Inuit To Win It…15/01/2013

Right, time to hit that there AA Species tournament competition thingummy. Scuppered to date but Wilmy’s coming out to play and finally everyone has left the house…print of the coupons, make some coffee and get on… Drysuit, padding boots (new because the others have shredded soles) and desert boots to drive in by the door ready Rods and reels to grab from the stack by the door Still a while before he gets here, now, what’s the difference between a dace and a chub? Best make sure again… Right, one’s big, one’s small…that’ll do. Let’s go. Via a fuel pump. And a cash machine. And a [s]toy[/s] tackle shop…we need maggots. Wow, look at these lures! Blimey, all these groundbaits! Let’s get some. Brown, that’s what we need. “Bet you aren’t going kayaking today are you!” says the man behind the counter…he must be nuts: “yeah, that’s why we’re here”. “You’re mental. Mind you, there are some fit birds in kayaks on the river here. In the summer.” I consider this. We should be chasing girls. Mind you, I’m that old I’d never catch them.” “A tenner please”. Off we go Hmm, still a smidgen of snow laying from yesterday, sunny and mild today though, pleasant, lovely, should be good and we’ve got the power! And Wilmy has a new lucky hat. And I have new lucky kit. He’s taking forever, bless him, so I look for an early jack and get my drags set on my new Fladen setups. Nothing, but the flow is fine, the water quite clear and though the levels are down I’ve not hooked any weed on the bottom. Could be alright this. Down to my secret chub mark…some roach, perch and gudgeon there too. Miss out on a trolled pike on the way down but I’ll livebait for those anyway, shouldn’t be a problem. I fail to get a chub. Or a perch, roach, gudgeon, dace, rudd. I head to the roach, ruffe, bream mark. Nothing. This groundbait is awesome, smells like Christmas pudding with whisky and that in. The fish couldn’t care less, heathens the lot of them. They don’t like the maggots either. I can’t get a touch on float or feeder and it’s getting cold…we head for the dyke but decide to go on the troll instead. Back past the pool ‘from whence we launched’ and on, up through boathouse alley and past the place the river police caught her and I one night twenty years before – too much information perhaps especially as it doesn’t involve fishing, does involve a searchlight but I grin every single time I pass it, the memory never grows old. Unlike me. Anyway, the spawny git gets one! A take, a jack has done the business and hit his lure and it’s on…finally, three hours into a blank and we have the first point of leg 1… We carry on upstream, it’s getting darker. And colder. And there’s some thunder. Then, a treat. In broad daylight I spook a barn owl and it flies off, languidly, then there’s a flurry of snow… Quite a big flurry. A McFlurry in fact. I take cover. Alas my rod cannot take cover. Well, I dunno where all my tackle has gone, if it’s not hidden it’s shrunk away to nothing and as for my toes, well, I can’t feel them but I know they’re still there. I can feel them rattling in my boots like a load of dice. We turn and head back. This is getting silly and is completely pointless now, the wind has picked up, the temperature has dropped, the light has stayed above the snow clouds and enough is enough. We spot a kingfisher close by, must be cold as well as I get closer than ever before it flits away. Wilmy is man of the match with our first and only point…and very well-deserved it was too. So far 2013 has been pretty grim. A few more pics from Wilmy: End of the day Fishing & weather not the best, the dozen match anglers fishing Beccles cut since 8am had bugger all. I have never fished down there and not caught silvers, water was clear and hardly any movement on the water all day. I've fished matches on the cut where we have broken the ice to start fishing pushing the chunks away with landing nets eventually the fish would come on but normally when there is more movement/flow.

