The older Dan and the sea.

"Every time I cast into to the sea I find myself falling further under it's spell. Nowhere else feels like it; It's alive! Each visit reveals more of its ever changing environment and the species that are present at any particular time of year. The tides intrigue me the most. I hope to one day understand them. Though I believe I, nor anyone else for that matter will ever truly understand them. But most of all each time I go my passion grows and I know for certain I will be back, for I am drawn to it."

After an early journey east we unpacked and got settled in our accommodation on the Suffolk Norfolk border. It wasn't long after the last thing was out the bags that I was off with Jacky in tow to try and source some free bait for the week ahead. Before leaving home I had heard via the blog grapevine that the crabs were on the moult and I fancied my new crab trap might obtain me a few from the structured waters of  Lake Loathing which was conveniently a five minute walk away.

I know the clear shallow waters of this salt water lake are rife with crabs, but would I be able to nab a few? No was the answer to that! Crabs I caught, but were any of them peeler's? Were they heck! In three hours I'd bagged three hard backs and lost two more who were clever enough not to enter the net.

I am no expert at distinguishing a peeling crab from a hard back but I soon discovered the difference. The moulting crab which are referred to as peelers are shy and retiring due to their soft bodies, whereas a hardback is the hooligan of the Crustacea world, nipping anything that draws too close.

My crabbing attentions were soon lost when I sighted a pair of large mullet circling some pilings nearby. Both were close to ten pounds and both thought my vain attempts to get their attention with a strip of squid cast out under a float were comical. A fact confirmed by their ever seeming smirking lips.

- My first proper session came first thing Sunday morning when I dared to venture out into the by now horrendous 30 mph south west wind. I arrived at Pakefield beach early to fish the end of the flood tide and down the ebb for a few hours.

My first cast was pitched full force straight out in front of me and splashed in twenty metres to my left. This was by no way going to be an easy session! I endured only an hour of battling with the wind as it tore my rods down and put so much of a bow in my lines that it dislodged up to 8oz of lead from the bottom.

Not wanting my first trip out to be a total loss I upped sticks and headed up the coast to try the more sheltered waters of Lowestoft harbour. The outer wall was even worse than the beach, but fishing into the mouth of the harbour afforded me enough cover to at least hold bottom.

The change of venue had made no difference to my catch until I dropped a much shorter cast close to a tidal defence barrier. After only minutes the tip rattled the went over and stayed bent over. My hope that good fish my take interest in my bait was vilified as the beastie pulled back. As I reeled it towards the wall I kept hoping I would see a flash of silver in the water until I got the distinct feeling this fish was swimming backwards!!!

Damn right it was! My first sea bound eel was swung in at about a pound, it was followed quickly by two more, the best being 2.1lb. If dealing with a eel is not hard enough try adding three snoods, a heavy grip lead and a gusting wind mixed into the equation.

After this I did add a couple of small whiting but the biggest stir of the day was caused when I threw the eels back in, much to the dismay of some eastern European anglers; one quite literally threw his arms in the air whilst cursing me in some foreign tongue.

- My next session was due Monday afternoon and I had even roped Jacky in for a trip to the beach but we only got as far as the cliff top car park before I set eyes on the now tempestuous sea and thought better of it.

After making a hasty retreat I did what any self respecting angler would and went back to holiday diggs and spent the afternoon waiting out the weather in the steaming turbulent waters of our hot tub.

I waited and waited and waited a little bit more for the wind to calm and finally at that time just before the light went I nipped to another mark called the Rifle Range for as I described it to Jacky "to get in even one good cast". Just before the dark crept in and during a evil shower of rain my freshly bought peeler crabs did the trick as the left rod began to nod in the failing light.

In the surf I potted something silver flash but as it came up the beach the rig seemed to still be dragging badly until I spotted a something flat and dark flapping close to the lead. My first double shot of the trip produced a small whiting and a nice flounder.

To be honest that was enough for me. I was cold and wet and with no form of shelter on the beach it was time for the off, satisfied with a single bite for two fish on a day when even the locals were rather absent from this popular mark, There was was only one way a true English man can warm himself on such a night.

A cup of tea and cream scone!

- The next outing saw me return back to Pakefield with a freshly acquired store of crab to chuck into the brine. Before this session I had put two and two together and realised that as the crabs were moulting and the best bites I'd had came on them  that the fish may be a little preoccupied with them and other baits may prove fruitless.

I was right! My first chuck onto a much calmer sea didn't take long to get rattled, resulting in a nice plaice and it didn't stop there. For the first time ever on the sea it was a bite a chuck. Not one cast failed to receive attention of some kind.

