Share your angling passion
As many of us started our angling journey by fishing with a relative, we can do the same by getting willing young anglers involved in our sport
Have you noticed how many young anglers have been out fishing during their enforced break from school during the coronavirus lockdown? That must be good for sea angling. It’s great to see so many parents sharing their shore or boat angling trips with their children. I’m all for it. I try to seize every opportunity to take my family for a day’s boat fishing, when the weather is right. I recall a boat trip where the target species was big bass, but I knew there would be plenty of other fish to keep the rod tips nodding – and we weren’t disappointed.
We were fishing on Terry and Nicola Batt’s massive charter boat Vanishing Point II, out of Bradwell Marina, Essex. Sadly, the duo have since retired from charter fishing, but I’ve known Terry and Nic for as long as I can remember, and we’ve become very good friends over the years.
At the time when they said “You need to be at the marina for 6.45am sharp,” I knew they meant business because Bradwell is a tidal marina. If you miss the tide you end up losing your day’s fishing. With this in mind, I set the alarm clock for 3.15am. Luckily both my girls,
Mia (age 10) and Holly (age 8) were in bed and fast asleep by 8.30pm. I was my usual self the night before a fishing trip – I was excited and couldn’t get to sleep before midnight. Fishing is in my blood, and to this day, after more than 40 years of setting off at silly o’clock, I still get the same buzz of anticipation the night before, just like I did as a kid – I hope that feeling never leaves me.
I awoke at 3.10am, five minutes before my alarm was due to go off, just like I usually do (it’s a common trait among angling nutters), and duly crept downstairs for a solitary coffee before I woke the kids and my better half Toni – at least I would get ten minutes to myself before the madness ensued…or so I thought.
EXCITEMENT
It was actually five minutes, before an excited Mia thundered down the stairs, closely followed by a very sleepy Holly. Within minutes the house was buzzing with excitement, the girls were relentless with their questions as I packed the food and bait for the day. We were soon on the road, after Toni had necked her first gallon of tea for the day.
We pulled into Bradwell Marina car park at 6.30am, giving ourselves 15 minutes to don our fishing clobber and unload the car, then we set off on the two-minute walk to the boat.
Terry and Nic were hot on our heels as we walked down the ramp on to the pontoon, and, as we approached Vanishing Point II, the silent morning air was filled with ‘Oohs and Ahhs’ as the girls saw the magnificent 51ft boat for the first time. They were bouncing about like they had both necked a pound of sugar apiece.
I could tell they were excited, but my first job was a safety briefing. I sat them down and told them point blank that once we had left the berth, they were, under no circumstances, to go past the wheelhouse door on to the bow, or climb up the ladder to the flybridge. I showed them where the lifejackets were, and the other safety equipment, and then we moved on to the rods, rigs and baits.
I always make my girls wear a lifejacket on smaller boats, but on this occasion I explained to them that they didn’t have to wear one, because the boat was like a ferry and the freeboard, coupled with the railings, made it extremely safe. We all knew where the lifejackets were, just inside the wheelhouse, in case of an emergency, but today would be jacket-free for all of us.
To my amazement, both my girls actually stopped and listened to me – probably the first time they’ve actually done that, ever. That filled me with joy because I could tell from that moment that they were taking the day seriously, even underneath all that excitement.
It was a fairly foggy start to the trip, with low cloud starting about 30 feet above our heads. As we motored down the river and into the Thames Estuary, the cloud began to lift slowly, and it made for a spectacular and eerie sight as Terry took us right through the middle of a windfarm.
FISH ON
We reached our first mark and Terry put down the anchor. I’d already rigged the rods with 3ft flowing traces and size 4/0 hooks, and baited them up with a variety of offerings from a single ragworm to rag tipped with hermit crab and chunks of herring. My main aim was to catch my kids a heap of fish.