Back to Square One…04/01/2013

Hmm. BeavesUK is going to Hopton to fish on Friday and wondering if anyone wants to join him. I’m stuck in this cage and pacing like a tiger…time to turn the tiger into a puppy and roll those eyes at the at-home-for-a-few-more-days-wife and garner enough sympathy to escape. Brotherwarren and Wensumdav are both looking to escape too and all of us end up parked at the bottom of Beach Road. I’m the last to arrive, I’ve been on shift, come home, changed, loaded – after taking a fortnight-rotted pair of traces loaded with lug and squid from my baitbox and rinsed it almost to dissolving point – and deepfried three sliced chicken breasts in spicy breadcrumbs for breakfast, washed down of course with not nearly enough coffee. That’s how it goes sometimes. I jump in the car, now officially my main vehicle and allowed to be filled with sand and made to smell of fish since we picked the new family one yesterday. Tony’s there when I arrive, unloading, we’ve not seen each other since Cley in the summer. Dav and Beaves are already anchored up, slap bang on the mark too and we get set up ready to join them, milling around and smoking a pre-launch cigarette. We’re both trying to stop but these are fishing fags so don’t count. Anyway, we paddle out, the tide should be starting to move now…and it is, building all the time on the way out and then we pick the wind up too. We get to the others, a cod and some whiting, then go past, move uptide and drop anchor. I get blown towards Dav so stop paying warp out and swing straighter but this snaps my weak link and I realise I’m drifting as soon as I stop paying out; Tony is drifting too, we’ve dropped too late in a strong tide. Bugger. We pull up and paddle back. Sweat. In January. That’s not on. We drop down again, I’ve tied my anchor, Tony has gone for a cable tie that would hold a train to a track. We settle first time and I stick my legs over and create my own white water. Out comes the lug and the squid. Two rods today, can’t be arsed to stick a third out for liveys in this tide. 6/0 – 4/0 pennel on one, a 4/0 triple muppet flapper on the other. I bait them, attach a 6oz breakaway and toss them in. The pennel goes in five minutes, feels like a cod. That’s because there’s so much flow and the whiting has one hook in its mouth and the second in its head, pulling it in almost sideways. It would have gone back otherwise. Another hour passes and then I get a bite while I’m on the phone. I miss it. It’s quite windy, a 5 or 6 apparently, but flat with this westerly. An hour later, work on the phone at the time, I get another and pull a whiting up to the side of the yak before it drops off. 6/0 is a lot of metal. An hour later and I land a pin on the 6/0. I get bored, I go see the others. None of us are doing well but we can’t and then I return to my buoy and clip myself back on. I start catching regularly for a while. Bites every five-ten minutes but all small. They all go back. Nothing but two small knocks the whole day on the muppets. I call over to the others: “I’m going. I can’t handle any more excitement.” Cue much laughter and there’s a scramble to give up and go home. Final tally? Somewhere around 6-8 whiting for me, 1 for Tony (but bigger than mine), 4 for Dav and a dab, a codling for Beaves. Bass season soon. We load up and Dav pops over to pick something up and have a coffee – sorry to have talked your hind legs off for the next week and a half mate, sleep deprivation and a lack of social interaction kicked in!!!

Digging In…31/12/2012

I had to get out to finish the year but what a shit run of weather! High winds, rain, cold, huge seas…looked great. I was soooo tempted. To stay at home. But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. I thought about going for a sail on the broad but it was too gusty. I figured I may as well try not to kill myself on the RRRapido for a while. As it turned out this was the only option, I had half an hour while I waited for the potatoes to cool before frying them so I went out for a battering. I got to the end of the road and looked at the sea. It was mental. Large and messy. The strong south easterly wind was making things worse too, being next to impossible to paddle against. Well, there wasn’t a great deal of point going in but…I was dressed and here now. I wandered down to the inside of the groyne and watched the way the waves were coming and how…I wasn’t certain I’d get out through them to be honest, they were big and heavy and dumping badly. And then it looks slightly less terrifying and I pull the RRRapido up to me and jump aboard; I’m half-cocked, the thigh strap is under me and throwing me off balance, not good either where I am or in these waves but I shift my body around and keep my balance as I dig in and start flinging myself up and over and down and up again and take water over me everywhere, the camera getting knocked out of position but I keep going, get out of the danger zone and past the end of the groyne and then try to put the thigh straps on – I’ve only gone and pulled the screw and it’s flapping loosely. Well done, best I sort something and quick before I go swimming… …legs over the side, straps lengthened and I kind of clip the strap to the seat strap behind me – it’s tricky but I make something that might work; the wind has sent me fifty yards down from the groyne now though, the best shaped of the poorly-shaped waves are up there and I think about paddling back up but…if I do that, following the line I’d come in on, I’d go slap bang into the biggest and snarliest, gnarliest bitch-dump ever. Not clever. No, I’ll hold position here, if I can, and wait for something I can ride. It’s just peaks and troughs and lumps here and there, all so close together, stacked up behind each other, nothing wide enough for a proper ride and I’m pretty sure I’m going to get bruised so I may as well wait it out, wait for a wall of shit to come pounding in. I wait a good ten minutes, burning off Christmas fat and then a larger lump comes and I paddle for it…but it comes to nothing, not curling yet and it rolls under me. Bugger. I try the following one, it disappears into itself so I wait. Another five minutes pass and I hold myself in position, closer in…and there it is, something that will do. Not a surf wave, not a great wave, just a big lump of moving water. I dig deep and paddle for it, catch it, the nose drops and I scoot down and turn along it, running what there is until it breaks into a tumbling washing machine of foam with me on the edge, sliding in sideways, rapidly, onto the stony remnants of the beach, one eye open for the position of the digger working sand and shingle onto the shoreline from further up by the pier. It’s okay, he’s seen me – been watching me maybe - and I come crashing into England just down the beach from him. A quick wave and I haul myself and my RRRapido up the bank and over onto the promenade to get those chips in the fryer along with the yak-caught cod I’d filleted the other week when the weather had been just that bit more suitable for kayaking.