The next customer was a nice flounder

Followed by another

And another

It was real joy to see what seemed like healthy population of flatties really going for it and not one of the was caught any further than thirty yards of the beach. It was great fun and luckily I had Jacky on hand to bag some great pictures of em all.

- On the Wednesday I turned thirty four (I think!) and as always my first choice of what I would like to do is go fishing. I had pre planned this trip to head down the coast the the uber quaint Southwold to try these hallowed waters for the big bass that supposedly exist there.  

Conditions looked great, the sea looked great, I was in a good area and I had a bucket full of crab how could it go wrong, but it did! I couldn't buy a bite and nether could two other anglers further down the beach.

Like every other angler I can take a blank here and there, BUT! I do not take the birthday blank well, if at all.

By 5pm I'd fished the last part of the flood tide, the slack and two hours down the ebb and had absolutely nothing to show for my efforts bar good case of wind burn. At this point I had to do something and made the snap decision to head north wards back to fish a more reliable mark.

After dropping Jacky off I rushed down the to Pakefield to try and make the best of the day.

The sport here wasn't much better and soon I found myself in a Mexican stand off with the north sea. It wasn't yielding and I wasn't leaving till I felt the wet slap of fish on my hands.

Finally after what seemed like hours the tip trembled and I struck. Again for the second year running I landed a single fish on my birthday. A perfectly formed plaice.

After this I cut my losses and left, calling in to pick up a bit of ironic supper on the way back!

How could I not?!

- By Thursday I had figured that most of the areas I had been fishing the last few days fished best from the slack down the ebb tide, so I waited till evening to take the last of my peelers on a day trip to flattieville.

There is no more punishing place than the coast in bad weather. Caught in the no man's land between the land and the sea. On land the differing pressures effect the weather and as it meets with the open and more consistent pressures of the sea it seems ether collide with it violently or get sucked out to sea speeding up as it does. 

It had been sunny all day but the weather report had indicated a weather front would move eastwards into the evening and it did just after my second rod was cast. The sky darkened and the wind picked up stirring a healthy swell.

The rig of my left rod held well under the crashing waves but my right one even with a heavier lead was being pulled by the receding tide and kept get deposited back on the beach. With it now pouring with rain it was struggle to get it to hold at any range. But it seemed to work to my advantage a little as this was the first rod to go when a nice flattie grabbed the moving bait as it passed it.

It didn't take long for it to find a second and as I was baiting up to recast, the still fishing rod went mental. It literally hooped over instantly and was lifting off the rest before I was to my feet.

I was straight away into something better which really gave me some stick in the fast falling tide. The weird thing was as it neared the surf it seemed to be swimming in two separate directions, and it was.

A flash of silver confirmed it. Bass! Not one but two. My first ever double shot of bass scored for a rough sea whilst soaked to the skin.

An absolutely stunning a pair of beautiful schoolies one of about a pound and a half the other just under three. I went home that night as high as a kite and happy as a dog with two.... peters.

- After the highs of Thursday I could have stopped there but I still had bait and Jacky fancied the beach so what could I do but fish. The weather was good, the sea calm and I was happy.

It was no red letter day. More a good bye for now to the sea, but I did manage to eek out one last flounder on my very last crab which seemed a good way to end a great trip east. 

- That should have rightfully been the end of this one but, whilst away and having a pocket full of birthday pennies, I made pilgrimage to one of the fast appearing Angling Direct stores, which are spreading over the east like a case of acne on a teenage boy.

I went with the express purpose of obtaining a new umbrella to replace my still unretired one, but....

And here it is!

Yep you got it they didn't have the umbrella I wanted so I settled for a gleaming new pair of  Korum KXi 60 freespin reels.

Like anyone I could wait to use them. So I did before the sand was even off my feet. And how did they go on the first run out?

Well.

Very well!

6.6lb tench first cast. :)

A week of something different.

Last October when on holiday I had my first attempt at sea fishing and after some small successes I was really looking forward to return to the east coast to have another crack at it this year. On my first attempts I found my lack of knowledge on the subject made it hard to fish effectively, so after a suitable amount of research and some new gear I was confident that I could now get into some serious fishing. The one thing I could not forget however was that I was actually on holiday with Jacky and not on a seven day fishing trip. So before even getting in the car to leave I had thought that I would try and fit in a few smaller sessions when the chances arose rather than just disappear for the whole day. I had also decided that rather than just flitting up and down the coast that I would concentrate on two venues, one being Lowestoft harbour, a venue I had fished before and the other being Pakefield beach, a popular venue with locals that crops up regularly on the internet on websites and sea fishing forums. Both venues were within close proximity of our holiday home.

