Yakking In A Winter Wonderland…20/12/2009

After being frozen off the night before I decided to take no prisoners this time and while preparing my kit for the session ensured that I had both my BeardHead and my Ushanka – one for a toasty face and the other to keep my neck warm. You can never be too toasty in winter! In bed before 11 I even managed to sleep through most of the noise made by the tossers across the road although they woke us both up around 2am messing around in the snow. They’ll get theirs… ;) Four hours later and I was up, with coffee inside me and my kit on I returned to my bedroom to rummage around for my neoprene gloves and luckily found them – I’d noticed the conditions outside:



Bugger. Bed seemed appealing but Eastangler had mentioned an intention to fish and Pinkfoot was going to try and get down later so I left the house and set a slow course for Hopton. Arriving, I looked down the track at Beach road and saw no tyre marks. I sent a text to the others to tell them of my intentions and drove back to the main road and headed for Gorleston. The sea was flat and I figured I could get a good scan of the wreck of the White Swan, maybe fish it and perhaps, with a bit of time available, could paddle home. The roads in Gorleston had not been gritted and so it took until around 7am before I arrived at the launch spot to be greeted by a beach covered in virgin snow. I just had to change that!



Ahh, so fresh it reminded me of being raised by wolves in the wastes of Siberia…



BeardHead, Ushanka and I launched with a hearty ‘Dassvidanja, tovaritch’ to the snowy beach which extended to within a few metres of the water’s edge. The snow-filled seat and footwells of my yak along with the front hatch were largely cleared by the first wave as I launched and away I went, paddling south a few hundred yards offshore.



The sun was starting to come up as I paddled and it looked as though it’d be a pleasant day, if a little cold.



By the time I got near to the wreck of the White Swan – maybe 20 minutes – it was getting lighter and I was feeling nicely warmed and looking decidedly rugged and handsome, decked out as I was in the height of arctic fashion.

A quick run past the wreck as I scanned a new image was followed by paddling back up against the current to drop anchor. I judged it poorly and ended up swinging away from the wreck so that I was positioned between it and the marker buoy. Not a complete loss as the ground here is quite rough but with fishing being generally poor in the whole area by all accounts more precision may have just lifted things above that level.



It took a little while before the first rattle and I of course missed it. The next was not so lucky…



I was feeling benevolent this morning and wasn’t too interested in determined fishing having decided to just meander south and so returned it to swim away and live another day. A short time later a seal popped his head up and admired BeardHead for a few minutes before diving under again – I figured that was it and the fishing would be trashed…then I got another bite and reeling quickly to avoid having to fight a seal on 60lb braid I landed a second whiting. Again this was returned and I decided to up-anchor and go further down to the wreckage near Hopton.



Bugger. I dropped anchor too late and drifted past the debris field. I was still in rough water so over some of it but had missed the main part, where I hoped the bigger fish might be. I cast out both rods, downtide, and sat back to wait. After ten minutes I decided on a change of plan. Now, I don’t usually uptide as it’s a pain casting backwards but I figured it would be worth it considering the ground I was over. Big mistake.

I love my Shimano Charter Special 1000LD lever drag reels. At a shade over £100 they are a bit of a luxury for me. On a 12lb class rod with 60lb braid I reckon I’m looking at around £125-150. Now, I generally only use these for piking these days as they are superb for trolling. I use the equivalent star drag reels for codding as I don’t need the lever drag for this type of fishing. However, I’d loaned these rods out recently and had pennels on them rather than the single hook rigs on my other reels and so it was that I came to be back-casting a Charter Special uptide.

In gloves.

I rarely wear gloves, even on the kayak, as I lose sensitivity. And that’s the story of how my rod and reel managed to follow my bait straight into Davy Jones’ Locker.

I fished around for ages to try and snag it in 30ft of water but there was no chance. I up anchored again and, pissed off, headed south, the rest of my squid going into the water for the fish. The fishing was slow and not too promising anyway and with one rod would be even less exciting. I may as well do some scanning with the Side Imaging.

