Not a fishing trip, but a few hours lure fishing was sneaked in. In deepest Devon for a few days, was walking the coastal path with Mrs Essex Scribbler and when we stopped to admire the view and have a drink I stumbled across a telescopic rod and a few lures in the rucksack. What a lucky find.
A 3" stick worm was set up on a Texas rig and less than five minutes later the first wrasse of the day was on the rocks. Fun on a light spinning rod.
A decent pollack quickly followed and we continued the walk, occasionally stopping for a few casts every now and again. Well, every few hundred yards actually. It would be rude to go all that way without having a fish though, wouldn't it ?
Moved on to North Devon, near Lynmouth. In Lynmouth itself there were hoards of coffin dodgers and we were probably the youngest people in the town by about 20 years ( well, it felt like it ). The fine specimen below was slightly different from most of the pensioners in the town. This was an Essex version of the coffin dodger.
About 70 years old, resplendent in teenager's hoodie, with a print of two dragons on the back, a pair of hideous nylon joggers, white trainers, obligatory gold chain, dyed blonde hair, smoking a fag and telling his mate he was "Takin' a bleedin' liberty". Class.
Visited Slapton Sands for the first time in about 30+ years. What a beach. Decent weather and a great trip all round.
Had a few more bass on surface lures in the river, nothing big, but a nice way of spending a summer evening, especially with the fantastic weather we're (still) having. Another lovely day today, wandered down for an hour and met a couple of blokes I regularly see lure fishing.
Spent most of the time chatting, but managed to wangle a schoolie before leaving at sunset.
Anyone know what this is ?
Someone said a sea squirt colony. I don't think so. Nothing happens when to squeeze or stand on them.
They are found at the low water mark in the Stour estuary. About as big as a your fist, maybe a bit bigger. They feel "dry" to the touch and are firm.
Had a quick hour long session down the river yesterday trying for a bass on a surface lure. As I arrived a mate was just starting, although the tide was at dead low water and was yet to start to flow.
A few minutes into the flood and Guy had a decent fish on which came adrift. I almost immediately had a take, but the fish missed as it swirled at the lure, several times. Guy hooked another fish which, surprisingly, turned out to be a garfish. A long way upriver too.
Just before dusk a fish engulfed the lure with a big crash and I was into my first bass on a surface lure. Not a big fish by any means, about a pound and a half, but well pleased.
Well, for a few hours anyway. In Finland with customers who wanted to visit our factory.
"Do you want a traditional Finnish sauna, sitting around in the nude with blokes you don't know, then jump into an ice cold lake or do you want to go pike fishing on a state of the art boat with ice cold beers in the cooler ? " I said. A slightly loaded question perhaps, but they made the correct decision.
They'd never fished before, so I left the skipper to sort them out whilst I got down to fishing ( you've got to be ruthless ). It was warm, sunny, great scenery and it certainly beat proper work. Ended up with a couple of jack pike and a decent perch.There are worse ways of spending an afternoon.
Finished the day on the 18 th floor of a Helsinki hotel drinking cocktails. All in the name of improving customer relations. The sacrifices I make for the sake of the company, eh ?
We like making things difficult for ourselves, don't we ? I know that I could go down to the Stour,Colne or Blackwater estuary with a few ragworm and my floatfishing gear and catch several bass on a half reasonable tide.
To make things more challanging I've been trying to catch them on lures. Which wouldn't be particularly difficult in some other parts of the country where the water is generally clearer, but so far I've struggled around here (struggled = failed).
Lovely evening last night though, T shirt and shorts weather until 10 in the evening. Not a touch though.
Just back from a fantastic family holiday in Devon, where the sun shone every day for a week. You won't get anywhere better in the world when you're fortunate enough to have that kind of weather.
I managed to get out fishing most mornings and evenings for an hour or two, armed with a little spinning rod and a few lures. I fished several different rock marks, all within five minutes of the cottage and each trip yielded wrasse and pollack, with lots of missed takes. Over the course of the week I had 35-40 fish, with the three best wrasse going over 4lb, plus a few nice pollack.
On the second morning I fished I had six takes in the first six casts, four of which resulted in fish, the biggest being a wrasse of 4lb 6oz.
All the fish came on 3 or 4 inch stick baits, hooked Texas style, twitched across the bottom. The most difficult thing was hitting the bites, with probably 60 to 80% being missed. Plenty of cursing and jumping up and down in frustration ensued !
The water was incredibly clear, especially to someone used to the murky North Sea. How I wish we had fishing like that round here.
Sitting on the rocks in shorts and T shirt, warm sun on my back, catching plenty fish on light gear, not a soul in sight. Unbeatable. Catching whiting whilst freezing your nuts off in November doesn't really compare !
A busy month or two, with lots of different things kicking off in quick succession.
The first weekend in June was spent walking the Oxfam Trailtrekker 100 km in The Yorkshire Dales. What a fantastic weekend it was too, if you want read more guff about it, see thestrollingbones.blogspot.co.uk .
