This is completely about sea fishing - honest it is
If you remember “Bread” with the original Joey, or worse still The Cod War, The Torrie Canyon, broke your wrist with a pair of clackers, fancied Nerys Hughes and recall when people didn’t assume you had a telephone (not “what’s your mobile number?”) you’ll get where I’m coming from when I say that the years fly past faster as you get older.
Angling for me used to mean freshwater.
Sea fishing meant only summer holiday float fishing for billet using homemade floats carved from those packs of assorted balsa wood that hardware stores used to sell, painted up with humbrol paint;
or a mackerel spinning session with a Woolworth’s “Winfield”own brand lure off Whitby’s piers at high (we had no idea that it was even possible to fish off a beach at low)
- or a very rare boat trip off Flamborough Head for which I’d dig out the split cane broom handle of a boat rod and wooden Scarboro’ reel a mate of m’dad’s gave me ( the 2lb of lead I sent the bait down with was no doubt well over the top and the whole plot had to break surface before I‘d any idea if there was fish on the end!)
One year it even meant the pre-A55 trek from Yorkshire to holiday in Kinmel Bay - (and my first ever sighting of mullet at Holyhead -little did I suspect that one day I’d be living in sunny Rhyl
and a short cast away from the house Nery's bought her mum! Whilst the realisation that I live by the sea has led to me becoming obsessed with seafishing the last time I went freshwater fishing my waist measurement was the same size as my inside leg.
That was in the 1970s and since them my legs have mysteriously shortened by 10 inches and Mars Bars aren’t as filling as they used to be either.
How come the 1970s were 30plus years ago and how can people born in 1991 be allowed to drive?
Me with a mullet and a tench at Harlesthorpe Dam, Clowne Nr. Sheffield about 1975.
Anyway another year was in danger of hurtling to a close with me and my kid brother having seen too little of each other but he recently bought me a freshwater rod licence and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse - to see what’s changed in the last 25 -30 years
In fact the single Environment Agency licence was the first change, when I used to coarse fish I had a wallet full of licences purchased in tackle shops , one licence for each water authority catchment area I frequented, Yorkshire, Severn -Trent, Lincolnshire etc the closed seasons varied between them ( and the pubs in Wales were shut on a Sunday!).
Bruv’s nominated venue for this born again experience was Makin’s Fishery, near Coventry
http://www.fisheries.co.uk/makin/index.htm
He wouldn’t tell me when high tide was but after days of building excitement and a night sleepless with anticipation, at the silly o’clock alarm call I pulled on my best camo gear, filled my flask and grabbed a handful of mini Snickers to sustain me on the marathon drive from North Wales to the Midlands for a back to the future 7am rendezvous.in Wolvey.
Waggler floats were still a fairly new idea last time I saw freshwater this close, the height of bankside camping was having a tilting hinge on your green brolly, anglers were just discovering that carbon rods and overhead powerlines don’t mix and and boilies were a fad that couldn’t possibly catch on.
I’ll digress at this point;
some years ago I bought a house which had a koi carp pond , which I re-stocked with native species including a 4inch common carp with rapidly grew to around 14 inches and which would feed like a puppy on pellets from my hand.
When the time came to move house he came too but he had to make do with an indoor tank for a while. One day I decided to try him with boilies. On the first day he took a “strawberry and caramel” boilie from my hand, he seemed pleased with it; on day two he took another, as he did on the third and 4th days.
Then came the weekend tank clean time, and hidden in the gravel behind a lump of rock I found all 4 boilies neatly stashed away !! Never been sure what to make of that, do you reckon he was saving the boilies for a rainy day, or didn’t he want to hurt my feelings? Clever things fish.
Hey little bruv -pass me my tank aeriel rod, intrepid black prince reel, porcupine quill float, bb lead shot and a cube of luncheon meat will ya and I‘ll show you how its done.
I‘ve a few bits and pieces that would be handy pond side but I left my stop shot at home because I wasn’t sure what the situation is now on yer actual lead in freshwater -lead poisoning in waterfowl was only just appearing on the radar last time I cast a size 22 hook (it’s now on some peoples agenda in the sea as well, what‘s the chances that in 25 years time we‘ll be using depleted uranium or something instead))
l’ill bruv was providing most of the (barrow full of) gear, thankfully the car was close to the swim I couldn’t believe the amount of paraphernalia, the gear included such unlikely items as tippex (for marking rig depths on the rod) and marker pens for when black float tips showed better against the water
…Hair rig? A what?
I soon discovered that our kid knows nowt…
- I mean , bruv didn’t even put the carp bait on the hook,
(mmm, do you reckon this could work with mullet?)
Pop-up?
Yeah I know computers mate. I learned ‘em on a Commodore 64 with a rabbit loader
Where’s the rod rings?
Silly boy had paid more for his rod than our parents paid for their first house, but he’s forgotten to whip any rings on and t’ soft lad had also forgotten his reel so he had to connect his rig to the end of his “pole” with bait elastic
(mmm, actually that roach pole could work with sand smelt)
Ever so tiny barbless hooks?
Can’t see the little blighters , where’s my reading glasses? Whilst I was on my knees looking for the answer I asked myself are we humane or are we D.anglers ? -I should consider using these for minis.
The day began with a lesson in pole fishing, I’ve never tried this before, and now I felt like the younger brother, Pete entrusted his “spare” pole to me (all £1,500 pounds worth of it) and within a couple of minutes I’d hooked my first coarse fish in far too many years and my first ever on a pole
That roach is worth £1,500 pound of anybody’s money -well it was to me!
Pete set to work with his main pole (all £2,500 pounds worth of it) unfeasibly long it looked to me like a cross between a drain pipe and a terrorist weapon and began producing roach to half a pound every few seconds
However the main excitement was to be on the feeder rods using sweet corn hair rigs combined with swim feeders loosely filled with soaked green carp pellets, I have to admit to forgetting that I was under a tree a couple of times and snagging up, the only trees I’m used to seeing when I fish are those ancient stumps that sometimes appear from the sand near near Splash Point
The fixed spool was familiar enough but the revelation here was using the reel’s line clip to limit the casting distance and prevent overcasting onto the island so that we could cast accurately within inches of the island margin but not overcastting onto the island..
Mmmm, it wouldn’t work with a 6oz weight on but it has possibilities for seafishing around structures or safe casting in a harbour ( see, I told you this is a sea fishing post!!)
Fishing from dawn to dusk brought in somewhere around ten good sized common and mirror carp (max about 5lb) for me interspaced with (boring by comparison) roach and the odd perch on demand from the pole for a total of about 50lb of fish, whilst Pete took the honours with about 75lb of fish including a ghost carp and an F1 (Whatever that is)
All the carp came ashore on light line and size 18 hooks, neatly lip-hooked and disgorged with just a finger tip press, all hooks were barbless and yet I only lost one fish in the playing (but kept the rig) … makes you think…do I really need barbed hooks for pin whiting?
On reflection I won’t be abandoning the beach in favour of stewpond fishing, in fact I couldn’t resist a walk to Splash Point when I got back (how did you get on Mike and Terry?) but I wouldn’t mind a carp rod for Christmas (might be just the job for the return match when I take bruv down Rhyl harbour and show him what proper man-sized hooks look like).
Mother used to mix up my name with my brother’s, now I keep calling my little bruv by my son’s name
and when I cough, can I hear my grandfather?
And the moral of the story is…
There might well be nothing new under the sun but if you are set in your sea-side ways -be a complete angler, time is precious, don’t overlook fresh ideas, however experienced we are /aren’t we can all learn from others .
and be warned the years get shorter as you get older.
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