    

Day 1 
Lowestoft Outer harbour wall
Flood-High tide
For my first session I returned to the last place I fished last time I was here, with the knowledge that the inner harbour generally fishes quite well all year round. The inner harbour is a very industrial landscape that is home to a busy fishing fleet whereas the opposite side of the wall is open sea. I cast two rods out, one with a two hook paternoster baited with rag worm and the second, another two hook rig with larger hooks and heavier line baited with squid/mackerel, stood back and waited....... After an hour my confidence had plummeted as both rods hadn't moved at all, so a move to the sea ward side of the wall was made over the epic distance of thirty feet. Surprisingly to me the squid/mackerel rod was the first to get rattled by a decent whiting then followed by the rag rod by a tiny pouting

Pouting #1

After this the bites came thick and fast and I added two more viscious little pouting and this small flatfish I suspect to be a dab.

Dab?

After this it all went quite till my squid /mackerel rod was almost hauled down the wall by this dog fish of 11/2lb.

My only other bite came from my very first ever codling of all of two ounces. Not even  big enough to make one fish finger out of but still very pleasing.

Fish finger, anyone?

It turned out to be a good start, but I was surprised by the size of the bait even a tiny pouting was capable of eating. A six inch rag worm and a huge hook by my normal standards went easily into a mouth filled with loads of tiny needle like teeth, and considering there were only the size of a small roach they rattled the end of my broom stick like rod with ease.

Day two
Pakefield beach
low tide
With a shiny new tripod in hand I trudged over the shingle high tide line to get to the beach, but sadly even with my new found freedom to give the lead some welly without having other anglers around who's lines I could cross, this session was destined to be a dud. When the sky blacked up and I found myself sheltering under the only brolly I had bought with me. A green and blue golf umbrella from the boot of the car.
The only movement of the rod was caused by the only fish of this session another small codling albeit bigger than the last.

The weather didn't look like it was about to clear up any time so I made the decision to head up the road to the harbour wall where I could park the car on the wall and get some needed shelter whilst still fishing. The wall was packed with locals who all seem to arrive just after work and fish until midnight.
It went well and I added a small whiting,eight more pouting a plaice and two more dabs to my tally for the day and went home a happy man.

Day 3
Pakefield beach
low tide

Returning to the beach determined to get into a few fish I opted to fish near a groin with some buoys at the end of it. My thinking was that the structure might hold some fish. I was right as I got bites from the off but the buoys turned out to be a marker of some rather rough ground and every time I struck the lead caught up on the way in and it wasn't long before I got terminally caught up and a rig got lost. It didn't take long for the second rod to snag up and lose another rig. So with time ticking away rather than move I cast out a couple of new rigs much closer in not far off the breaking waves and discovered something I stupidly never knew was there; when the tide is at it's lowest point the waves still pound the beach and scour out a trench which turned out to be full of fish. In two hours fishing in this low tide trench I added three pouting, a whiting , two more codling and two very aggressive bass all on rag worm. The bites came one after another and it didn't take long for me to run out of bait.

Angry bass

Cod hand Luke

This short afternoon jaunt filled me with confidence for the beach, especially when I was reeling in one of the small pouting and the rod took a sudden bang as a much larger fish snatched it on the way in.

Day 4

Pakefield beach
flood tide
I couldn't wait to get back to the beach the next evening for a few hours, but unbeknownst to me something had changed. I set up further up the beach to avoid the snaggy area and knowing there were some bigger fish around I put out a rod baited with squid on a running rig and one with a whiting rig on baited with rag worm to get some instant bites.  After ten minutes my squid rod thumped over and in a major flap I struck into some resistance. At first I thought it was an eel but soon realised I had bagged my first starry smooth hound of about one pound which was quickly followed by two more. By now I was thinking that a night of this would be great fun, but as soon as they started biting they moved on and my friends, the east coast pouting association, turned up again as I bagged three more of these hungry buggers.

The Lone Gunman on day trip to the beach catches small shark

Does anyone know any good grassy knolls round here?

Pouting #?

About half way through this session a local sea fishing club turned up down the beach for their mid week evening match. The last bloke along, a rather weather beaten old fella came over and had a chat with me before the match started and explained about the rough ground down the beach "argh ye wee call thaat death alley. it's where a uld chuurch fell into the sea yars ago. thars raacks the suize ave fraadge freezurs in thar" which went some way to explaining my lost gear the previous night and amused me all the way home.

