Gypsys at Bacton..

I'll be honest after the Thursday evening bash I wasn't sure what Saturday night would bring. The sea had died a sudden death and there was barely a ripple, still at least the breeze was warm...

John and Jenny pitched up on Wednesday, literally pitched up. I got home from work Wednesday evening to find the front yard looking like a trailer park. Actually it worked quite well, they hooked into my electrics in the garage and sorted themselves out.

As long as they don't rustle horses and sell "charms" door to door I'll be happy!

I had hoped to have another go for a local ray, but to be honest there was just a little too much sea on and Thursday / Fridays ENE wind had probably cooled it too much to have a real chance. So the plans were changed to fish crab for bass and anything else that we could winkle out at one of our favourite bass beaches.

Me and uncle John met Karl at Cart Gap around 1930, we'd fish the last couple of the flood and the first of the ebb. I was surprised to see so much sand on the beach, Walcott just up the road is still missing a few feet but Cart gap, Eccles and southwards seem to build up quick after storms, probably to do with the reefs at Sea Palling? Whatever it is, what it does is leave a nice deep gulley not far off the ends of the groins and a prominent bank the seaward side of the gulley.

What is the attraction of jet skiing? The things just skim around the sea deafening everybody. Thankfully the 2 that were there when we got there were just leaving, even so we decided to fish the bay to the right of the slip hoping that it had been less disturbed. Karl was first away with a codling 38cm, above the size limit of 35cm but who takes fish that small? There was a hell of a lot of tide and we seemed to get two floods. Usually the tide eases around the top of the tide, what it did was ease around an hour before the top like normal then went like a train again at high water. When I say it went like a train, I mean it, it hammered through. I had my normal beach kit and a light rod with fixed spool and 50lb braid, I couldn't hold bottom with the braid rod. I've experienced funny tides at places like the Solent but its the first time I've really noticed it go like that here.

I'd spoken to Pete in the morning and we'd spoken about Orford. Pete was due to fish the SAMF match there this weekend but decided against it, I think only around 35 fished it in the end. I think 15lb was winning from day 1, not great after recent pleasure reports. PK and Johnny had shared 20 codling to 4.5lb and smuts and dogs, I thought you'd need at least 80lb over the two days to frame, still we'll hear soon enough what wins it. Sorry I digress, we'd spoken about the few smuts that had shown up on the island and I said I'd had a pup early April last year and that I thought we'd have a chance tonight. We had top quality crab bait, a calm evening some colour in the sea and a warm SE breeze, if there were any about they'd feed in that I thought.

Where's your daddy? My first smut of the year all 6oz of it.

It seemd they were about, although we never had one above 1lb there were certainly a few about, I think between me and Karl we shared around a dozen, mostly starry's. Strangely uncle John couldn't seem to connect with the smuts though he did manage a twin of Karl's first codling.

Papa Smurf with a 1lb codling, he thinks sea fishing is easy, you just turn up lob it out and wind in fish, if he only knew...

I lost a good fish between the steady stream of puppy smuts and bits, if there were any better smoothounds there I don't think they got a look in, the kids were on the bait before they had a chance. Do you think he looks like Pocahontas?

Pocahontas with smuts instead of pony tails. Big chief Borofan about to return one of mine with one of his, he was at pains to point out his was bigger than mine, obviously compensating I reckoned.

It was a cracking night to be out, if this is global warming, bring it on I say. All this talk of leaving a legacy for our children and our childrens children. Fair enough for our children but not our childrens children, our children shouldn't be having children for fecks sake. Back to the fishing, there were quiet spells over high water and after a couple of hours of the ebb. John and me had just decided to make our last cast when Karl had another smut, followed quick style by a 3lb bass.

The effort that goes into that scowl has to been seen to be believed. Chunky monkey bass though, the nice ones I've seen this year look like they've been working out, usually early season fish are a bit baggy, obviously lots of food out there.

So with that sudden flurry, uncle John and me had one more chuck. Not 5 minutes in and my rod hooped forward then sprang back. I picked up and wound down to a steady head thumping weight, codling I was certain of it. No problems on a 3/0, 2/0 pennel I thought, I was trying to remember if we had any potatoes in for chipping, that was until all went light just behind the surf, horlicks. Karl never had another bite and as I was tackling my gear down uncle John had a suicide bite that I thought looked like a schooly bite. He picked up and wound down to a steady weight and soon enough a nice (is there such a thing?) doggie was soon beached.

A fine end to a fine night, a reasonable dogfish for uncle John.

It was a nice night, I fished like a muppet losing a couple of fish and missing some bites but it was a nice social session. Between us we managed five different species, uncle John has four fish and three different species for his first two proper sea fishing sessions so he's gone home to Lincolnshire happy. Aunty Jenny had a great time playing with young Aitch, he's taken a real shine to her and is looking forward to them coming back later in the year, he wants to stop in the "cav". I'm going again tonight with Karl and Pete, don't know where yet, but I'll update in due course.