Cheap bait and more...

Saturday and Sunday promised more wind so Salar stayed in the marina while I built up brownie points (aka fishing vouchers) at home, turning the kids old play-room into a teenager's den. Much shelving and trendy furniture from Ikea was involved. Where is the connection to cheap bait, you are wondering. Here it is. Just down the A23 south of Ikea, Croydon is a branch of Wing Yip, the Chinese food superstore - and what an adventure that is. If you like cooking Chinese food, this place is heaven. If you like saving a lot of money compared to buying from Sainsbury's, you will be in double heaven. Get On With The Bait Story. OK here goes: Wing Yip sell 5lb boxes of frozen squid, just like the ones in the tackle shops, for £6.20 a box and 1lb boxes for £1.30. Compare that with your local tackle shop! Huge frozen prawns, cooked or raw, from £5.75 a Kilo. I kid you not - these are unlikely to make it as far as a fishing trip, I feel a delicious prawn curry calling to me.

River Cottage Fish Book

Published on 19th November, my copy arrived on 20th. It is BIG, plenty of material and some really useful looking sections. I noticed Amazon is selling it for half the published price of £30. I'll do a proper review when I have read more of it but from first impressions, it is a superb buy.

River Cottage Catch and Cook e-Course

I confess, I enjoy cooking. Particularly when the ingredients are fresh and free, and don't involve a lot of fuss and bother. My ideal meal would be fish I'd caught; veggies from the garden; cooked and eaten al fresco. So Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a man I can relate to (in a heterosexual way of course). I have enjoyed his Channel 4 programs and bought the original River Cottage Cookbook, so when he announced he was combining his interest in fishing with cooking, producing a TV series and a book, I was first in the queue. I bought the book from the River Cottage web site and they threw in a free on-line "Catch and Cook" course. Although there was nothing new in the "catch" part - in fact I disagree with some of his ideas - the preparation and cooking content is excellent. I wouldn't pay the £20 list price for the course, but as it is free, and the book is discounted by a fiver too, then go for it! My next project, when the weather improves, is to build a Hugh F-W Cold Smoker....

Weird Weather

Friday was perfect fishing weather, Saturday was deteriorating and Sunday would be gales so an early start on Saturday (6am out of the marina) was the only chance we had. It all looked good - glassy calm, no fog, a box of squid from Solent Angling and I was set to go. I even had a bunch of new Rapala lures - another birthday present this time from from sis-in-law. Heading out of Langstone it still looked good, and a fleet of other anglers were on their way out too. At the entrance there seemed to be slightly more of a swell than I was expecting, but I put that down to the strong ebb. But it didn't flatten out further out , it got steadily worse. I saw a yacht under power in the distance, with a mast gyrating wildly. The further out I went, the higher the waves, but strangest of all there was no wind at all. The wave surface was like glass, but the wave height was enough to make me throttle right back. As I neared Medmery Bank, it was starting to look decidedly worrying. In the distance, the waves were starting the break and at that moment the phone rang. It was Arron, out on Buccaneer south of the Nab advising me not to go there! I wasn't. Bit by bit the VHF chat indicated more and more boats heading back, some sheltered in the Solent rather that give up entirely so I headed back via Hayling Bay to try trolling the new lures. After half a mile of trolling at 2 knots my stomach started to rebel and I called it quits. Unfortunately even with a leisurely tour of Langstone Harbour at low water (glassy calm again) didn't occupy the time until the cill opened for the marina, so I tied up on the holding pontoon and spent a couple of pleasant hours eating my lunch and doing some much-needed tidying. From what I heard on Ch. 10 the Solent fleet caught doggies and not much else.

A day spent fixing

For my 50th birthday my dear wife bought me a very special present, probably one not many 50 year olds get even if they are passionate boat anglers - a sand eel trawl. Saturday was the first chance to try it out, because Mick, our local source of all knowledge, said an hour before High Water and an hour after was best. But it was not to be. Although the day way bright, the wind was howling - the forecast was for winds but this seemed a lot more than the Met Office had promised.

I met Arron down at the boat and after looking at a couple of small boats disappearing in their own spray in the harbour, we decided that trawling was out of the question. So we sheltered in the boat, munched hot sausage rolls supplied by Arron and wired up my new cockpit flood light. It beat painting walls anyway (the job that was waiting at home).