Day 5
Lowestoft harbour wall
low/flood tide
I dragged my lazy ass out of bed at 5.30am with a very muzzy head from consumption of the local vino to get down the harbor for an early one. The day before I had purchased a fresh batch of bait as the old stuff was beginning to stink. This proved to be a good move as there were plenty of fish in residence.
My first positive bite produced a small smooth hound which was followed by a micro dog fish. After this it turned into a very busy session with bites coming on both rods. A shoal of smooth hounds passed through and I added two more in quick succession as well as another codling and a whiting.

Giant man attacks young pup!

Mr Whiting

The best was still to come when my squid rod lurched forward and the butt lifted clean off the ground. For the first time there was some weight to the fish, which combined with the six ounce lead and a swelling sea made for an interesting fight. After winching it twenty plus feet up the wall I finally got my hands on the biggest fish I have caught in the sea yet a 4lb dog fish. After this the only other fish to nibble were my old friends the pouting.

Not exactly jaws but the biggest of the week

Day 5
Pakefield beach
flood tide
We had intended to spend the afternoon in the pub sampling the local brews. But upon arriving we city folk were shocked to find that in the off season the pub closed from two until seven like pubs used to before twenty four hour drinking came in. I will say at this point that I offered Jacky the opportunity to do many of the wonderful pastimes a UK holiday offers such as shopping at Asda or visiting a local attraction. But when the words "why don't you go fishing for a few hours" were uttered from her mouth I suddenly got rather excited. Though before running off whooping I did double check if she was of sound mind, which duly confirmed she wasn't by saying "I will come along. It will be nice to have a few hours on the beach whilst you fish". Five minutes later I was standing by the car hopping from one foot to the other, rods in hand begging her to hurry up. It was nice having Jacky with me and for her comfort whilst I stood facing the sea in a trance she erected the two brolly's from the car boot under my beach rest and sat chuckling away reading Warwick Davis's autobiography like a mad beach pixie. Pakefields resident fish population was nowhere to be seen and out of three trembles a single dab saved me from the dreaded blank.

Local Dab saves midlander from blank

Day 6
Lowestoft harbour
flood tide
I hadn't planned to fish today as the weather forecast was not good and being totally unprepared for any bad weather I didn't fancy get my nuts frozen clean off. But by dinner time the predicted bad weather had not appeared apart from a stiff on shore breeze, With a few valuable rag worm left over and half a box of squid I headed out under the guise of not wanting to waste any expensive bait.
All week the weather had been very kind to me, probably due to mother nature taking pity on this poor midlander who thought it would be fun to go sea fishing. But when I arrived at the harbour the slight ripple of previous days was now 3ft high waves. The locals were out in hordes. After chatting to a few I found out that these conditions often bring the larger fish closer on shore hence the abundance of local sea fishermen. The bites that followed where viscous and one chap landed a nice bass of around four pounds near the beach end of the wall. I missed two savage bites on whole squid then converted my third into smooth hound of two pounds (sorry no pic) before the sea calmed and the bites stopped. Whilst eeking out my bait I caught two pin whiting and two more pouting.

My second attempt at sea fishing as far as I am concerned went very well. The new knowledge learnt from both my own experiences and from local anglers/tackle shops as the week passed proved invaluable to my success.
Though I now know sea anglers really don't have it easy! When we have those windy days that we all moan about they have force ten gales, which after a few years of regular sea fishing can make a young man look very old, something I found to be true whilst chatting to a local angler who for some reason during a conversation confirmed he was the same age as me, 32 when he looked to be close to fifty two!
We all complain when we can't get a swim feeder to hold in a flooded river, whereas they get tides travelling in all directions all the time with the force of entire oceans and planets causing it.
Spending even a few hours hurling out 4-8oz leads using a rod as thick as broom stick with 20lb line and a 60lb stock leader plus bait into the wind is knackering, and reeling them back with a mass of seaweed whilst the tide is intent on pulling out to sea is a job in itself.
Up until know I thought that some of the baits I normally use are a bit pongy, but the baits used in sea fishing have a stink all of there own that is still lingering on my hands now, a fact Jacky and our car will both vouch for.
Rag worms are the single meanest mothers I have ever tried to impale on a hook and they cost a fortune at £4-£5 per hundred grams which is not  loads either. Squid though cheap is basically useless once it starts to hum, and crabs which though weren't around in any numbers can strip a carefully prepared bait in minutes, leaving you staring at a motionless rod tip thinking why aren't I getting any bites.

   This huge specimen was the angriest bar far and nipped me twice before he was finally hurled into the brine.......

But the one thing I can say with some certainty is that I love it and can't wait to return to the ever moving sea to have another go some time later this year!