Everything !!

The real beauty of sea fishing is that you never know what is coming next.

All day at work I was struggling to keep my mind on the job. Riding into to Sandsend today I could see the water was crystal clear and there was not a breath of wind, all I wanted to do was be out there on the yak.

Half four came round and I was keen to get out there, I spent 30 minutes at the angling festival weigh in and then went to get my kayaks from deanos who had been fitting me a steel plate to the area where I holed the yak 2 weeks ago.

Kayak on the roof I headed for Upgang, the plan of action was to try for codlings in Upgang and if they didnt materialise then I would paddle over to the bell bouy and try there.

I wasnt sure what to expect as fishing recently had been poor and my last session on Wednesday night had all but ended in a blank, except for a few small codlings, and by small I mean undersized.

What was in my mind was the comments from Rich Ward earlier in the week about the fishing being very poor and someone elses comment about the north sea being dead.

The nagging question in my head was "would there be any fish tonight". well you never know what is coming next and the only way to find out is to give it a go.

Paddling out across the rough ground, the first thing that struck me was the clarity of the water, certainly the first time id seen the bottom of the sea for this season.

Also I soon noticed masses of spratts and baby sandeels all over the place. To be honest there was absolutely millions of them all the way Upgang to the piers. Ive never seen so much feed inshore for years.

I started fishing about 500 yards out from Upgang at a favourite little spot shown to me by Dave Perett. I lined up a couple of landmarks to make sure I was in the right spot and dropped down.

In straight away, but something was starnge, this was no codling. Soon a full string of mackerel came to the surface. In the next 30 minutes I bagged string after string after string of the bloody things, I couldnt get through them, and I was cursing all the members of this forum who had been complaining about the lack of mackerel this year. It must have been knee deep in them.

Thankfully in the end they buggered off and I managed to get my gear on the bottom. The next hour resulted in codling after codling coming to the yak, the biggest going about 7lbs, some very nice fish indeed. Then the codlings seemed to die off.

Next the coalies came on, strings of 3 at a time and some good sized ones too. Fed up of them I tried with the plugging rod to get a bit more sport out of them. Very strange though that I could not touch a single coalie on the plugs despite giving it a good try. How ironic that when your chasing bass or pollack you often get coalies one after the other on the plug, but when you specifically try for them they dont want it.

Next I decided on a paddle over towards the bell bouy, a better chance of bigger cod and some pollack in there I thought. I tried saeveral little spots en route and all yielded a codling or 2.

On the rock top near the bell bouy I managed several more cod and parted company with a cracking fish. Pollack or cod it had the full rod in the water instantly.

Then as I sat in peace to watch the sun go down, There was a loud blowing noise and what looked like a small whale swam past, it had quite a small fin but its body was 3 -4 times the size of a porpoise. Pretty certain it was a whale of some description. Looked pretty much like the photo of a whale Ringer posted several years ago.

I also managed several pollack near the bell bouy, again they showed no interest in plugs but were very keen on my 4oz jiggers.

Once the sun had set and the sky was dusking in I headed back towards the car at Upgang. As I got back over the rough ground I noticed there was lots of fish boiling. Big coalies were shooting out the water chasing the spratts.

Again I tried with the plug, casting it time and again into the middle of the boiling fish, but nothing, not a sniff. So I put the rod in the rest and trolled the plug as I headed upto the shore.

As I got about 200 yards off the beach the rod finally went over. It was going beserk, must be a good coalie or a pollack I thought. But to my total amazement, a cod of about 3 - 4lb had nailed my Yozuri, in the dark, about 200 yards off the shore.

All in all it was a very eventful evening. There certainly was a bit a bit of everything. My total for the night was around 30 codlings, half takers the rest undersized, roughly a hundred mackerel, lots of coalies and a handfull of pollack to about 3lb.

This fishing really is a funny old game. One minute everyone is assuming the sea is dead and the next there is more fish than you can shake a stick at. You certainly never know whats coming next. Roll on tomorrow and the southern softies match at Runswick. Have I persuaded more of you to come join us ?

Video Here.

 

brillient lets hope it continues and is the start of summer

 

Great info,
hope its the turning point of a bad fishing spell.
I have been hitting marine drive / n e corner (scarboro) on yak for last couple of months, had some decent pollack but not much else really.
Funnily enough i was out wed 1pm till 5pm and paddled 1/2mile out to a couple of large shoals of something (hundreds of gulls feeding on top), sonar told me abt 30ft deep x 20ft wide shoal with 2 monsters feeding from below ! Was in 75ft of water
I fished the centre and edge with eel lures and daylights but had nowt.
It just vanished from screen within 15 seconds.
Water was still green, visibility down to around 1m and endless mini jellyfish present.

Has been dead or pretty limited here...

 

Luckiest fish alive ??? This fish had been in a net, see mark around its neck ?? Net was still in the wound, I cut it free befroe releasing the fish.

Oh, yeah I released every fish I caught tonight.

 

Excellent I enjoyed reading that and great pics again Glen

 

Nice one glen very well done a very good read and a great night what more can you ask for.

 

Grwat read glenn..... and well dine on catch and realise I had a smalk codling yesterday thet took the shad right down I had to gut the fish to het it out. Am annoyed with musrlf still still it was size so it filleted and in freezer.....

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Brilliant report Glen! I like this part 'I was cursing all the members of this forum who had been complaining about the lack of mackerel this year' LOL.

 

Great report and some lovely photos Glenn, finally some proper fishing! I rememeber catching a Cod on an X-Rap not far off runny slipway a few years ago. All put back? you getting soft in your old age? :embarrass:

 

Nice report, looks like theres some fish finally starting to show up in numbers.

Lets hope they are there for the match tonight :yes:

 

You've just given me renewed hope Glenn, great report and look forward to seeing you later.

 

What a session mate. Sounds perfect.

By contrast I went out from Hornsea to get a few Mackerel for a mate and the sea was very choppy, still got some but it was really patchy.

 

superb read glen ,realy enjoyed it,looks like you kayak lads are in for some good sport ,
look forward to the southern softies match report now .

 

great pictures , its great to see some of the catches, i take my hat off to you sir,, :wink:

 

Great read, think everyone needed that, it was all getting a little doom and gloom!

 

I never loose faith. With this fishing game there is far more than meets the eye. To many factors involved to ever say there is no fish in the sea. Water colour, water temp, Availability of food and god knows what else all play a part.

Plenty more fish in the sea as they say.

 

Mouthwatering pictures and report, hope there's plenty left for tomorrow!

 

Quality stuff. Looking forward to this evening

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Well done Glenn!

As I read more and more I knew there would be some great photo's at the end too - you didn't let me down :cheesy:

I wish I was twenty years younger and lived closer to the sea - I might have got into yak fishing myself :wink:
As it is, I'm too old to start a new game so I'll just enjoy reading the exploits of you guys

 

Your never too old, Spawney dave is older than Noah.