Christmas Crackers…25/12/2012

There are two things just about guaranteed to make me smile and the most regular of these is paddling. Now, I’ve long had a desire to paddle on Christmas Day, mostly for the pleasure of doin’ ma thang and partly for the clearing away of residual beer fumes from the French Christmas we always throw the night before and this was no exception other than my having the perfect alibi…you see, every year since we’ve had our own place I’ve wandered down to the beach for the Christmas Swim and for the last few years Eloise has come with. Perhaps she, too, would like to see it from the water? She didn’t need asking a second time, didn’t need persuading. It was like offering cider to a wino – no question! I guess I should have made sure we had everything and it was to hand the day before but we’d been over to the Coastguard station to take some tins of sweets for the Christmas shifts and drink their coffee and just ran out of time. So there was I scrabbling around looking for bits we could use as her boots and buoyancy aids were not visible; hell I’m not even sure they’re here! Never mind, with much exertion we got her long hair through the neck seal of the drysuit, zipped her up, tightened one of my PFD’s around her, stuck my beach shoes on her feet and, with my RRRapido on my shoulder we took an end each of Abigail’s Kea and walked down to the beach. In Beardheads. The promenade was starting to fill, the beach too as this is quite a popular event. We headed left to the other ramp due to space though this is a trickier launch. It was rough. I briefly considered turning around and going home but, with a guinea pig to hand, figured we’d soon be able to tell. Besides, she has as much courage and little sense as I so we waded into the water. Within seconds Eloise was on her arse with my shoes floating away. Too rough to stand then, might as well get onboard; she hopped on and with a shove and the words ‘just keep straight and keep paddling’ she hauled herself through the dumping three-footers. I followed and bar a good soaking all was well as we headed out past the groynes and the large and lumpy beaten zone. Now, we had to head south, against the ebb tide and south easterly wind. And the swell. Young Whippersnapper hadn’t been out for months, not since the summertime when we’d had a crack at the bass and to be fair I expected her to struggle. Did she hell! She always amazes me, it was a grotty morning, the roughest sea she’s been in, perhaps the windiest too, and she just grinned and paddled against it all and kept asking when she could jump in for a swim! I mean, we had broken water everywhere and the lifeguards started surfing once they paddled out a short while later! Well, it started to rain. It started to hail too. The swimmers started to arrive and so did the Lifeboat, taking up station near to us; we were sharing the best spot to watch the festivities. I surfed a couple of waves and, ignoring my instructions not to so did Eloise! It was all a giggle and we were both feeling quite revived by now. It would be quite nice to see the swimmers run into the water from this angle, though we’d move in for a closer look. Except, as Eloise pointed out, they were already in! Bugger. (That's us in the Daily Mail out near the lifeboat) They didn’t stay in long, unsurprisingly. There were santas and bikinis and all manner of clothing and as much joy as they always muster at this event; I love it as a starter for the day. Then, with the crowds dispersing, it was time to play and I started catching waves. I don’t like wiping out in front of thousands but it was unavoidable and my beard got soaked. Damn it. Then Eloise came in, a bit too steep and she nose-dived and kneeled in the shallows with a Kea for a hat. Not quite as planned. Abigail had turned up with her grandfather now and so we hurried things up as they were getting soaked in the rain; Eloise went and floated around in the waves, body surfing and drifting while I caught a couple more and then, way before we’d had enough, we walked off the beach and back to a more refined Christmas. With sand in our ears.

