeling was shared amongst a lot of the craft out there. Brian had dinner sorted anyway: I headed back uptide and in, landed and had a lift up the steps by James before we headed to the car park where a few pics were taken to show the unbelievers at work…seven keepers (one he would have returned but also deep hooked, he'd sent another one that size back), he was over the moon. Can’t say I blame him.