I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms when Karl sent me a text on Friday 3rd. Him and the boys had a couple of hundred worms left from Awful Ness and did I want to go with him locally to use them up. High water at Cart Gap would be around 5:15, which would mean getting up at stupid o'clock, fishing over the top and as much of the ebb as bait would allow.

Did I want to go? For the love of god, I feared for my sanity if I didn't. I crawled round Mrs Aitch as my folks were coming over Saturday morning and I promised to be back for around 10am and finally she gave in. I found the following line very useful and will be filed for future use. Me "Your right love, I shouldn't go fishing 'cos mum and dad are coming over, plus we can take advantage and have a long, sexy lie in". Mrs Aitch "You better be back by 10am".

Karl picked me up at 4am, a slice of his cheese and onion flan goes down better than Linda Lovelace, gear loaded and we're off. The sea was dying by the minute but there was enough on to give us a bit of confidence. We fished just to the right of the slipway as we wouldn't be able to get on the beach until an hour or so into the ebb. Doesn't make a deal of difference where we fish really, we'd normally prefer to fish a hundred yards or so to the right of the slip, only to give us some room. Both rods out and the wind backing Southwest I reckoned by dinnertime the sea would be as flat as a witches tit.

First chuck and Karl has a whiting, he wasn't best pleased as he'd seen enough of them the day before on Orford. I had a slackliner and a nice whiting, the biggest I've had off a local beach for a while at around 12/14oz. This was quickly followed by a few more until day started to break and they cleared off.

I don't know what it is but you get an enormous sense of wellbeing just being on the beach at that time of the day, bloody marvellous.

As it ebbed and day broke we started to pick up a few flatties. We've had them before on big hooks, but not in numbers. I finished with a half dozen flatties and Karl had a couple too, all taken on 3/0 pennels. Had we fished size 1 or 1/0 flappers we'd have murdered them.

A flounder and a dab on a 3/0 pennel. Its that time of the year when they get inshore for feeding and breeding, good luck to them. As you can see from my waistline, I only do the feeding.

It was a cracking morning really, the weather was lovely, I could get bites belting it out or dropping it short, and I mean short. We started to get a few schoolies as the tide ebbed further. I had around a half dozen and Karl had a couple too. Mine came off and over the bank and I even managed a couple in the gulley at around 30 yards. Despite the biggest being only 1.5lb its still great fun, the bites off kamikaze 1lb fish are awesome when your fishing close in. I probably did Karl on the day but only because he was burnt out. It was his third day straight, he even had to ask Mrs G to open a can of beer for him because his fingers were sore! Neutrogena will be on his christmas list, effing mincer. All the fish were returned and I was home at 10am, sorted.

I had a text later the same day from one of the Lowestoft boys. Mark Bessey texted and asked if I was fishing, I told him I'd just got back and had just had a good mornings fish. He was really cheesed off, he couldn't go because his wife was on an Elvis Presley trip. Elvis is the only bloke I can think of thats dead and gets haunted by the living, LET HIM LIE FOR FECKS SAKE. Mark did end up taking his boys "shrimping" on the pier, the depths that we'll stoop to just to throw something in the sea! Mark have a word with Mrs Bessey mate, thats some serious brownie points you've earned, make sure you cash them this winter. This coming weekend sees the Lincoln lot descend on Bacton, I'm looking forward to it, hopefully I'll get to fish too and not just be walking up and down a beach baiting up and casting, we'll see. Hopefully I'll get some decent pics. Thanks to Nobby Hall, Steve and Pete for the loan of the tackle.

I see on some of the forums there's been some toing and froing as to whether there should be seperate forums for casters and anglers. Pish. The two things are so interlinked there's room for them both in the same place. I do notice on casting forums fishing gets discussed so in my opinion theres no reason why casting shouldn't get discussed on fishing forums, there's no need for fraying tempers like we've seen recently, just plain daft. Unfortunately the written word often carries no expression so it's sometimes misinterpreted, at the end of the day its just fishing or casting, will everybody please try and have some fun and stop the schoolyard bickering.