Times Like These...21/12/2012

There are times when there is no other option than to go paddling. This was one of them. I'd had a long and hard day on the water paddling and fishing, culminating in a fast surf landing and decided that I couldn't not go and ride some waves. I couldn't get in the house anyway so grabbed my RRRapido even though I only had my cranked Nordkapp available; at 215cm it's around 20cm longer than my usual surfing shaft but times are hard... Back at the beach I watched. It wasn't all that big yet, 3-4ft, but the waves were clean and the sets were coming regularly. I'd have no problem riding these and they shouldn't have even been there judging by the wind direction. I wandered over to the rip inside the groyne and paddled out. I got past the groyne, turned and waited a minute before catching my first wave, the first of a set. It was fast! One of the fastest waves I've caught here I went screaming down the face, carved along and then pulled up and over. I was grinning! I went back out, caught a second, did the same, turned to paddle out and got knocked off three times in succession before it flattened out a bit for a few minutes. No camera but I like pictures so here’s a stock one: I caught a few more, wiped out three times trying to do a 360 flat spin (managed a couple of decent 180's and got 3/4 round on a third attempt) and then pulled into a good position once again. A larger one came rolling in and I went for it even though I knew I’d be dropping in too late; Down I went, the nose pearling and it spun sideways, underneath foam and water. I was knocked from my seat, grabbed a thigh strap and with my feet over the other side and my arse just about on the rail facing the wave I got crucified for the first time ever - from above I’d look like a cross as I bombed in, the wave pressure forcing a few pints of cold North Sea into my drysuit under the neoprene. Liberating it was and then, somehow, I pulled a John Wayne and threw my arse back into the seat, spun myself upright and paddled out of the foam. Don't ask me how, I really doubt I could do it again! I rode a bunch more, very fast runs that were tricky to turn and carve with at first, some quite long ones when I managed it and some 180 flat spins. I caught another that went kind of wrong, buried the nose, spun and was inadvertently travelling backwards from the start, turning side-on and bongoing in when it broke. I liked that one! Then, as time was getting on and it was starting to darken, I caught a lovely wave. The paddle, causing me problems with being so long, got lifted into the air and I controlled my run along the face by pulling on thigh straps and putting pressure with alternate arse cheeks to keep my line and this really, really worked! Longest ride of the afternoon. I decided to do that again, caught a couple more, swam again and then took my last wave. I had to wait for it but when it came I took off, fast, ran in straight, then carved as it started to break, then turned ahead again as the remnant rolled under me, the following one running me onto the beach. Class! I walked up the ramp. I stood there, at the top and just looked. The beginnings of dusk gave great light onto the clean waves rolling in and I just watched. The world was supposed to end today. It can end every day if it's going to be that great.

