Bernard Gonad and friends

I didn’t fish last week, that slot in the diary was taken up with an afternoon in the park, sitting around in the sun with my fishing pals and our families.  We ate cake, drank beer and played a very gentle game of cricket on a green strip full of mounds and pot holes.  In fact it was so unpredictable it hindered the bowler more than the batsman but I swear I’ve played league cricket on worse around the county of Suffolk.  A lovely afternoon but as the days ticked over I’d missed my fishing fix and Saturday couldn’t arrive soon enough.

Giles picked me up around 1300, with high tide due around 1600 we hoped to set up a couple of hours before then fish through and into darkness.  At home the weather was warm with sunny spells and a light westerly, this should be blowing off our backs and make for a comfortable evening.  As we’d be mostly fishing an ebbing tide we figured it made sense to fish the steep beach where we would always be in reach of deep water.  The car park was busy when we arrived, loads of other anglers had the same idea which meant a long, sapping walk along the shingle to find some space.  I was confused whilst setting up, the wind wasn’t where I’d left it, it was now blowing the wrong way, a south easterly right into our chops.  The sky was clear but the sea looked murky, we set up quickly confident of catching fish.

I’d brought a right old selection of baits but I started with squid on both rods while I got settled in.  Once I was comfortable I used Ragworm on the light rod which I mostly fished very close in.  Rag is usually productive bringing lots of bites from all kinds of species but fish can nick it off the hook easily too so requires constant attention.  On the heavy rod I used tougher longer lasting baits, mostly squid but I was also trying frozen peeler and hermit crabs.  But after an hour I hadn’t seen a proper bite on whatever I chucked out and on most casts the ragworm was disappearing.  I persevered with this bait because Bass like it but in hindsight it wasn’t staying on the hook long enough for a Bass to find it.

As usual Giles caught the first fish, a couple of Whiting and a Pouting.  He’s been doing well lately on strips of mackerel, a bait which is tough enough to stay on the hooks long enough for a fish to hang itself.  I think his flapper rig with short hooklengths gives better bite indication too but I like to stick to the long trace as I’m lead to believe its better for Bass and other, bigger species.  Eventually I saw a strange vibration on the light rod and managed to hit a bite which lead to my first fish of the day which was small, brown and flat, my first Flounder of the season. 

High tide came and went with just the odd rod tip rattle.  I stuck it out with the ragworm but experimented with the range I fished at.  Casting just a little bit further out I could at least see bites and if I wasn’t quick enough at least I knew when the bait would need changing.  I managed to catch a Pouting and a couple of crabs.  Meanwhile Giles managed another Whiting and the anglers within sight didn’t seem to be doing any better than us.  Around 1720 with the sea receding I noticed an angler about a hundred yards to the south of us was well bent into something, he dragged a creature out of the surf and lifted up what was clearly a decent sized Ray.  Within minutes I had a proper pull on the heavy rod and I too found myself connected to something with a bit of weight.  As I gradually pumped it towards me I was convinced I was into a Ray, not necessarily a big one but heavy enough to make its presence felt.   It was a little bit of an anti climax when I dragged a Dogfish up the beach but it was a brute and probably the biggest I’ve caught so far.

That signalled the start of a flurry of bites to us both, Giles had a Doggy and regularly wound Whiting up onto the shingle.  I was actually managing to see bites on ragworm and caught a succession of Pouting on the light rod.  I also had two proper, unmissable bites on the heavy rod which I somehow managed to convert into fuck all.  I think I get to excited when the heavy rod hoops over…  No time to get frustrated though as I needed to get a bait back out quickly.  It felt like every cast would bring something momentous but the feeding spell ended and things slowed down again.  By now it was about 1830 and we felt now it was a case of waiting for darkness when we were confident of more action.  This slow period was interrupted by a decent bite on my heavy rod baited with peeler crab.  I made another hash of the strike but still managed to connect to a something that didn’t feel heavy.  When it arrived on the beach it was a funny shape and almost red in colour, what the hell was it?  I knew what it was, I’d seen one before.

Sometime in the mid seventies we had a family holiday in Sussex, our family of four were joined by relatives; Uncle Charlie and Auntie Grace.  We did a bit of fishing off the beach but Dad was not particularly motivated and Charlie spent most of his time trying to untangle things.  In the two weeks we were there we didn’t angle a single fish but I managed plenty of crabs and a few miniature fishy things by dipping my net into pools.  Other anglers were more successful and we saw Plaice and Flounder caught at night and during the day someone caught a beautifully coloured creature which he put in a bucket and which I couldn’t help staring at.  This fish was a Gurnard and forty five years later this was what I had caught today.  It wasn’t a very big fish but it was beautiful with a reddish brown body and ITFC blue pectoral fins.  I was well chuffed, another first and I think the eleventh different species I’ve managed to catch in the last two years.  Like every daft carp angler I christened this fish with an appropriate name, Giles gave it an inappropriate one.

With the sky darkening we moved our kit down the beach to be closer to the receding tide.  I switched the light rod over to a two hook flapper baiting one with squid and the other with worm.  I figured if I missed a bite I should at least have some squid remaining on the hook.  Nightfall did bring a slight increase in activity, mostly on our lighter rods fished very close in; Giles had a couple more Whiting and I had a couple more Pouting.  This was all very well, after all catching fish is the aim but Pout wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind.  Tonight I’d have been better off without the ragworm, it became a distraction but having bought live bait I felt obliged to use it, another night it could make all the difference?

We fished on but the bites dwindled and it was no hardship winding the rods in at around 2300.  The tramp back with feet shifting in slipping shingle was tough, when we reached firmer ground it was as if we’d been fitted with turbos.  As usual we were dog tired and reeked of squid and other unpleasant substances and as usual we’d enjoyed it.  It was good to sink into a comfortable car seat and ride home through rural Suffolk listening to soothing sounds from these chaps.