I passed Hopton and was amazed at the sea as I went past the southern end of it where the sea defences are – the waves hit these and shoot up into the air, rebounding on themselves. I’ve never seen the swell running out from the beach before but this was happening and it was actually quite a bumpy ride, which was quite enjoyable.

I carried on south for a while and then passed Tramp’s Alley at Corton where there was a line of beach shelters and anglers fishing from the shore. They must have been mad – it looked quite cold in the snow.



I passed Dogger next, the car park at Gunton that fills with shaggers in the balmy evenings of summer. I assumed nobody was going to be getting too excited in this temperature!



As I rounded Ness point, Britain’s most easterly point, the current was starting to pick up as was the sea state but not uncomfortably so. It was clear that I was rounding a headland. The lighting on Gulliver, which was or is the UK’s largest wind turbine was quite striking but didn’t really record too well on my compact.



I was getting close to the harbour now and soon reached a point where I needed to call in to harbour control to check I was clear to transit past – I was drifting at 2+ mph so had about 5 minutes or so before I’d be in position. I was clear to proceed as nothing was coming in or out.

Then I slowed considerably – I guess I was in an eddy. Paddling had me moving at around 2.5 mph and so it took a bit longer to get to the harbour mouth – and coming in at a great rate of knots was the lifeboat. I stopped to let it through – I wasn’t going to be clear as they arrived. I sat there, maintaining my position without use of the paddle. It was as though it was slack water. Waiting for the lifeboat to be in position I clicked record on the camera and found that my card was full. By the time I’d deleted some files to make space the moment was gone – lifeboat, bow wave, engine noise, all contre-jour against the sun. Bugger.

I rounded the corner past the harbour entrance and paddled home, aiming for South Beach and the short walk home.



I paddle din and was surprised to see surfers out. It looked flat from where I was! As I watched and waited I could see that there was the odd clean wave rolling in that was big enough (at 3ft) to give a bit of a ride amongst the 1-2 footers and so I bided my time to wait for one, picking one up finally and surfing the Scupper Pro into shore on it.



There were a few people around now and I decided to take some pictures of the waves. Imagine the sight of a BeardHeaded Ushanka wearing bloke in drysuit standing waist deep in water in December photographing waves…a kid on the beach couldn’t work it out and just gawped for about ten minutes while a young couple pretended to take pictures of each other, coincidentally in my direction ;D



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Well, that was pretty much it. A nine-miler on a snowy day when everyone else was tucked up in a warm bed. A trip made memorable not only by the expense but also by it being the first time I’d done that stretch of coast. A full and thorough sea-test of BeardHead…time for a bacon sarnie before collecting the van, the children and going sledging.

BeardHead’s First Trip...19/12/2009

You know what it’s like, you see something on a website (fail-safe lure, Filipino wife etc) and you just have to have it. There’s no escaping the fact that it is the ideal thing to own and eminently useful and so it was that I found myself ordering the perfect kayak fishing accessory for winter use – Beard Head. All ‘proper’ sea kayakers have a beard (well, maybe not all, Freya Hoffmeister hasn’t got one for example) and so this could perhaps see us being taken more seriously amongst that circle. The added bonuses for me were off course that it not only gave me a beard but hair as well…and even more fitting was the colour; my BeardHead is yellow ;D

It’d be rude not to try it out on the water at the first possible moment and having dropped my daughters off at their grandparents I pulled up at Hopton. As I got out of the van I heard a shout, turned around and saw Onmas just wandering up the slip with his dog! He’d been out for a walk and to drop off Steve’s BeardHead and the timing couldn’t have been better – both to see each other and for him to give me a hand getting my cold Scupper Pro off the roof.



He’d found a Ray’s Bream dead on the beach which was a bit of a surprise to me. Chatting while I got ready to launch he took some photographs as I paddled out in all my BeardHeaded glory.

