28th March

Orford Ness

A very full ferry heads out for the Ness.......

Time for a trip I had been getting very excited for. A planned beach fish and clean at Orford Ness. I havent been to many lately, as time is ever precious, but when I realised that the tides this trip were planned for were big, and the timing of the trip spot on for Orfords ever better year on year Spring codling run, I knew it had to be for me to attend. I did my best to persuade everybody I know to come along as well, and Nick, Steve and Paul trusted my advice enough to make the long haul up from Brighton.

Many many anglers on Orford Ness. Quite an unusual sight.

On arriving across to the Island, we were a little late off the ferry. We headed up to the North of the line, walking about fifteen minutes across Orfords energy draining shingle. Finally we came to the end of the line, and slotted ourselves in. Sea conditions were perfect, rich chocolate coloured sea, but flattened by the stiff North Westerley wind which was bowing across our backs. Chilly, but much better than the wind blowing towards us. We assembled out shelters, and got on with the business of fishing. I had been pumping for three days prior to the trip, as I was supplying the bait for four of us (Steve came along and pumped plenty himself). On arriving at Orford, I was over the moon to find I had about a 90% survival rate (We took the blacks up there alive and in water). Nice one! Ok chaps, says I. Gicve them a freshen up with some new sea water, and we have some excellent bait here. Four of us changed our water, one guy, Lee didnt. We then proceeded to watch all of our worms dying and blowing over the next three hours, whilst Lee's worms remained perfectly healthy for the duration of the session. Lessons learned, do not use sea water in your fresh-out black buckets from an area where no black lug live........

First fish of the day

We were into fish right from the off. We had arrived pretty much over low water, so had the flood to deal with as the first strong tide. Orford is incredibly deep, and the tides compress against a solid shingle wall, creating some very strong tides indeed. As such, all that was needed were some D-Grippers. These awesome gripping leads master these fierce tidal rips no problem, and so they should as Orford was one of the venues that it was designed for, and developed on. And the flip side of the DVice, was that although our freshout blacks were dying at a phenomenal rate, we were still able to fish with what in effect was a skin saggy and heavy with guts and blood. With any other lead, you couldnt have cast it, and we would have been fishing with just squid already, and I would have been incredibly heavily depressed. With the D-Grippers, and the protective qualities of the tube, not only were we able to carry on fishing what previously I would have thrown away as bait, but, with what happened next, I have come away wondering that blown freshouts might well be a very superior bait in these rich chocolate water. Because, we never really stopped catching from that point onwards until the following morning when it was time to pack up.

If ever there was a picture of contentment. My very good friend Steve, organic cider in hand, and 24 hours of fishing ahead.

The flood tide fished well, I think we all had plenty of fish, but as the tide slackened off, so did the cod. Very typical of Orford, where strong flow = good cod fishing. During this period of slack I took advantage and fished Herring sections, to try and tempt one of the Ness's outsized thornback rays. The weather at this point was very grim, with strong NW winds bringing icy squall after squall through. The time for the beginning ofthe beach clean came. and we gathered at the top of the shingle, looking to see where we were cleaning. But we couldnt see what was happening. I phoned a friend who was further down the beach, and he couldnt see anything happening. With the inclement weather, and the ferryman Pete having mentioned that as yet the cleaning equipment from the council had not yet arrived, we assumed that the clean had been abandoned, and conitnued fishing. Actually, what had happened is that we had walked so far to get on the end of the anglers, that the clean was happening at the extreme other end of the line, out of our line of fire. More lessons learned, and at the next clean, I will take care to note any instructions regarding assembling for the clean. A lot of the lads at the other end of the line did get into the cleaning, and as always the "Ness" happily gave up its unwanted collection of rubbish. This rubbish is mostly washed up from the sea, and much of the refuse of the citys and towns up and down the coast ends up here. Typical rubbish is lots of plastics, glass, and far too many hypodermic syringes! Well done to the guys that did get into it. I thihnk they cleared thirty odd bags, which is a very welcome site. In previous years we have done the clean, and then commenced with the fishing. I think I will suggest that we get back to that format next time, as everyone "wombles" hard to get the job done as quickly as possible, with the lure of the excellent fishing driving them on.