I, on the other hand, had rigged up two DB1 rods with 30lb fluorocarbon traces and size 5/0 hooks with the aim of trying to catch a big bass. I would fish a whiting livebait on one of them, and alternate between whole squid and a king ragworm on the other. Using big baits like this would allow me to leave my rods out fishing, while I concentrated on helping the girls catch something.
We had been sat at anchor for less than five minutes when Mia’s rod gave the telltale nod of a ray. She had a chunk of herring on for bait, and I knew that this was going to be the biggest sea fish she had caught. As she wound into it, she knew it was a big fish too, and after a good tussle, a 5lb thornback ray slipped into Terry’s waiting net. Mia was jumping around full of excitement, and with a little coaxing from Nicola, she finally plucked up the courage to hold the ray for a photograph.
Holly was really excited too, having just witnessed her first sea fish being caught by her sister. Soon after the ray was released, Holly got the ‘I’ve got a bite’ syndrome. Every twitch of her rod tip was a bite in her eyes, and it took a lot of patience and calm talking from me to convince her that she would know what a bite looked like when it happened. Luckily for the both of us, she didn’t have to wait long, as something took a liking to her ragworm bait.
As Holly picked up the rod and began to wind, I had my suspicions that she’d hooked a small bass, and as Toni held the middle of the rod up for her as she wound it in, my suspicions were proved correct. What a great start to the day.
We continued to fish this mark for another hour before the tide began to slacken off,
“Soon after her first ray was released, Holly got the ‘I’ve got a bite’ syndrome. Every twitch of her rod tip was a bite in her eyes”
and we were rewarded with eight thornbacks, half-a-dozen dogfish, a handful of school bass and a few whiting. Terry decided that a move was in order, and he took us to a small wreck where he informed us that we would have about an hour to get stuck into the bass, then the fishing would die and we would go back to the other ground.
He wasn’t wrong. Within 60 seconds of me casting out the first rod, it was away. First up was a 40cm bass, followed by one of 38cm and then another, and another. I lost count of how many bass we caught, but try as I might, I couldn’t connect with a big one. That didn’t matter though, today was all about my girls catching fish, and that they did, with ease.
After we’d had our fun on the small bass, Terry took us back to the other side of the bank we had been fishing on the ebb. Which is when the real fun began.
LOST FISH
As the flood tide got underway, it came racing through with a vengeance. All of a sudden, Mia’s rod tip buckled over and line began pouring from her reel. She was straight on it, and lifted into something quite substantial.
After a good five minutes it was becoming too much for her, and she pleaded with me to take over. As I took the rod from her I realised why she had wanted me to help. The pressure was immense, and even I struggled to make any headway with the big fish on the other end. In hindsight, I’m amazed at how well Mia did trying to play the fish for the five minutes before I took over.
It was quite obvious that she’d hooked a ray, and it was a substantial one. I reckon it was a good double-figure fish that had got tailwrapped in the tide and was coming in backward, but unfortunately, we will never know. While I was being extra careful to try and bring the fish to the boat, I was on breaking point with the 25lb braid mainline, such was the pressure on it, when ‘crack’ the line popped.
It’s not unusual to catch female thornbacks approaching 20lb from this mark. We’ll never know exactly how big the fish was, but let’s just say that out of the hundreds of rays I’ve caught in the Thames Estuary, this one was big.
As I re-rigged Mia’s rod, there was a crazy flurry of activity. We had three rays on at once, then two, then a ray, bass and smoothhound. It was mayhem. Both Terry and Nicola were absolute stars, helping the girls bait up and recast between landing fish. I just couldn’t keep up, particularly with my rods going as well.
Time flies when you’re having fun, and all too soon our fishing trip had come to an end. It was time to head back to the marina. Again, I lost count of the rays, bass, hounds, whiting, dogfish and pouting we’d caught, but I’d guess, conservatively, it was more than 75 fish for the day. More importantly, it kept my girls interested and wanting to come back for more.
Even as I sit writing this, Holly’s teacher had posted on Facebook that she hadn’t stopped talking about the day’s fishing.
Needless to say, I’ll be taking them both out again, just like my dad used to take me. ■