Stick pitched up around 930. The plan was we'd have some breakie then sort the chickens out, then go for a couple of hours fishing. Sausage, bacon and egg later and we're ready for the slaughter. 25 chickens to kill, pluck and butcher would take us to around 4 or 5 at least. High Water was around 20:00 at Cromer, so a 5 o'clock finish would allow us enough time for a quick bite then fishing for 6 and a couple hours either side of high.

Now before I get any complaints from tree hugging, animal rights veggies, I'm one of the majority of people that eat meat. I love meat, I raise my own happy, healthy chickens and I eat them. I don't take any perverse pleasure in killing them, I take pleasure from humanely despatching the bird and preparing it for the pot in the same loving way they were raised. So if your easily offended by that sort of thing, feck off now!

He said to me "Do I look gormless?", is a pigs arse pork?

Stick's a butcher by trade and a good sort to boot. We'd spoken before christmas about sorting them out, but obviously it's the busiest time of the year for butchers, so I had to wait until he was free. So after feeding him, we set to work. Cockerels first then the hens, 25 chickens doesn't sound many but when you've got to dry pluck and butcher them its a laborious, dirty, feathery time consuming job. Hell for one man, but for two having a laugh the day soon went.

Ozzy Osbourne eat your heart out.

We finally got done by around 17:00. We'd been on our feet all day and were both pretty shattered, so rather than hang around the house we had a quick bite and shot off down to fish my local beach just behind the gas sites. It's a bit of a walk but can be worth it, there's some worm beds there and a nice pronounced gulley. The outfall pipes from the gas sites don't pump very often if at all these days but they still provide features across the gulleys.

There was a little surf in the edge and the night was as cold as its been so far. There was a damp, cold mist that hung around until high water too which made it very uncomfortable. We never expected to catch too much and we weren't disappointed. I used some frozen blacks and managed a flounder and a codling, Stick had dug some worms on Saturday and they tempted most of the undersize codling. We never had a single whiting surprisingly despite the sea being right for them, and it's nice too see so many juvenile codling. Every fish we had was between 4 and 8oz and they were all chunky little things, lets hope they make it back next year at 2 or 3lb.

Despite the little codling he still looks gormless!

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) should see me out somewhere with Karl and possibly Nobby, I'll ring him in a bit. That will give me an excuse to give the lump a shove about writing something for here, he's promised me and tomorrow will be fresh in his memory! We may do something a bit different, possibly a venue we haven't fished for a while (or before) we'll see.