Paul "robbo" Robinson (aka Puddle Man), snug as a bug in a rug!

D-Gripper doing the business with blown black lug!

AS the tide peaked, so the tips began to settle over into the first of the ebb. The ebb is my favourite run at the ness. It always seems to take about an hour of good flow to bring the fish back close to shore, but when they switch on the fishing is fast and furious. So it turned out to be, and as the gloaming turned to blackness (and a fantastic display of stars, as Orford is blessed with very little light pollution) I had already had sixteen codling, all between 2 and 3lb. I had decided after fish number six, to only retain those that were deeply hooked, as it was becoming very apparent that we were coming into a good bag of fish. Although it seems that there are limitless stocks of these small codling, those of us that fished through the codless nineties were very happy to return the lightly hooked fish. Every one returned has the potential to increase the stocks by a considerable amount, as cod lay a phenomenal amount of eggs, and none of us want to go back to the bad old days of not having these magnificently tasty fish to fish for.

Lee, enjoying the coddie action

Paul, witht he biggest fish out of our group, in the 4lb bracket.

We were all casting for the pot of gold.........

Another rainbow shot

A strange thing had been happening all day. Fishing just twenty yards to my left, was my friend Nick. All the time we were banging out fish, he was managing to only find whiting and pouting. He came over for a chat and noted the rig I was using. He made ammendents to his own end tackle to replicate what I was doing, but it was still a couple of hours before, with darkness, we heard an excited whoop and looked around to discover that he had just landed his first ever shore caught cod. Well done Nick!!

Nicks first coddie from the shore.

About this time, in freezing conditions (ice was forming in the ever clearing skies) Paul decided he wasnt cold enough. On hooking a good fish, in the region of 8lb, and getting it up into the surf line, his tackle became stuck on a snag unseen. A very frustrating scene (which I also endured later, although my fish wasnt that big) his line parted with the stress, leaving the tail of the fish seeming tantalysingly close and still tethered. Paul made the decision to walk down the receding swell to attempt to tail the fish. Trouble is, he got the timing wrong and the next incoming swell soaked him up to the knees. In these freezing conditions, we had no choice but to ignore the "No Fires" rule in an attempt to get him dried out. Steve, a master at outsdoor pyrotechnics, soon had a helathy blaze going, and Paul spent a while drying out his shoes, socks and trousers. A potentially dangerous situation averted!

And still the fishes kept coming

The tide slackened off over the bottom, and I replaced the blown worm/squid cocktails with herring chukks to again attempt to capture one of these beasities, but to no avail. Then with the new flood, more and more codling fell to our rods. It was easily becoming the best shore cod fishing session that any of us had encountered. Nothing massive, but eveything sizeable, between the 2 and 3lb mark, plus Pauls one bigger fish of around 4lb. Further down the beach, although we did not find out until the morning, another fan of the D-Gripper had used it to excellent effect, landing a prime fish of 10lb 2oz!

Two at a time when to rods were deployed!

The tide peaked, and began to ebb. We were expecting this to be the most productive phase of our stay, but it didnt live up to our expectations, and even seemed quite slow by comparison. Dawn broke, revealing a wonderful sunrise (camera batteries dead by now) and some much needed daylight to sort out ourselves ready for departure. We were all totally knackered, but glowing with what had been an amazing session. Between us five, we had managed to take 92 codling, in a little under 24 hours. My personal tally was 35, of which I kept 12, and returned the rest. As I write this my back is still remembering the session, reminding me I am not a twenty year old anymore. Three days of pumping, and then 24 hours of non-stop cod retrieval, have taken their toll. But with each twinge I got a memory of what had been an outstanding session, bagging fish in excellent company, and overcoming the various obstacles that appeared during our stay. Plus a revelation, as the discovery that blown black lug is not the waste of time I thought it was, but instead seems to have superb fish catching abilities!!! The only bad thging that happened was on the way home. A little tired, I assisted the elderly gentleman in his very new and shiny car to pull out of the junction we were in on a very quiet country lane, with a little push from my car. Jumping out, I quickly rubbed his bumper down, and it did seem that the only damage was my paint all over his bumper, although my front valance had taken a bit of a beating!! Not the best way to finish an otherwise perfect sesion!!