Hardly The End Of The World...21/12/2012

A busy week, I've hardly stopped. I'd been off Friday and Saturday night, crashed out early on Sunday and, following my shift, hit the ground running on my return home. I'd hoped to get out on Thursday but the weather was shocking - big seas that might have been fun to play but it was pouring down and I hate that. I was gutted, I'd been able to hear the surf crashing onto the beach from the moment I’d got up and every time I'd gone outside at work. My day got filled anyway and that left Friday...and the forecast was good. A quick text out to see if the others fancy a session followed a coffee with Marty who had popped in randomly with the day off and was going out with Jon. Well...I knocked off, and set off for home to be met with the news that my wife was using the car...that restricted things somewhat; I’d have to launch at the end of the road. Okay, still ebbing, I could launch, head past the harbour and fish Dogger. I'd be on my own. Marty called, said I’d best check the conditions before I got too excited, said the beach looked as rough as guts. He’d dropped anchor off Corton, four or five miles to the north. It was coming up to low water though so I knew the beach would be okay to launch from, it just might be a tad nasty once out to sea. Still, the world was due to end in a couple of hours anyway so I may as well enjoy myself! Things went wrong from the start - I got to the beach and realised I’d left my camera by the front door. Damn. No video either. Fair enough, not the end of the world - yet - but I had no time to go back with tides how they were if I wanted to head north and I’d decided to pay Marty a visit. The sea was down a long way and a few bigger waves were rolling in - and I get a soaking. My bait box flew open and my lucky codding hat got soaked so my head would be cold, fishing would be affected and everything would defrost. a few hundred yards of hard paddling and the sea was still the same, 5ft lumps passing under me and I still had the bank to cross and the harbour approaches to deal with not to mention the shallow rough ground to the north. The flow was weak too and I had to make more effort than I felt like but things carried on as they do and I headed north a good half mile out to avoid the rebound of the swells that were still around from the days before. Passing Ness point I spied a boat off Corton but it wasn't Marty. I carried on and on, my vhf stuck on 14 after speaking to harbour control as I’d forgot to switch back to 8. I changed back moments before I heard Marty call me up but couldn't raise him on 8 or 16 and that boat definitely wasn't him...then I spotted him, finally, a little white dot. I passed the other boat, a beauty with 6 cod and a labrador aboard with the skipper...okay, so it was fishing then. I pulled up to my mates and heard there were 4 cod aboard before paddling back uptide and dropping anchor, coming to rest alongside and around fifty yards offshore. 4/0 pennels with blacks and squid went down and I sat there for the remains of the ebb. Nothing. One twitch in a couple of hours, a dab by the look of the bite. Marty was pulling the odd fish up, Jon managed a couple of whiting and I took the piss a bit even though I was doing worse. Slowly we started to swing; I snagged and had to cut off, rebaited and kept the baits out of the water for a while. Then I started to move backwards...Jon had caught my anchor warp. It made a change for him to catch a yak on rod and line rather than in a net! 11:12 passed and we were all still alive, my plan to catch one last wave when the world ended in a tsunami (hopefully, compared to less enjoyable varieties of armageddon) having proved to be unnecessary. So I baited up again. Poor old Jon, I’d given him one of my lovely, lucky 4/0 spreader wishbone pennels via Marty and finally he got a hook up with a cod. the rod was arched over nicely as he played it up to the boat, looked good, 5-6lb from where I sat...'he hasn't got it aboard yet' shouted Marty...and then he snapped it off bringing it over the back. I could feel the venom when I shouted across that I'd wait for Colin or Brian to get the hook back!!! Bang! My rod started to buck and I reeled into a cod, bringing it up, knocking all the way against a strong flow. No problems landing it but it was only a couple of pound. I had to hold it up for a photograph which took a good few minutes as they couldn't keep me in the frame with big swells rolling beneath us. Still, I kept a smile on my face as I watched them both steady themselves against the gunwhales without noticing their rods banging away behind them... I was cold now, getting bored too as there just weren't any bites here and they were catching steadily. The sea was picking up, the wind freshening and the swells growing. I couldn't keep my baits on the bottom, even with 12oz down. I had a couple more bites that didn't develop and then decided enough was enough when the sky turned black and hauled anchor. I knew that the longer I left it the worse the landing would be; waving goodbye I slung everything, fish, bait, hat, weights, anchor and reel and broken-down rods into the bow hatch and headed for home. Wind against tide, big swells, shortening, following sea; 12ft spray flying up from the shore. I actually had a touch of nerves for the first time in a long time knowing just how bad it'd be north of the harbour; I gave it a wide berth. Turning in, a mile offshore, I caught a few waves, riding them briefly. It wasn't that pleasant but at least I could maintain some semblance of control. I crossed the banks, that was fun and then headed closer in. As I suspected, a surf landing. I looked back, saw a good few feet of water rolling in behind me and it was time to PLF. I caught the second of the set and screamed in the last hundred yards, running straight then carving away from the breaking section, broadsiding as the wave closed out and bongo slid all the way to the beach, soaked and grinning. Marvellous! I let the others know and they told me they were up to fourteen cod now... I dragged my Scupper up the beach and walked home, figuring on a coffee and then grabbing my RRRapido. I had to forego the coffee though, I was locked out...but that's another story. Maybe not the best success from a cold, lumpy ten mile trip but it was hardly the end of the world.