I paddled out to one of the usual marks and dropped anchor. The current was stronger than expected and I ended up just past where I wanted to be but settled down and baited up. Out went the lines and I sat back to await the action. It was bloody cold (Steve told me later it was minus 3) and the windchill added to this. My neoprene gloves were at home so I was instead reliant upon some knitted fingerless ones. They weren’t of much use. As I sat there my fingers slowly began to chill. Luckily my BeardHead lived up to expectations and my head, chin and under-nose were toasty warm…it worked!



I sat there for a couple of hours as the sun went down and my feet and fingers steadily got colder and colder. The back of my neck (unprotected by BeardHead) also began to chill and so I made the decision, having not had a fish, to call it a day and head for home. I guess I’d been on the water for a couple of hours maximum and it was without doubt the coldest session I’d yet experienced. I paddled in, loaded up and drove home to warm myself up again

Don’t Just Torque About Fishing…13/12/09

For me, Friday night was out for yakking and so was Saturday this week. With Sunday looking like a crap sea it was decided that what we really needed was to burn off the extra lard we’d put on our hips since the summer with a bit of a bimble up to the Locks, piking as we went. Of course Steve has been offshore and ship-bound for a month and so was looking decidedly porky but had also managed to break his finger so needed to make sure his finger was up to yakking first…which is why I stuck him in the Torque!

The Torque? Has Snapper got a Torque? Surely not!

Indeed not. While I often borrow different yaks from the demo fleet to get to know them better and thus advise better at demos I hadn’t really anticipated a need to take the Torque out for a fishing session. However, in this instance I’d had a request for some photographs of it in action and with fish magnet Steve back in town in need of some relaxation the plan was set and so it was that I pulled up at 7am in Beccles.

Steve was nowhere to be seen and all I had with me was the Torque and a brand spanking new yellow Trident 13 that Westie had bought. My Scupper Pro was on Steve’s car and with him being curled up in bed still the Torque was the only option for now…and I admit I was looking forward to it.

Onmas turned up a few minutes after me and we stood enjoying the rain before getting kitted up, this being the first mention of the phenomenal breakfasts available at the Posh Pigs café in Ellough. I dumped my float rod and maggots back inside the van (originally intending to fish for silvers and pike on livebaits) and we set out on the water for a troll down the town stretches. Having no rod holders on the Torque I only took one rod, holding it all the while. Initially I found it a bit dull a bit odd having nothing to do with my hands but, holding the rod, I soon got used to it and started to enjoy the relaxing and peaceful aspect of having something else do the work for a change.

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I got down to the quay before my first run – a beautifully marked bivvied-up fisherman began thrashing around on the bank, caught neatly by a Super Shad Rap trolled near the margins on the opposite bank to where he was sitting. I politely unhooked his snagged line and continued to the road bridge, by which time Steve was on the phone to say he’d arrived and was going to sleep in his car until we got back to the launch point.



As we sat waiting for him to get suited up, unsuited and suited up again I tried some doughnuts in the Torque followed by some maggot bashing from the bank but failed to find a fish. Eventually he was ready and we got into the water, heading upstream to the Locks. Now, I don’t know if this is a particular feature of the Torque but placid Steve turned into the kind of hooligan normally associated with jet-skis!



Zooming around at a reckless 4 knots he barged into my lines, upset some ducks, scared some roach and caused a family of voles on a Sunday outing to repent and go to church instead.







Disgraceful! Fortunately he had come to no harm (he wasn’t wearing a crash helmet) and so curbed his excitement and began to fish…



Five minutes, if that, and he had a fish on. This is what I wanted for a photograph and I was all set to go and do the honours but had to deal with my own fish first – a beautifully marked winter jack pike of a couple of pounds…



Steve’s was about the same and both were swimming away quite happily in no time, my ‘I don’t reckon we’ll catch, the water’s too high, it’s too cloudy, too much rain etc’ had produced the goods, as planned ;D



We carried on up, the weather alternating between bright sunshine and showers (and a fantastic double rainbow)…





…until finally we reached the Locks, going under the bridge that marks the limit of navigation and into the waters of the local angling club, the only other fish having been caught by me half a mile back.