The Friday afterwards me and The Turdster were off for a week fishing in Ireland, on the Beara Peninsula. We stayed at a great place in Adrigole, called Drumagowlane House, run by Paul and Anne Harris. Paul is a keen angler and showed us round when we arrived, albeit with the warning that the fishing had been "patchy". That's fishing talk for "crap".
What a place, absolutely beautiful, so many different places to fish. Being on a peninsula, you could usually get out of the wind somewhere, whatever direction it was blowing. The first two days we had warm, sunny weather with barely a breath of wind, not what you expect in Ireland..
We enjoyed the weather, but struggled to catch much, until The Turdster managed a few pollack on the second day, spinning with soft plastics mounted "Texas" style, fished amongst the rock and kelp. I missed a few takes and had one fish take right under the rod tip, but The Turdster took the honours and added to his tally later in the day. Still, you can't complain, fishing in the sun, in the arse end of nowhere, in gorgeous scenery with not another soul about, can you ?
Day three and the weather changed totally, with rain and wind. That's more like what we were expecting. A different mark, where we got soaked and caught just a few doggies and spirits were a little low. However. after a hot meal and a few drinks we were keen to give another mark a crack in the morning.
Yes, it looks sunny, but I only took photos when it stopped raining ! We started catching the inevitable doggies and after a couple of hours I had a slack liner, which looked a bit more promising. Pulling in to the fish it was clear that this was probably not another doggie. I'd got the fish to the edge of the rocks when I caught a glimpse of a fair sized bull huss, just as it was shaking it's head and seconds later the bastard had spat the hook out. "Oh dear", I said.....or something similar.
I re cast and half an hour later another similar bite. Unfortunately, a huge lump of weed had caught round the line, so the fish failed to put up much of a fight. That said, it was a decent huss of 8lb 8oz. That's more like it.
We fished on, expecting more huss, but things went quiet until The Turdster, who had nodded off, was awoken by the sound of his rod crashing to the floor as a fish pulled it from the tripod. To add insult to injury, by the time he reached the rod the fish had gone. A few more doggies followed before we packed up and went into town for much needed food and drink.
The next day dawned with heavy rain and high winds. The winds we could cope with, as we selected a mark on the sheltered side of the peninsula. We headed for Cod's Head, a remote point on the north side. It looked great, but was quite frankly unfishable, with extremely slippery, jagged rocks everywhere. Or at least everywhere we looked. We tried another mark, lost loads of gear, almost went arse over head several times and had a bit of a row. In between this I managed to catch a nice 4lb pollack on light spinning gear, before being absolutely drenched on the way back to the car. Not the best session ever.
It was only midday, so we went back, changed our sodden clothes and headed to "DOD Pier", a venue that was sheltered, safe and totally uninspiring. As we approached the turn for DOD I carried on and asked The Turdster if he fancied a trip to Dursey Island, at the very western most point of the peninsular. The roads got smaller and narrower the further we went, this really was the wild west. Arriving at Dursey, the rain had stopped and we stared across Dursey Sound towards the island, "What's that?" the eagle eyed Turdster said. We were looking at a huge basking shark, working it's way lazily along the channel. We watched it for five or ten minutes before it disappeared. An amazing sight and something I hadn't seen for over 30 years, since I saw them as a kid on holiday in Cornwall.
On the way back we stopped off at Dunboy Castle and as the rain had stopped, decided to have a quick session after conger. It didn't take long and I was into one, not massive, but my first shore caught conger. A few minutes later and The Turdster had one too. Happy days.
As we sat watching the rod tips we noticed a big black football shaped thing on the surface, about 50 yards off the rocks. It wasn't moving. "If it disappears, it's alive" The Turdster profoundly said. It did move and re surfaced several hundred yards out, this time with both fins out of the water. Another basking shark. We asked Paul at the B+B how many times he sees them a year ? Once or twice he said. What are the chances of us seeing two in a day in two different places ? We'd been very lucky.
The last day and we decided to go back to Dunboy, mainly because it was the most comfortable and probably the most beautiful place we'd fished. The Turdster totally outfished me, me having one inevitable dog and him having four conger and a decent pollack. A good time was had though, sitting in the sun, wondering why the feck I couldn't get a bite, while a total noddy was catching with ease ! I didn't really care, though, honest.
Turdster celebrating his success doing The Turdster Stomp.
Then it was time for the long trip back home. And it's always further on the way back.
Neil Young - O2 Arena - 17 June
It had been a couple of years since Neil Young had played in the UK. I'd seen him on the previous two UK tours and as both gigs had been as good as anything I'd ever seen, I immediately bought a couple of tickets when they went on sale in January.
Goozgog was surgically removed from his hermit like existence in Capel and ventured into The Big Smoke with me early Monday evening, wondering if we would be treated to another memorable night.
The gig was opened with a blistering version of "Love and Only Love" and thereafter the guitars shrieked, wailed and bled into the most glorious noise you'll ever hear. He was fanfeckingtastic. And that, as Forest Gump said, is all I've got to say about that.
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