Me Karl and Johnny fished Trimingham last night. We've had two days of wind with North in and it was borderline unfishable, couple that with a fair old tide running and it was hard going. You could hold out in it but loose weed in the surf was a pain also. Still surprised none of us had a bite, bait came back like it went out, I should think it'll fish ok from now until the weekend. The wind is forecast to go SW which will take the lump off but leave the colour, weed could be a problem though.

A few of the lads have some tentative plans for an away day this weekend, unfortunately I have prior commitments. If they go I'll get them to take some pictures and ask Karl to write a few words. 

I got back from Spain on Thursday, checked my phone and emails and it didn't look like I'd missed much. PK had been having some decent sessions on the local rivers helped by the colour the rains have brought, I think I'll have a session with him over the next week or two. Pete had a lure caught double figure bass on the shingle, but apart from that there'd only been a few smuts caught and a few sole further south. The forecast looked ok for the sole bash and with a few showing around Lowestoft and Southwold I fancied my chances of a few flatties.

At 75cm's and 10lb 2oz, it's Pete's biggest lure caught bass. He got all orgasmic when he talked me through the scrap! The proper way to catch them and the sport well and truly maximised.

Some of the Leader lines regular contributors hold a sole bash and bbq every year down at Southwold, just a bit of a fun knock up really and a social. I'd arranged to travel with Karl, I'd to be at his house for 1530 to get us to Southwold for around 1700. The honourable Abbott was bringing my lug all I had to do was pick some rag up from Bright's in the morning and tie up a few rigs before making my way to Karl's.

I love fishing for sole, I love eating sole add to that there would be food and drink at the meet and I didn't need too much persuading to fish. Nobby and Smudge were working, PK and Johnny were doing other things. Pete and Trev were talking about fishing for proper fish at Chapel St Leonards in Lincolnshire, they've been getting plenty of smuts and a fair few rays up there.

I got to his for 1530 and within a few minutes we were on our way to Southwold. An uneventful journey with the exception of the mystery traffic jam. Just after the A11 junction of the A47 we found ourselves stuck or rather stood in traffic. A good 30 or 40 minutes of barely moving then we can move and there's no sign of an accident or any other reason for the hold up. Doesn't take much to get Karl wound up, you can imagine the rest of the journey from then, every tractor and caravan got the treatment and heaven help you if you were a little old lady out for an afternoon drive.

We got to the meeting point at the end of the North car park just after 1700, a few of the others were already there and we were quickly followed by the Honourable Abbott and the two Barry's. Southwold is a busy place, especially in the summer holidays, so we made our way along the wall further north, not as far as the wall end and the cliffs but far enough to get to a quietish spot. The bbq was set up in the middle, me and Karl fished the next bay to the north and everybody else filled in either side of the bbq.

I'd had some reliable information on how it had fished from a week earlier, Pete and Trev had managed a few and Pete had told me they were ridiculously close in, 15 yards he reckoned. That'd be a novelty, our out rods would be around 40/50 yards and are inside rods around 15/20 out. First chuck and Genocide manages a whiting, 1-0 to the northern lump.

He was actually giggling like a girl just before this picture, I don't know how he goes from that to straight faced.

I managed a poor cod just after his whiting then his close in rod went loopy. We all know braid magnifies the bites but it was a good old whack forward and springing back straight, line laid up the beach, full on slackliner. He reckoned a schoolie I reckoned a sole, the number of times i'd had slackliners off sole, hard biting little buggers they are. A few seconds later and a cracking sole of 35cm is in the bucket, going to slay em we are.

Tea for one sir? Note the "old boy" boom rig.

I was getting murdered. I was ahead if we counted numbers of fish, I'd managed a few pouts, poor cod and a couple of eels, truth is only sole counted really. There'd been a smattering all along the stretch we were fishing, some people managed 5 or 6 but mostly slips. I'd missed a couple of slackliners and was wracking my brain to come up with some decent excuses when I managed one just sizeable right at the death, there is a god. The honourable Abbott won the prize of a bottle of Norfolk poteen for the largest sole with a cracker of nigh on 39cm, some that stayed on and braved the rain managed a few, my old mate Mark Bessey had 4 good ones, pictured below. There's also a few pictures I took below, apologies for anybody that looks ugly, fat or "native" it's a camera not a magic mirror.

The Bessey's sole, nice pan sized fish.

Just to demonstrate how easy it must've been after we left, here's a picture of Aunt Bessey who managed the nice little haul above.

Has anybody seen the original film "The Hills have Eyes"? Mark and Daz, a dark alley wouldn't want to meet them down a well lit street. Mark likes both kinds of music, country and western, his sister's bald too. Mad as a box of frogs the pair of 'em, good sports too.

While I'm thinking of "locals", here's Ms Lawes looking after her banjo plucking hubbies rods, one of the prettier faces seen on the night. I forgot to bring some ABU brake blocks for Andy, he wouldn't need them if he wasn't such a wild animal!

