NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK
Mark Crame goes looking for spurdogs.
There are days of playing, days of fishing and days of pushing the boundaries. This was one of the latter. It wouldn’t be easy, we knew that. It wouldn’t be short, we knew that too. It wouldn’t be for everyone, and we knew that as well.
We had a target to winkle out, if we could, a rarity around Norfolk and Suffolk, an unlikely but possible fish which used to be around in huge numbers, but is now down to migrating remnants, that fights like a demon and which appears, disappears, appears and is gone again.
The window of opportunity is short, and with the restriction of sea conditions it’s even harder on the kayak.
I’d heard of someone catching spurdogs locally three days before – they usually run briefly in April and May for a few weeks. I’m not one for preaching catch and release because I keep most legal and sizeable species that eat well.
I love eating fish, but spurdogs take so long to reach maturity, have a very long gestation period and can live for 70 years. Commercial fishers aren’t allowed to keep them and, as tasty fish worth good money, they clearly need help. They’re not a fish I’m bringing home.
A mid-double had been caught a week earlier on Brian and Paul Poppy’s Lowestoft boat Cleveland Princess, the first one that Paul, skippering that day, had seen. I wanted one too, but it was a difficult mark. The tide turns later out there and, with increased depth from that in which we normally anchor, we could only fish the end of the flood and into slack water, possibly into the ebb if we thought we could handle the onslaught of the turned tide.
The predicted slack tide was after midday and my paddle would take more than an hour, depending on the strength of the tide we had to cross. We’d be at a reduced speed, effectively heading diagonally to go straight. We called Brian for advice – knowing he’d also be on the Three Mile Bank was comforting in case of problems, or the need to weigh a good fish.
LONG PADDLE
Shaun Leaver arrived at eight, and after a quick coffee we were ready to go. A final call to Brian for an update on conditions revealed it was a bit lumpy, ripping through but not terrible, and they were catching bass. We launched and set course for the first waypoint, the Stanford buoy.
We passed between the port and starboard cans after half-an-hour, and then made for the South Holm cardinal marker another half-mile or so out, still crossing the tide, in mid-flow now, through the shipping lanes, and then straight on towards Holland. There on the horizon we spotted Andrew Rackham’s private boat Wader Bay at anchor and headed for it. Fishing with him was Brian Poppy.
A few more minutes and we were alongside the
big boys, heralded by the barking of Andrew’s dog and the sight of a nice bass.
We chatted, watched a smoothhound come up, and then paddled uptide and out a bit before dropping anchor, letting out the full 300 yards of warp on my reel, a buoy and a 1kg Bruce anchor attached to it.
Sixty feet of water, three-and-a-half miles out, after paddling four-and-a-half miles against 10 knots of wind in 80 minutes. The tide had dropped to around two knots… would we hold? Would we feel stable?
We held, no buffeting, and my RTM Tempo didn’t swing at all – quite relaxing after the constant swinging of arms. There’s no stopping when crossing the tide, especially where it roughs up over the banks or speeds up in the channels, otherwise you lose so much ground in that flow. Now we lazed around and watched our rod tips.
My pair of 10-20lb Maxximus Nano rods were fitted with the LD15 lever-drag reels, allowing me plenty of grunt. To the 40lb braid I added a length of 60lb mono as a rubbing leader, and then a zip slider length attached to 20lb wire with five lumi beads, a muppet and size 4/0 Maxximus Jig hook. I’d heard spurs liked lumi beads and muppets…I hoped so! Whole squid on one, half a fresh herring on the other, 10oz breakout lead weights, and down went the lines, plenty out so the baits wouldn’t lift.
GOLDEN WINDOW
On the boat, Andrew and Brian were heaving up thornbacks and bass every time I looked around, so I stopped looking. It was slow for us, the occasional small tap on my rod with nothing connecting, a dogfish and a dab for Shaun downtide and inshore from me.
Bites weren’t thick and fast, but we weren’t expecting them to be as I was being specific with short hooklengths of wire. Bass don’t like wire, and rays prefer a longer trace because it holds the bait on the bottom in strong flow. Slack came without really noticing it much, and passed far quicker than inshore.
We took the opportunity while turning to retrieve enough warp to be able to release a bit to ease the turn and get the anchor reels inboard to fish the start of the ebb. This is a golden window for the fishing, followed after a brief period by the full weight of the flow. We had another hour, maximum, to catch a spurdog.
I’d added an octopus rig to one rod as spurs are often fished for with white feathers. These had a small strip of squid added for extra attraction, and then came a tap… a dogfish on the bottom octopus. Back it went, and back down went the baits. The sea was building with the flow, and then the rod went again. Up came another dogfish and, while landing it, a wave picked me up and spun me. We had 2-3ft of chop now.
I released the doggie and called over to Shaun that it was time to return to the shore. He agreed, it was getting worse.
CRAZY VERDICT
We stowed everything carefully, ensured things would run smoothly, uncleated the trolley and, releasing line to swing, I shifted the warp to the bow, then hauled into my lap. It took some doing with 60ft of water ripping past. I felt the weak link break and things eased.
With Shaun ready, we returned by GPS and compass in a light mist, mid-flow, and paddling one-sided to avoid being turned. We couldn’t afford to stray from our course. A rudder would have helped maintain speed and course as the Tempo, tracking straight, was pushed laterally by the surface water. It was tiring. I counted down – four miles, three, two, one... land appeared. Half-a-mile, a quarter... dead on track we landed smoothly where we’d launched eight hours before with no flow in the bay.
It was low water here. Ten miles, no spurdogs, tired bodies, nothing for tea. We left the beach and got stopped by some guy who, when we said what we’d done, announced repeatedly that we were crazy. All I could say was “Yeah!” ■