I cycled down to the Westend beach this morning at sunrise. It was -1.5degrees and a hard frost covered the landscape.
I was expecting the low tide to be a good ‘runoff’ as it was the lowest spring of the month with minus figures on the tide table. I was disappointed to see that is was nothing special. I know where the Lobsters and local Oysters hang out if the tide goes out far enough. To add to my frustration a recent storm had scoured parts of the beach and removed at least a foot of sand and left rocks and mud where I normally dig for lugworm . The fish must have had a good feed of lugworm when the storm happened. I have never seen this level of erosion before. Got on my bike and came back home. I will have to find another spot to dig until this beach recovers!
Had a great day out on the 29th Jan. As usual, I met up with Cousin Chris at 8:30am at titchmarch marina. We had the obligatory cup of coffee then cast off and headed out of the marina. There was a dredging barge with a digger/backhoe which was blocking our way out of the marina entrance. I guess they were not expecting any boat traffic early on a Thursday in January. It took them about 10 minutes to pick up their spud legs and manoeuver out of the way. They seemed quite good natured about having to move and I didn’t see any dodgy hand signals or lip read bad words.
The trip down the creek and across the Walton on Naze backwaters took a little over an hour and then we dropped anchor in the usual place. We were close to ‘lights on’ This is an old favourite fishing spot in Harwich Harbour where you line up the big lighthouse and the shorter bell lighthouse and fish close to the edge of the channel in about 4 metres of water.
Lines were dropped in the water about 10:10am or so. Chris was sure that the cod were after squid as he had been told that they were chasing sprats and were ‘off’ Lugworm. He fished 2 hooks though and gave in and put Lug on the other hook. The first fish caught was to Chris on Lugworm bait! It was a nice plump codling around the 2lb mark.
The bites were thin on the ground and to be honest, the 7 codling that we finished up with were all stuffed with sprats. One even coughed up a squid which looked suspiciously like it had once been on a hook. Not our hooks though but there was another fishing boat just upstream. I also caught a baby bass which is a bit out of season. We both had some small whiting as well. All the fish were caught on Lug and not a sniff on the squid.
The fish were biting very gently which is most uncharateristic for a cod. They normally lunge at food, swallowing as quickly as possible. I think it was that they were spoilt for natural food and the worms were like ‘after eight’ mints to them. Go on then tempt me!
We packed up at 2:30pm and headed back. It was cold with an 18 knot south easterly and quite lumpy! We moored up at 4pm and I headed back home to Fillet the Codling.
I managed to get back to the favourite pastime of digging lugworm. I got down to the west end on my bike about 7:30am which was an hour after low water. I dug for approx 1hr 15 minutes and found about 50 worms which is not my best effort but OK considering the miserable conditions. Cold and damp. Hey ho but about normal for this time of year. The seagulls were out again in force following me for bits of worms. There were even a couple of crows which is a bit unusual. They weren’t as brave at coming forward as the seagulls were.
The forecast looks ok for tomorrow, with a 15mph SE wind for tomorrow. Cousin Chris is taking me out fishing on his boat again. Wish me luck. I will report back tomorrow or the day after.
I was planning to have a fishing trip on the Ha’penny pier tomorrow but I hurt my back last week shortly after my Ragworm digging episode.
Not sure if that was what contributed to the back twang but I am only now getting over it. Well, I half promised to paint the living room ceiling tomorrow and my dear wife has turned the half promise into a full one. Full time score: - Painting 1 Fishing 0.
Good news is that cousin Chris popped in for a coffee today and we have pencilled in a fishing trip on his yacht for next Thursday. Hope the weather holds out and is kind to us!
I might dig some lugworm on Friday. I sell them as fast as I can dig them!
I managed a couple of hours fishing on the Ha’penny pier yesterday. I did the eBay drop off at Tollgate post office first and then headed down to the pier. I got there at 2:45pm which was about 1 hour before high water. I baited up with segments of King Ragworm using size 2/0 hooks on one rod and Lugworm on the other rod. It was not long before I caught the first fish. It was a Dab! I haven’t caught a Dab in years. I threw it straight back as it was not a plump specimen and afterwards thought that I should have taken a picture first. Never Mind.
There was one other fisherman on the pier with me and he had caught a couple of small Whiting and plenty of shore crabs who were nicking his King Rag bait. He said he paid £8 something for a quarter. I guess he meant 250grams. Wow that is expensive. I will stick to digging my bait.
