Stupid o'clock ray session.

Mrs Aitch reckons I need sectioning, I could’ve told her that when she married me, but she has no idea how addled her brain is going to get when Aidan starts to take an interest too. At work on Saturday I started formulating a plan for a session in the week ahead, unfortunately I couldn’t rope any of my equally mad mates in on it…

The plan was to get up at stupid o’clock, start at around 2am and only use fish baits to try and snare a local ray. I couldn’t understand why none of my fishing mates were up for it? Granted it was likely to be a blank but I reckon you have to try these things. High water at Cromer was 2:40am on Thursday morning, Metcheck gave a warm, settled spell of weather which would hopefully deposit some of the sand back on the beaches lost in recent storms. I hoped it would also encourage some fish into the warming shallow water to feed on the crabs, sand eels and shrimp that would no doubt be out in force in those conditions.

I thought about getting some worm as well, but to be honest I knew if I did I’d end up fishing with worm properly and not giving the fish baits the hard go they deserve. I have an old book with pictures of an even older mate of PK’s (no not all his mates are old!) with good bags of rays from off my local beaches. The guy’s long gone but Fred Williams is still a local legend. He’d had roker to 23lb and bags of several fish in many sessions from off my local beaches. PK remembers him well, he lived at Yarmouth and Paul was out fishing the south beach when his lamp failed. Fred leant Paul a lamp so he could fish, after the session Paul dropped the lamp back round on Fred’s doorstep along with a couple of cod around the 8lb mark as a thanks for the loan of the lamp. The next time Fred saw Paul he said “Blust boy, must’ve been a big tide the other night, it washed a couple of nice cod and a lamp up on my doorstep!” Thankfully there are still colourful characters like Fred leaving their mark on the rest of us.

Right nostalgia done with, I reasoned that if I didn’t catch a ray I would at least have a chance with a doggie or two. I also thought that fishing with fish baits might earn me a nice edible crab or two for the pot, I couldn’t fail! I didn't count on how hard it would be to get out of bed at 1am, christ it was hard but I managed it. On the beach by 130, not a breath of wind and hardly a need for an overcoat, the sea was as flat as a witches tit and it looked promising. I sent the first rod out loaded with sand eel and started to set the other up.

Plenty of elastic hoping to keep the vermin at bay a bit!

I loaded the second rod with a good old lump of herring, this used to be the bait favoured by the old hands when ray fishing here. The stuff I had wasn't the best, I got it from Latham's but it would have to do. My mates call me the cannibal as I'll eat anything, several times through the winter I bought fresh herrings for freezing down off the local longshore fishermen, trouble is they looked so good I ate them! I put the second rod in the rest and poured a coffee, almost as soon as I'd finished pouring my drink, the eel rod lurched forward before straightening up. I'll be honest I never expected to see more than crabs knocking the rod tips but that was a proper bite! I downed the drink, picked up the rod and wound in the dead weight of a little doggie. I hadn't blanked and figured if there were a few of them about they would at least keep the interest going while I waited for a ray.

Must have been hell of a shock for this little fella seeing me at 2am, but he gave me a bit of hope and confidence bless him.

I'd planned to fish eel on one rod and herring on the other, I'd also brought a couple of peelers, but hoped not to use them. I fired another eel out into the night and wound in the herring or rather the elastic that the crabs hadn't eaten, rebaited and out it went. Same scenario, cuppa, bite and a bigger dog around 1.5lb. Shit the bed the poor old rays wouldn't get a chance! If the crabs weren't robbing the bait then the doggies would be.

Two chucks and two doggies on sand eel, I was pleased of the fish but started to think they may become a problem if I couldn't fish a bait long enough for a ray. Both of the fish were on the top hook of the pennel, going for the tail?

I then missed two bites, one was a proper clonking bite on herring, different to the two earlier slackies, then all went quiet for a couple of hours before two more doggies, this time both on herring. I find the ebb generally fishes best at Walcott and Bacton but who knows when or if fish will show, I mean they don't read the tide tables and watch clocks do they? It wasn't a mega succesful session but there was enough in it to make me think it was worthwhile. It's not as if I'm missing out elsewhere, there's only odd codling and a few schoolies about at the minute so four fish and a few missed bites, bait that's as cheap as chips compared to lug or crab, and it starts to feel like a good session.

Its no hardship sitting out until daybreak, not in my back yard anyway.

I'm going to have another go tonight, this time Karl's joining me. We'll take some crabs to supplement the fish bait and i'll write something up, hopefully we'll see a ray, Karl has the knack with them, spawny sod!

Well we went and fished North Gap this evening, only for a few hours. The wind had gotten up a little bit and what there was came from the Northeast, not good for this type of fishing round here. We had a bite each and I had a doggie, Karl is a complete blanker...