COD ACCUMULATIVE TOTAL = 4
First sailing, and out with regulars Mitch, Dex, Max and David. Another lovely morning, although more of a breeze than expected. And such a different morning from the previous one. Whereas yesterday we didnt see any bait fish and hardly any mackerel, it was instantly difficult to get the lure through them to the predators beneath them. Mackerel do like playing "pass the Axia Mighty minnow" it seems. But of course, when lots of bait around, bass numbers are up.
We were mostly finding smaller fish. It took a move to much heavier ground in shallower water before the table fish came to play, and from the 23 bass landed, we killed just four if my memory is correct. 0600 this morning seems like a lifetime away by the time I come to write about it. What I do distinctly remember was the two cod we caught. One to me, one to Mitch. These fish arrive inshore quite thin, but fatten up quickly on the crabs they have come to munch upon. Currently slender and 3-4lb, a month from now they will be fattened 4-6lb fish.
Second sailing, and it was my pleasure to welcome back as a group, Martin, Steve and Andy, who were joined by Marc to make up the full boat. Fishing on this session was far less hectic, and no cod were landed. But of the 9 fish landed, six were killed for the table with much better quality fish found. Stacks of mackerel also still remained. And we finished on the bulk of the quality fish, which meant that for the third sailing where we swapped Marc for new to BIF1 Misha. Heading out, it did look a bit grey down where we were headed.
We were only half way to the spot when the wind freshened significantly. Reading the clouds, it was obvious that this was going to turn into something nasty. I hovered a bit, trying to see which direction it was going, but came to the conclusion it was coming straight at us. I informed the guys that we were returning to port, where we would grab coffee in the yacht club and wait for this nastiness to pass. Quite glad we did. Intensely heavy rain, complete with thunder and lightning, which went on for thirty minutes. And then the sun came out.
We left the yacht club (great coffee btw) and headed off onto the once more calm seas. With a hint of sunshine, I was feeling quite smug at making what had turned out to be an excellent call. About this time, I spotted the next lot. We debated which way it was going, and we all decided, prompted by landing a few bass including a tidy one, it was going to miss us. It really did look like it would as well, until the whole system picked up a new breeze and raced straight at us.
As the first rain fell, the first flashes of lightning happened. Hoping I could beat the worst of it, I discovered that thunder storms travel a lot quicker than 22 knots. We got smashed by it, and totally soaked, while running for port. Session abandoned.
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