We continued a bit further instead of the usual disembarking for a pint (it being 10am) and at the remains of the old Shipmeadow Lock changed over kayaks.



Onmas hopped into my Scupper Pro (after hopping into the river) in advance of buying himself one, Steve got into his Trident 13 and I nabbed the Torque. Steve then decided to seal launch rather than risk a dunking and hauled out the T13, slipping in before I was in position to record it (thankfully captured by Onmas).



With Steve due to attend a family lunch and Onmas filming rather than fishing the pair of them set off at normal speed while I trolled slowly (and quietly) back on the Torque. The ease with which I could follow the bank by utilising the rudder was an obvious advantage of the torque, as was feeling every pluck at the line from weed etc. It was certainly a more pleasant way to travel through heavy rain too!



Nearing Beccles I bumped into Westie, paddling his new ride up to meet us and we chatted as we headed back to the launch – Tim deciding to head to the Posh Pig with Onmas and I before returning for a proper session later. The tales of two of the famous Seppings sausages and two of everything else being, by now, irresistible. Open until two it is, best breakfasts in the area Onmas told us…we had to, it’d be rude not to!



Back on dry land we all loaded up and set course for Ellough. Pulling in we could see people through the windows enjoying their wonderful breakfasts. Sadly we could also see the closed sign – drooling, we were quarter of an hour two late…


Okay, that's quite enough of that...the intrepid trio are back out codding tonight and I hear that Norfolkboy has had a good bag today...

First Night. 09/12/09

One of my pleasures in kayak fishing is in introducing ‘further options’ to others, be it getting them on a yak for the first time or trying out different kit but lately, with circumstances dictating darkness constituting a large part of my available fishing time (morning and evening sessions) there is also that option and the latest victims to be persuaded out onto the sea at night were Blunderbust and Norfolkboy, both of whom are already competent yakkers and have the requisite kit but hadn’t yet had the opportunity arise...

...until last night. We arranged to meet up at 7:30pm at Beach Road, Hopton and I looked like I would be there around that time when I left my house...then it started. The bridge was up! Detour, I turned around and set off for the crossing at Oulton Broad, arriving in time for the level crossing barriers to be closed for the trains to come through...and of course this results in being stuck behind somebody slow. Arriving at Beach Road just behind Steve (coming to see us off) I was not overly surprised to see it blocked with vehicles – a 12.5lb’er had been caught from the beach the night before according to the grapevine and so everyone was down to chase a fish that had already been removed ;) So back up to the top and into the layby I went before unloading and getting kitted up, finally getting to the others about half an hour later than planned.

Down we went and launched into a 6 inch dumping surf ;D lovely stuff. The tide was ebbing still, a neap, and so we headed north before dropping anchor reasonably close to each other and set there under a clear, moonlit sky. I drew first blood after ten minutes with a decent whiting and then heard the call from Norfolkboy (Ian) that he had a cod on – and then in! Brilliant stuff! I continued, meanwhile, with the whiting and was gratified to hear Blunderbust (Jimmy) get one too; none of us had blanked.

The sea was calm, the wind slight and the swell small so it was the perfect night to be sitting offshore and a vast improvement over the previous night when I’d sat alone in a 20mph southerly...lumpy and cold! That had earned me a decent pout and nothing else so at least I’d beaten things tonight. Come low water slack the bites died off. It seemed to take an age for the current (and the yaks) to actually swing right around and by the time it started to run again it was getting late and so we up-anchored and headed in to a nice, easy beaching.



