HUMBER HEROICS
A trip on a new charter boat proves the Humber is fishing well for cod… and there’s a bonus bass too!
Cod fishing on a new charter boat.
When I heard there was a new charter boat operating out of Grimsby, I was quick to get on the phone and book a trip becasue it had been a few years since I have fished the River Humber. Joining me were my mates Jim Midgley, Roger Cooling and Roger ‘Delboy’ Tipple. We’d followed the ‘Charter Boat Elysse’ Facebook page and it seemed that we could be in for a real treat, with lots of cod gracing the deck. We couldn’t wait to get afloat.
We arrived at the boat and met skipper Chris Fyson, who welcomed us with a cup of coffee and a quick safety briefing.
Soon we were heading upriver at 20 knots. It took 10 minutes to get to our first fishing spot, and, as Chris dropped the anchor, we were getting rigged up and trying to defrost our frozen black lug and squid (note to self for future trips – get the bait out the night before!).
My battle plan was to fish a lug and squid cocktail on one rod while sitting it out with a whiting livebait on the other. I quite often do this in winter, and it has accounted for some nice cod over the years. It took a matter of minutes for the fish to come on the feed, with cod being hoisted over the side from all four corners of the deck.
The action continued steadily throughout the morning, with the largest cod weighing 9lb 8oz and the rest around the 4-5lb bracket. There were a few smaller codling and these were returned. With the quality of cod being caught, there really was no point in keeping the smaller ones, although they were all perfectly sizeable.
As the tide began to die away I’d not had a sniff on my whiting livebait, so I decided to reel it in and fish a whole squid when the tide picked up again. We were still catching occasional cod
during slack water, but the whiting and dabs had come on the feed. It was a rattle-a-chuck, with some good ‘tings’ coming in – the largest I’d guess at a little under 2lb.
SPECIAL GUEST
Once the tide got going again it took about half an hour for the cod to come back on the feed. When one of the lads on the stern hooked another 9lb 8oz cod, I had a twitchy bite on my whole squid bait, followed by a real hard pull-round and a slack line.
I picked up the rod and wound down to nothing. I was reeling like a madman when, all of a sudden, I caught up with the fish and it went ballistic. This was no cod. From its speed, twists and turns, I guessed it was a bass.
It tried to go over the anchor rope, some way uptide, then hurtled downtide at amazing speed, again trying to go under the boat.
Once I had the fish under control I shouted for the net, knowing that any minute a bar of silver was going to break surface. Little did I know how big it was. As Roger Tipple grabbed the net and moved to the stern of the boat in readiness, he let out a few expletives when he saw the size of the fish. I hadn’t seen it, but I trusted Roger’s opinion.
Before he could guide the fish into the net it took off again, this time kiting along on the surface from left to right, into my field of view. Damn right it was a big bass, way bigger than I had first thought. With a big of communication, Roger told to me to keep it coming up the tide, before dropping it back into his waiting net.
As he lifted the fish over the side, he uttered the words “Nearly a double”, and when I saw it hit the deck I knew he wasn’t far off with his estimate. When weighed, it went bang on 9lb. I was well chuffed, and after a quick couple of photos, alongside local rod Andy Waltham with his 9lb 8oz cod, I gently slipped her back into the water and she swam away none the worse for her ordeal. I continued with the whole squid bait after that, and it accounted for five of the larger cod I caught that day.
ALL YEAR ACTION
All too soon it was time to return to the marina. I’d caught 13 cod and a 9lb bass, keeping nine of the cod for the table – what a session! I think the boat tally was somewhere just shy of 50 cod between eight of us, plus loads of quality whiting and dabs.
A couple of days later, Chris took another party to the same spot and topped the 50 cod mark, adding a couple more bass.
It just goes to show that the Humber is alive and well, and it’s fired me up for more boat trips there throughout 2020.
The cod stay in the river almost all year, but in far less numbers in summer. The peak season is from January to mid-April, in fact the big cod competition run by the Humber Cruising Association is held towards the end of March, when the chance of a decent cod is thought to be at its best.
In summer, the smoothhounds, bass and thornback rays take over, and there’s some really good tope fishing. Offshore wrecking produces cod, pollack and bass.