PRAISE COD
It’s launch 100 for the year... make it worthwhile
Kayak fishing off Suffolk.
With the remnants of 2,200 frozen black lug to look after for some friends, I also had 13kg of unwashed squid defrosting ready for re-bagging into smaller, ready to use packages. I should have had 300 fewer worms by rights, having intended to them over to Ian Ellis when I was going to Norwich on a particular Friday. Well, that was how it was supposed to work, except we both got the wrong day.
The relevance of all this was that I didn’t launch that morning in a sea that was surprisingly fishable, despite the forecast. I’d had to cancel on my pal Si Fletcher.
I was still trying to decide what to do when Ian sent a text to say he could make it on Saturday. What a relief! This meant that Si could be contacted again about going cod fishing. Therefore, after lunch, I was free to go with the last of my old worms, some of my new worms and some brand new loligo squid.
THINGS GO WRONG
Traffic delayed me and I rushed getting stuff together while Si was trolleying his kayak down to the beach. It was launch 100 for the year too... so I had to make it worthwhile.
It was good to be going out again, and good to hit the century doing my standard style of fishing – anchored and with baits down.
The sea at Corton, Suffolk, looked good – flat and coloured, with far less wind than predicted. It should have been blowing hard for a few hours, but the predicted wind had failed to show.
A couple of boats were out, but none where we wanted to be, slightly north and further out than usual. We’d be back on the cod grounds rather than the smoothhound and ray mark I favour. I didn’t bother with sounder or GPS because I knew by sight roughly where I wanted to be.
Out we went, with stuff going wrong from the start. My just-serviced reels were 50:50. Only one was working properly. I stopped level with Si with less warp than needed and the kayak started to skip. I paid out more, and managed to wrap my hooklength and bait around the anchor reel.
I cut off and started again. I was taking plenty of water through the scuppers too. I then snapped off a RAM ball, one that was already playing up, so I was down to one rod and one holder. Frustrated, I cast out and sat back to wait.
WAITING FOR A BITE
We’d launched an hour before we would normally start, on a big tide, so there was a lot of water running through on the ebb, and I wasn’t convinced I was holding bottom.
My bait was stale lug that I’d left in the sun to stink it up for flatties and hadn’t used, along with unwashed loligo squid cut into 2cm rings, freshly bought in a 13kg block.
We sat back and waited. We could shout to each other, but it would have been more pleasant to chat.
Si was getting bites from whiting and I was not, so it seemed he was just uptide from a hole or ridge, or some other feature.
It took maybe 40 minutes before my first bite, after replacing my hooklength with a longer one, 3ft instead of 2ft. With that much water the fish felt like a good one and perhaps a cod, but it was a dogfish.
I had my first whiting 20 minutes or so later, after sorting the reel on my second rod; I’d overtightened the cast control so the cam was out of alignment, which was my own fault, but it worked beautifully after that.
Where was Mr Cod, though? We’d had 23 between three of us a few days before, right through the tide, and now I wanted some more.
Bang, bang! Missed! Definitely a cod. Bang, bang! They were there. Missed again! Bang, bang! Fish on! Yes, this was a cod, for sure. Head banging, pulling hard, mouth open against the flow, rod bent over…up came 45cm of the North Sea’s finest.
HIT-AND-MISS
I was on whiting number two when Si caught his ninth. It was a good one, though, going 1lb 4oz. However, I was still missing bites, and the wind was picking up, along with the sea, while the sky was looking greyer.
Cod number two came in and was 44cm long. I missed a walloping bite too…and a load more. In fact, I must have missed at least 10 hits. They were playing me for an idiot. It would be back to size 2/0 hooks next time because they seem to penetrate more efficiently than the 4/0 hooks and they streamline the bait better.
The tide eased down but the wind was still holding us in position. Low tide was long past and slack was around the corner, but we hadn’t much more than 40 minutes of light left, so we decided to call it a day.
One last fish on each rod, then. Left rod was a dogfish, so that was two of them and four whiting. Could I get cod number three on the last bait in the water? I was on fresh lug now. Yes, I could. It was 43cm this time and visually there was little comparison, although it looked smaller in the body and head. Strange that.
It was time to haul anchor and paddle into the swell and wind, making for a bumpy ride. Lovely! Passing two beach anglers, we were in, landing smoothly on the shore at the bottom of Tramp’s Alley. ■