Somehow I think Ian and Jimmy will be out again on another evening in the not too distant future! After all, this is normal for Norfolk:

Further Afield. Floundering Around. 04-05.12.09

A December meet is a pleasant way to wind down at the end of the year and this was my first time at Poole Harbour for the annual Flounder Bash. With the van loaded up on Thursday I’d driven home ready for a sensibly-timed start to miss traffic and deliver some kayaks en-route. The trouble is, of course, it wasn’t a bad evening and I just had to go and try my hand for a few more cod first...

Westie and I paddled out from the beach near my house heading south to a hole off Pakefield that had served me well back in the spring. The usual baits of unwashed squid and frozen blacks were onboard and we launched at around 7:30 for the ¾ mile paddle. The tide was with us and we lazily wandered down with me scanning the seabed on the way to look for any likely areas that might hold fish.



The seabed here was rather different to what I was expecting as I know it to be shallow sand and figured it’d be fairly flat whereas it in fact turned out to be very rippled, perhaps only down to the recent pounding it had got from the 5-6ft waves Liam and I had been Yakboarding in a few days prior. At night.


Tim peddled his way down as I paddled and we soon got to the mark and dropped anchor. I had my new dive reel which had arrived that morning and my spare 1.5kg anchor which I’d had to go back to now that the 2.5 is awol off Hopton. As Ti m baited up I headed south at a leisurely rate. The reel didn’t want to pay line out quickly and so the anchor wouldn’t dig in. Time to haul up and try again... what a piece of shit for winding with. I ended up hauling the warp by hand and pooling it into the yak as I used to do on occasion.

Back up to Tim and I dropped down again...and spent the next 15 minutes undoing a massive birds nest that ended with me cutting and retying the warp – soft string this, great. All the while my anchor was dragging...

Back I went, borrowed Tim’s spare 2.5kg and settled down to start fishing. First up was a whiting. This was followed by a few more before a good Dab jumped on the hook. This is a good year for dabs it seems – I’ve had eight myself and I’m using 4/0 pennel rigs with quite a large mouthful of food on them so there must be good numbers around and certainly I had a lot of dab-style bites that night that didn’t result in fish. Tim was doing better and outfished me totally – 2 codling to 5lb and I think he beat my tally of whiting too.

Come slack water and we paddled back, passing out launch point as I wanted to survey the area by the pier. We played first amongst the piers supports, going through from side to side and down the centre...always good for some images as they show the sonar shadow (indication of height) quite well.



I wish I knew what this was...or that I’d got my bait in its gob! If only I’d recorded a track so I could really look closely in detail.



Having left the spare card at home I only had the chart card in so had to rely on snapshot mode only but did see a few things worthy of note along the side of the harbour.



The best, however, came when I ran along the edge of the boulder breakwater.



(The white marks in the black of the water column are my paddle turbulence – the transducer is not sited where it would be if I was able to keep it).



In, drink, chat, bed...a good session even if it was beset with anchoring problems and a paucity of cod.

The morning saw me on my way south and after dropping off some kayaks en-route I pulled up at Rockley Park where I spotted Fatflyfisher in his van. I peered in his window and finally persuaded him to get kitted up to paddle over to the others. I suppose it was around 3 when we launched and the easy paddle on the flat, calm, mild waters of Poole Harbour was deceptive as I noticed when glancing down – we were doing less than 2 mph! We were heading straight into a 2+ mph current without noticing anything other than slow progress. Todaymueller, Lureman and Seagypsy were out there somewhere and going to look for them instead of fishing was probably a bad decision in hindsight ;D No matter, it was good to have a bit of a workout after being stuck in a van all day.

First up was Seagypsy who was then starting a slow drift home. Then Today Mueller called over that he had a fish on...



Snapping and filming I heard Lureman calling a bit further up. I figured he didn’t know I was busy and that John had a fish so didn’t rush over immediately but when I did he showed why he’d been calling; he also had a fish, and as luck would have it the right type too!