 

She wanted to do her hair, I said I liked the wild, wind swept look. Note to self, don't say that again to a woman who has just come from the hairdressers.

Along with Ms Lawes, there was another pretty face which made a lovely change from the usual "ugly as sin" that we have to endure, here's the lovely Sally. Pedro's doing a little job for me, I'm getting concerned about the cost though, he picked up a pair of new Zippi's on the night, business must be good.

You can see it was a lovely night, even Pedro looks good in the light!

It wouldn't be right not to show the usual suspects cooking, here are the ladies who fed the troops. I'll admit Karl is married to a real woman, he brought this lovely little gas stove to cook on apparently its a standby oven incase of a kitchen failure. Mrs Aitch doesn't know where the kitchen is let alone have contingency plans in place to make sure she can carry on cooking.

Karl, Barry and the Honourable Abbott, that's the way to go fishing. Dan managed to avoid the lens like a pro.

My old mate Porntash was there, I think he managed a sizeable sole too. The saddest thing of the evening was a trawler hauling nets in front of us not a half mile off.

Rog "Porntash" Allerton showing us what he thinks of trawling inside 3 miles

Andy Funnel did quite well, I think he had around a half dozen when we left, mostly small but a couple of keepers.

Andy with a nice flounder and a sole, they must've felt sorry for him, either that or the poor buggers are starving where he was.

Scott fished just up from me and managed the smallest Smut I've ever seen, it must've been this years young and not long off the yolk sac.

Great sport on a Zippi! The manic grin is a permanent feature on this model.

Whilst I'm thinking about Smuts, I got a call a couple of hours into the sole session from Pete. Him and Trev were fishing Chapel St Leonards in Lincs. He felt the need to tell me that after parking the car and walking 20 yards to their pegs, they'd had 3 fish to 9lbs in the first 20 minutes. I hoped the weather would stay settled but the forecast Northerly turned up today and I reckon there's more chance of a codling than a Smut. That's not such a fanciful statement, the last couple of years has seen sizeable codling locally in summer, all we needed was a good northerly blow. I took the dog for a walk after sunday lunch today down at Cart Gap, good sea on the colour of galaxy chocolate and no chance of a smut until it calms and clears a bit, don't be surprised to see codling caught though..

Cod Ahoy!

I've finished work now for a while and me and Mrs Aitch had arranged to go out with friends for something to eat, a few pints and watch a band. Unfortunately Mrs Aitch has been quite poorly so we never got out, it did though give me a chance to take the old man down to Bacton to waste a couple of hours.

We got set up around 1900, there was already a couple of guys on the beach by the slip fishing worm, they'd had a couple of flounders and an eel. We'd just be fishing crab and hoping for a smut. Nice conditions, westerly wind and clearish water, and I reckon we had a chance on the ebb.

There was a bit of tide and with it some weed. I couldn't fish as far out as I wanted because of the weed, but found if I dropped it just past the groin ends it was clear. That was the case until an hour into the ebb where I found the tide and weed had eased and I could bang one out where I'd liked to have fished the full session. The smuts me and Smudge had at Trimingham were well out and I figured if there were any here they'd be out just the same. My old man's rod had been fished off the groin ends for the entire session and neither of us had a bite, so it didn't seem to matter if you were in or out.

We packed up and were home just as it got dark, I think the fish are still around I just chose the wrong beach on the right tide, still nice to get a quickie in before I go on holiday. I won't fish now until Southwold sole do on the 28th, which reminds me, I need to sort some bait for that.

A cracking evening at Bacton, nice to spend a couple of hours with the old fella.  

Me and Smudge decided to sneak an afternoon session in and I'm glad I did. The weekend had been a nightmare. I was on nights Friday, Saturday and Sunday which is bad enough in itself, but Mrs Aitch wanted to take a dip in the shallow gene pool that is North Walsham Carnival. So I got up at 1130 Sunday morning, cooked dinner, took Mrs Aitch and Aidan to the Carnival, cooked tea, cut the grass and went off to work for another 12 hour shift. I swear to god if she ever moans she hasn't the time to do something...

I'd been up to Pete's first thing where the lovely Tina had an ice cream tub of crabs waiting for me which I swapped for a ripped bag with two spiders in, trust me it just sounds weird, they were frozen spider peelers I'd brought back from the Jolly's trip. Anyway bait sorted I got back home just in time for Smudge to pick me up. We've been planing a family holiday or rather Mrs Aitch has decided we can go to Spain if I can go on a Jolly Boys trip, so she booked flights, transfers and a villa which sleeps 6. There's only 3 of us? Ah but then my mum and neice are now coming and the mother inlaw! Spare a thought for me and Aidan while we are away on planet eostrogen.