We both fished on past the high water and then packed up, having caught nothing else but a few crabs. I thought about giving it another 30 minutes but it was too cold for me.
Well, as promised, I ventured down to the Wrabness foreshore this morning. Low tide was just after 8am and there was a raw westerley breeze. I haven’t dug Ragworm for years so I knew this was going to be fun. I soon found a few Rag ’squirts’. This occurs as you slowly walk over the ground in which they are living. As you place your weighted boot down, if there are any worms below, they squirt water up through the surface as they burrow down deeper to escape the mighty warrior predator (me). Now, normally my hands warm up when I am digging but not today. My left hand stayed at zero the whole time. I gave up playing in the mud after I got a few King Rag and waddled off with my tail between my legs to try and get a few Lugworm. I wanted a few worms to try off the H’Penny pier tomorrow afternoon.
In the finish, I did get enough worms for a short fishing expedition tomorrow.
See pictures of the Fruits of my labour (yes, I know, UK spelling) and Wrabness beach at low tide!
If you want a ‘google map’ / ‘earth look, then search for Wrabness, Essex, England. The River is called the Stour and on this side (Essex) of the River it is pronounced to Rhyme with ‘our’ and on the silly Suffolk side it is Stour rhyming with Sewer.
Both pronunciations are correct!
Oh and yes, I do read a quality daily newspaper as you can see
My apologies for not making any posts for a few days. It has been freezing cold out and I have not been digging for fishing for a little while. I think I might venture out tomorrow morning and try my hand at digging some king rag
I will try Wrabness shore for the Ragworm. Harwich beach is also quite good but I don’t think there are as many worms there and they go like the clappers when you start digging for them.
I had a look on the beach this morning for some lead weights that fishermen lose. I couldn’t see any but a took a little video because it was clear bright calm morning on the foreshore. Definitely the place to gather Oysters if you like them.
No fishing or digging so far this week. The eBay business is having to take priority at the moment. I thought things would slow down a little bit after Christmas but so far so good. The good folks that buy on eBay still have some money left. I suppose it depends on what you are selling. I sell mostly caravan accessories on paulscaravanparts, porcelain and china on paulgood13 and anything else including salted Lugworm on yumyumgoody.
I use my local post office here at Tollgate and there is only the one counter, manned by Joy. Yesterday I had quite a few parcels and it took 19 minutes to post all the stuff. I could hear the mutterings behind me from some of the regulars. Oh well, you cannot please them all. At least I am putting money into the system instead of sucking it out.
I think I will pop down to the shore tomorrow at the end of Barrack lane. It was where that hardy fellow was fishing the other week in a howling gale. There are quite a few snags down there so maybe he lost a weight (sinker) or three. The nice 5 and 6 oz lead jobbies cost about £1.50 from the tackle shops so I like it when I can find some.
The weather is unseasonably cold at the moment with temperatures down at freezing and below. There is a large High pressure sitting over the top of use which is drawing in the Siberian weather. I might have a couple of hours fishing on the stone pier on Thursday morning. We will see.
I had an hours digging down the west end yesterday (thursday). It was cold and it took a good 10 minutes before I could feel my fingers. Once I got warmed up, I was OK. I got about 60 good sized lugworm.
There were a number of seagulls where in attendance. They were waiting to pick over the area where I had just dug.
I tried to video them but as soon as they saw the camera they got shy. I made 3 small videos and put them on you tube for a laugh. My youTube name is saltylug.
Well we got to go fishing. Chris and I met up at Titchmarsh Marina at 08:30hrs. It was minus 4 celcius according to the temp sensor on the car and it felt it. There was frost everywhere including the deck of the yacht Lollipop which made things a tad slippery. All in all a beautiful crisp blue sky day. Little or no wind as well. Things were looking promising. It tooks us an hours steaming to get to the fishing spot, just inside Harwich harbour, opposite Felixstowe. On the way, we spotted loads of geese and about 6 seals.
We dropped anchor around 10:15hrs and the first fish came shortly after. I was using the Lugworm that I dug yesterday for bait. I caught the smallest Whiting you could imagine on a 2/0 size hook. See photo. We only caught tiddlers on this trip and we threw them back of course. Chris caught a small codling see photo. I heard the Cod where off chasing sprats and I could believe it because the bites where few and far between. The last time we came fishing on the 13th Nov, we caught loads. We fished for about 4 hours and then headed back to the Marina. Cold but happy just to have been out for the day.