Not long after we all headed back to the car park in the dark, with me picking up the others on the side imaging unit, the white lines on the bottom half of the screen:



I was also able to pick up the holes left from anchoring:



We were illuminated at the last stages by some headlights shining out onto the water...and then it was off to the accommodation, Simon following me to the premier Inn where he decided to book in on account of the temperature. With the others heading to the Foundry we hatched a plan to meet up there for dinner and drinks although we decided at the last minute to eat before heading over for the latter only. We arrived shortly before the disco man started doing his thang and managed a bit of a natter between the ever growing crowd of yakfishing flotsam until finally I think it was time to leave.

Next morning breakfast was followed by the short drive back to Rockley Park where a large number of yaks were being offloaded. At least two of those who’d slept there overnight had apparently been awoken by a foreign gentleman asking if they were there to meet him...who’d have thought there would be spies around a secluded public toilet in the early hours eh?

After the usual greetings I started pulling kayaks out of the van and was soon met by Morag from Bournemouth Canoes. We’d met a couple of times and being a keen paddler himself it was great to have him along. With most people out on the water we both got a little bit of water time over the course of the day too, which was a bonus although my half hour of fishing/snapping resulted only in loads of crabs while Pugwash, whom I was accompanying, was pulling out the odd schoolie.



Zzippy soon turned up for a chat having been out since the early hours – it was 18 months since we’d last met!



He was soon followed by Maver who paddled out and anchored up with us.


My small amount of bait gone I headed in. I picked up the conversation I’d been having with Moonfleet earlier – it had started when I’d spotted him surreptitiously photographing my specially tied flounder rig – a well blinged, spooned wishbone innit! We had a good chat about it and I promised to let him have it after I’d fished. No real loss – it blanked on fish ;D I also had a look at some of his and can see where his reputation of ‘rig-wizard’ comes from.

John soon arrived back and – while looking like a cock – proudly posed with his supper, a nicely marked flounder:



Being kitted up Morag asked me to help one of his customers try out a Hobie tandem kayak. Not really too sure about it I did agree to give it a go but after about 20 yards it was clear we weren’t going to get along and by 50 yards we were turning around for me to get back out again. It’s not right for me to give an opinion on another company’s products so I won’t.

I don’t know what possessed me but I decided a seal launch was in order. Now don’t get me wrong, people do these from far more than the 4-5ft or so that I attempted but usually in sit-inside-kayaks away from nasty piers that the wind and current are pushing everything towards. They have also usually done it before ;D As it happens I had, many years ago (as in 18 or so years ago) done this a few times around a mates house that backed onto the river but I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to control it on hitting the water and didn’t know what to expect – other than a soaking – form a sit-on-top. Morag pushed me in and more by luck than judgement I went nose first into the water before popping up again in the upright position. I paddled in feeling smug ;D I had to have another go and when seagypsy kindly offered to push me in I didn’t really twig to his plan...mine being to do it as before then paddle out to clear water and do some re-entries. Of course Ben allowed me to combine both into one ;D His protested innocence being exposed when viewing John’s video! To be fair however, I should have fallen off the first time so it just evened the balance...these things have to be done after all!

Pugwash needed some Toque time and so with his camera in hand he went out while I directed him around the water to get some shots for his next article but one. Then it was time to get Moonfleet afloat for the first time and, ably assisted by lureman, he paddled out for the first time on a fishing Yak, a Trident 13.



I hadn’t twigged that carpyken was missing but he was out in his SINK with some others. After paddling around all day I then made him paddle some more and, good sport that he is, he did so while I took some photographs of him in his new toy:









Ken, I hope you passed your 3 star today mate.

Following the Barbie and the raffle I got myself soaked and headed off to Bournemouth canoes to drop Morag’s bike and kayaks off before heading back to the hotel for dinner. A good day over!

Sunday was originally intended as a morning fish before the long drag home but after a horrendous night of crap TV and bad sleep I changed my mind and checked out after breakfast.