Shouldn’t you be gone?……….

Being a Saturday and I needed some fresh bait I set the alarm for stupid o’clock, but then woke up twenty minutes earlier than I had planned to and headed off for the open coast. It is light enough here for swallows to fly just after five o’clock but the roads were eerily quiet and the first sign of life I saw was thirty minutes later when I parked up, only to see Joe had beaten me there.

Down to the normal business of hurling feathers, and to be honest I was getting a lesson again. now I don’t mind watching others catching the fish but I would like to think I could hold my own with a few mackerel.  Not today.  In fact it was border-line piss-taking.  I never landed a fish for the first hour while Joe steadily built up a bucket load, not missing the opportunity to comment on my recent angling ineptitude.

A change of feathers and a change of luck. I still wasn’t slaughtering fish but a good bucket of bait was coming together…….slowly.. again tiny white baitcatchers fished at full cast, which we are still deliberating exactly how far that is (me about half a mag 525 of 35mm line, joe”he must have been chucking them 50 yards” hahaha).

Back to Joes mobile for a full artery-clogging breakfast and more drubbings about my inability to catch mackerel. The question of what to do for the rest of the day came around without great enthusiasm. I picked up the tide table and studied, all that was open for us was chase a few old huss on the low tide.

Down on the mark I was quick to set up.  The Nemisis Slr+ that I use has the sealine x30sha bolted to it, loaded with 27lb Suffix Tritanium so it is only a matter of putting the two halves together and threading the line.  The rig I use is simplicity itself.  Running paternoster, five ounce griplead, in this case a namix, and a wire trace with an 8/0 Varivas Bigmouth Extra.

Half a mackerel, the tail section which I always prefer was launched  but wouldn’t settle in the tide and the ratchet was clicking slowly so I tightened up the drag slightly and moved back to my box to bait another trace.

When I turned back round to the rod all hell broke loose as the rod and screaming reel flew straight at me of the stand. My first thoughts were that I was finally going to get spooled by the seal.

I eased the drag but tried to slow the spool with my thumb until it burned and I just had to let what ever it was take line. As it slowed I tried to put on pressure but it kept taking more. for every yard I took back it took ten. It staggered me twice as the big rod bent over and it seemed to be slowing down. A bit more drag and I was gaining.  Pumping was leaving me sweating and shaking and my arms started to cramp.  Both Joe and I were desperate just for a glimpse of the powerful beast.

It seemed like an hour but Joe said it was about fifteen minutes when the leader-knot came out of the water and a flash of white – a big eel…… no it was a Tope.

No words that I can use  will ever accurately convey the adrenaline rush and thrill of trying to stop a big tope from the shore as it powers its way back to the sea

Soon after she was on the beach, lucky to land it as she had bent the hook but it was well in the scissors

On the weighing sling she weighed 38 lb, a magnificent fish, probably a fish of a lifetime, certainly the fight of a lifetime. I’m sure other stuff happened in the session but if it did I don’t remember, the last thing I can recall with any clarity is the big tail fin powering off into the deeps.

Found this sprat which was about four inches long inside a mackerel that was only about twelve inches long

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