Pre-Christmas Sails…18/12/12

I woke up to wet ground and fog, the bright sunshine of the day before being long gone. It didn’t inspire all that much but I’d suggested we do something to Mike and he was free so I took the girls to school and went over to the cliff to take a look. The sea was flat. A light northerly wind was felt and it looked like an easy fish but I wasn’t convinced I wanted to sit at anchor in case the mist got worse and I’d also need a bit of time to get my gear together as my van no longer exists. I called Mike and asked if he fancied trying his sail out at long last being as it’d be an easy entry into the world of Pacific Action! We arranged to meet… …postponed on my return when I was reminded that someone was coming over for a meeting and I ought to be there. Poor Mike, he pitched up at the later time and I was a headless chicken as it’d overrun. No matter, we loaded my yak and gear onto his van and headed for Gorleston. There were a bunch of anglers spread along the beach as we trolleyed down, keeping tight to the groyne so as to not disturb them as we paddled out past the Swan, the disturbance of the water marking it clearly. The tide was flooding but the wind seemed to have dropped. Up went the sails. Sort of. Modifications. First time with Mikes sail, it wasn’t being pulled taut so the front bungee was tightened and retied. Far better but…the spread wasn’t there, the right pole bending over at the joint. There was nothing we could do for a proper fix but some fiddling with straps and a cut piece of bungee kind of made a fix for a downwind sail gave a sufficient amount of use. It’s just that the wind was missing now. They say you should never whistle at sea, it whistles up the wind. I tried some Beethoven but things didn’t improve bar the odd gust so we kind of sailed along at the same speed as the tide, running at the same speed as the wind. Hardly the gentle learning curve, more a benign curve-ball. Ah well… Down we went past Corton, passing a couple of boats; word over the radio from the boats on the South Corton was one or two small whiting, no cod, not much happening. The tide was minimal, the complete opposite to last week’s screaming bitch we’d tried to fish in! It was a perfect day to be anchored to be fair but hearing how poor the fishing was my guilt at forcing Mike to sail on a still day was assuaged slightly. We passed Tramps, came down past Dogger and picked up some slightly bumpier water off Ness Point and the harbour mouth, radioing in for permission to cross the approaches, turning in to the beach and finally finding a bit of wind! Bloody typical! Perhaps we should have dumped a car at Southwold and run that way. Too late now, we ran in for a smooth landing, grabbed a coffee and headed back to pick up Mike’s van. We may not have had the Fastnet experience but the sun had broken through and it’d been a pleasant enough chilled out trip to escape the ghost of Christmas coming.

You Have To love A Quickie…17/12/12

The plan was to meet someone in Beccles around midday but I’d be dropping the girls at school around 8:30 and there seemed little point in hanging around the house with the sun shining; I slung my drysuit in the boot and grabbed a couple of rods. Maybe the pike would be hungry? The river was dirty, a take looked unlikely but with a few hours to kill it’d be a pleasant paddle all the same. I unstrapped my Scupper and pulled my gear on, launching off the pontoon and drifting downstream with a couple of Rapalas out, wriggling along hopefully close enough to a lurking predator with an empty stomach. The water, being high, allowed me to travel without hooking up any weed but nothing was happening and I soon passed under the first bridge. I saw a splash on the lefthand bank, it looked wrong and then, on the right I saw the angler sit down again. He’d cast right across the river because there’s never any fish anywhere else, is there. There were a bunch of them on the bank so I decided to turn and head back upstream rather than dick about playing slalom and setting off bite alarms as I trolled past. Turning I realised quite how fast the flow was and had to dig a bit. The rods were twitching like crazy now, the acceleration of water in that direction really getting them to dance. Approaching the bridge the flow was even worse, it narrows here and the channelled flow was a good three knots, maybe more but it eased a bit once the river widened. Hell, my arse was getting cold though. The thing is, I’d not stuck my undersuit on as I wasn’t intending to be a Michelin Man all day. I should have known, I’ve done winter paddles in jeans and drysuit before. There’s little worse! Back upstream I went, back past the launch point and then it occurred to me that I really couldn’t be bothered. I reeled in and went off to McDonalds instead.