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  • 07/12/2014 Fishing Report by mark crame on Cleveland Princess (Lowestoft, Suffolk)

    7 Dec 2014 by mark crame

    Report on-board Cleveland Princess

    Brian took pity on me after loads of shifts and bad weather and persuaded me to persuade my wife to let me come out on weekend...it took a lot of smarming to get the okay but I managed and at half six I got up in darkness, made my sandwiches and energised with a couple of strong coffees I wandered down to the Yacht Club to meet him. It was supposed to be raining but wasn't which was a good sign and with Simon and Mike aboard the four of us headed out to sea. The wind was quite stiff and we couldn't drop anchor in the intended spot so moved to a mark that's been pretty productive of late; it's where I'd been getting my roker and the 6lb cod a few weeks back and though lumpy it was fishable. We were still on the flood and with rods rigged and baits hooked we dropped down and started to fish.

    I had my uptider of course but also a new toy - Fladen have brought out a new and update version of their popular and superb full carbon rods and my 7ft 10-20lb class had arrived a few days previously. I'd christened it with a whiting on Friday on a brief session but it really needed to get codded. The reel seat was a bit too short to take my usual Lever Drag multipliers so I decided, seeing as it's a sensitive rod, to screw on my Maxximus KM10 spinning reel - a small coarse reel it was totally unsuitable for the job of pulling codling up against three knot tides with a pound of lead on but I figured that it'd give me a really good feel for the rod and the fish, especially with the braid that's on there, so with a 4/0 pennel holding a couple of frozen blacks and a ring of unwashed squid from Sam's Baits I dropped it off the stern and let out plenty of line...

    Three minutes! Talk about quick, the rod was nodding away and I started winding it in. I should have greased the reel up a bit more to smooth things out with this workload but it coped admirably and up came the first cod of the day.

    Simon was next up - his first boat trip. Used to catching a lot of pin whiting he wasn't unfamiliar with what came aboard...well, I say next up but I mean next person up - I was on three codling already and we'd been fishing twenty minutes tops; two on the full cabron and one on the uptider with a whole unwashed squid.

    Mike was next, with his first cod of the day

    And then my rod was going again. I was feeling guilty so offered it to Brian so he could have a play with my skinny rod.

    At this point I was streaking ahead. The others all had fresh lug while I was on frozen blacks and this kind of stayed the same throughout the remainder of the flood; I mention this because things reversed totally on the ebb. I think I landed six codling before slack (plus whiting) but only two once it turned, the others catching up at this time and Brian overtaking me. Perhaps it was an anomaly or just where my baits were dropping or perhaps there's something about expected food and tide states? Who knows; but I was having great fun on this setup whatever I caught!

    The sea flattened considerably once the ebb started and the first hour was manic before it went quiet and apart from the odd fish here and there we had to wait until it passed it's peak before the fish came in more steadily and just after three we brought the line sin to make it back through the heads before darkness fell with 28 keeper cod (split evenly between us) measuring 42-48cm in the bucket plus a few decent whiting including a two pounder.

    With Brian driving Mike and I tackled the gutting and the fish were full up, their stomachs bulging. Mostly crab, shrimp and prawn with a few digested fish. One of mine, full and fat, had taken my bait while a six inch whiting was down its throat with the tail still in the mouth; another had a crab around 5 inches across the carapace in its stomach which is the largest crab I've seen in a fish - and this was a 46cm fish so not even a lunker. Another had a sea mouse and a few had lug in them. Back we came as the sun began to set on what felt like my best boat session since the summer before last when we bagged up on thornbacks and hounds...

    A truly great day and a huge tonic to my winter blues - Thanks ever so much Brian and thanks also to Mike and Simon who were a pleasure to spend the day with.

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