We decided to fish to the right of the slip at Trimingham, only a groin or so but it looked ok and would make a change from going left up to the gaps. It can be a bit snaggy so I'd been told in the past but there was plenty of sand on the beach so hopefully any snaggy bits would be covered. As we looked down towards Heart Attack there's a really nice looking bit of beach where the revetment bends out from Trimingham heading towards Mundesley. The beach is in a corner and never got covered despite it being a biggish tide, the only thing being because you were in a corner it would've been a longer bung to clear the groins and get into the "zone", but still well achievable and a spot i'll try soon.

We got started a little after 1pm, setting up in what turned out to be the last shower of the day. There was a fair bit of tide on the flood but nothing major and some loose weed that again wasn't much of a problem at all, I would think with the high pressure and south / west / southwest breezes forecast this week the colour and the weed will drop out of it. Good news for the mackerel bashers on the shingle and the pier and hopefully there'll be a few hounds back too. I'd said to Pete that I fancied it for a hound or two, it's been warm and settled and the sea was fining down, I reckoned if they were about they'd be about in it today.

We both messed around with crab on one, fish on the other, a black now and again but somehow I found myself just fishing crab as high water approached. Right on the stroke of high water I had a slackliner, which I missed and the bait came back in reasonable nick, eels maybe I dunno, but as I was cleaning that rig there's a repeat performance on the other rod. True to form I missed that one too, I still suspect they were eels though the bites coincided with what tide there was easing.

The very next bung and no gentle slackliner but a thumping pull of the tip that shook the rest. At first I thought it was a bass as there wasn't a mega heavy weight and it often ran towards me. That was until the last 30 yards or so, then all hell breaks loose. I have to back off my drag a bit and find myself walking along the beach a little way, by the time my leaders showing and there's that familiar sawing motion through the surf its obvous it's a smut. Not a big one either just one that was thoroughly pissed off to find itself tethered to an ugly goon like me, either that or it had eaten three shredded wheat! Cracking sport these fish and supposedly good eating, I just think its a shame to eat them when they give you so much fun so after a photo I slip back a starry hound around 5lb.

Apologies for the photo quality, I'd left my camera at home so this was taken by my care in the comunity project on his mobile phone, still a nice starry around 5lb.

The honourable Abbott among others reckon I'll eat anything, including road kill, but great sporting fish like these deserve a bit of respect. I feel the same about bass so instead of just filleting and frying like you would for cod I do them differently, I get all Gordon Ramsay on their ass, I reckon they deserve it. Back to the fishing, my nice little starry was followed within a couple of minutes by a common, contradiction in terms really because I always seem to catch more starry's than commons, anyway a little smaller probably around the 4lb mark.

A common around 4lb. I actually said to Smudge I reckoned this was a better fish, what a muppet I turned out to be!

I was getting called all the jam strangling sons of whatsits under the sun by Smudge, who was still biteless, until one of his metalites bent forward and kept going. I swear it must have come as a shock to the rod, I did have a sneaky peak to see if the bending motion from the bite had cracked any of the high build, the rods aren't used to being moved by fish, but all was well and he soon had a nice starry around the same size as my first.

Smudge proving there must have been a shedfull out there, the advantage when your an Oompah Loompah is you make the fish look bigger!

That comment's going to bite my arse! I had another couple of starry's while Smudge went flattie fishing, using all his skill and dexterity he avoided the smuts like an expert and winkled out a flounder around 10oz. All this sport had happened within the first hour and a half of the ebb, I had four and Smudge one and the flounder. It went quiet then for a while as the water was leaving the beach rapidly by now and I honestly thought we'd had all we were going to get, then one of my rods went loopy.

I picked it up and you know its a better fish because there's weight and aggression from the off. A cracking scrap with it ploughing along the beach against the tide, then with it, then trying to run out again, mint. I managed to get it beached the other side of the revetment while Smudge ran round and grabbed it. Easily the best fish of the day and we reckoned it was around the 8lb mark, where's Genocide and his scales when you need him? I've asked him a million times where he got them from, for the sake of £20 we should all carry a set. It's the hardest thing in the world guestimating the weights of fish. The year before last me and the Leg End were calling all the codling we caught 2.5-3lb fish because thats what they were when we started catching them in October, come April and they were well over 4 yet we still called them 2.5-3!

A big old lump of starry and a fine way to end a top session.

So we packed up around 1700, I'd had five smuts, 4 starry and 1 common, and Smudge a starry and a flattie. As we walked back to the car it dawned on me that between 1430 and 1700 I'd had as many smoothounds as I'd had in 5 sessions over 3 days on the jolly boys trip, that's fishing innit. Unfortunately I have to work the rest of this week otherwise I'd be having another pop at them. The forecast is settled and quite warm, just the way they like it, the shingle could be a bit of fun fishing with crab for the smuts and chucking fluff for the macks but I reckon if you can go you should this week and hopefully you'll enjoy a bit of sport too.