When the wind's in the east..

I'd promised a friend that I'd take her boy Jed, he's a good lad and about the right age to start fishing. Aidan just isn't interested yet, though he's got plenty of time. Anyway we fished down at Bacton early this morning, and here's how we did..

I'd been reading on an Irish sea fishing site about this guy who does all his fishing based around the phase of the moon. He'd collated loads of data and his catches have been impressive, I wanted to test his theories on the east coast of England to see if there was much difference between here and the southwest tip of Ireland. Taking our friends son would give me the excuse to test some of the theory.

Today down at Bacton high water was at around 06:00, moon set was at 06:34 and sunrise at 07:38. This probably means more to Mystic Meg than any of us, but this Irish guy reckons they are feeding triggers, and the closer they are together (along with moon rise and sunset) then the better the chances of a few fish feeding. It's all very high level, hypothetical stuff but there is some common sense in there and they are just more variables for us to weigh up when we're planning a session. The sea looked OK, the wind had been ENE for a day or two and it had scruffied it up a bit, but as day broke it was obvious there wasn't much colour in it, still in it to win it and all that.

Looks ok doesn't it, next to no colour in it though.

Me and Jed met Steve and his daughter Megan down at Bacton a little after 6 to fish the ebb until 10ish which would be long enough to prove if there was any weight to the theory when applied locally. I set Jed up with my flatty rod coupled with a shimano fixed spool loaded with braid, I fished with my standard beach kit.

I hate fishing with braid, well not really hate it but it can be so frustrating. Rod wrenching bites can often turn out to be pouts or whiting and if you're fishing at distance with braid it doesn't take much pressure on the line to dislodge the lead. Anyway we both watched the braid rod bouncing around in the rest as every mortal thing in the sea took a nibble, my kit stayed motionless. After missing every bite registered on the braid rod, I wound in my motionless kit to find a kamikaze whiting hung on the end. Jed wanted a photo, so before the whiting went back I duly obliged.

His first fish out of the sea, glad it was a whiting and not a 10lb cod, where do you go after a 10lb cod?

To say it was slow is understating the fact, I never expect to do too well when there's a lot of east on but I thought we'd get a few bits, especially given the mystic meg predictions. I finally had a bite I could see and a school bass around 12oz is heading back after I'd shown Jed the spikes. I felt a bit for Jed, all he wanted was a fish of some description on his rod, we'd seen bite after bite but couldn't connect. I think a lot of the time they are small fish ragging the bait out and the properties of the braid make you feel like you're missing monsters. It had to happen eventually, another rod thumping bite, Jed didn't want to reel it in as he didn't want to miss it, so I picked up the rod, waited to make sure i could feel the fish then wound in a flounder around 8oz.

At last! Jed was over the moon with this flounder, what it's all about really.

Another photo of a very happy boy and we use the bait up without troubling the fish stocks anymore. Steve and Megan had struggled with frozen blacks, to be fair if it's going to be a struggle with fresh worm you're on a hiding to nothing with frozen.

I enjoyed the short session this morning and I'm hoping to go with Steve on tomorrow nights tide, maybe somewhere different, as for Jed I reckon he's hooked. I'd certainly take him again, he's keen to learn and takes in what you're saying. I was very impressed with his knowledge of birds (feathered you Muppets), I think he's 10 and pointed out a Curlew and a Wheatear, good old boy. As for the feed triggers, I don't think today was a fair trial, in my experience not much can compete with a horrible easterly, I'll keep trying though.