Down the compound early doors today for another crack at the cod with the Dale on Fish Ardour. There were a few boats out today from Yaverland, making the most of the glorious conditions.......shame you couldn't make it Ben!
On arrival conditions looked perfect but the tractors and water hoses were frozen solid. After many failed attempts to start the tractor we ended up with a flat battery, but thankfully someone had some jump leads and we managed to get one started..phew!!
Anyway, as said water hoses were frozen solid so no chance to warm the engines prior to launch.
We launched anyway and then problem no 2...the engine was frozen and didn't want to turn over, full battery power but no joy! This was turning into a disaster!
We tried my battery from Rockhopper but the engine didn't want to turn and after a fruitless 30 minutes in the surf we decided to abort and get the boat back in the compound.
By this time the sun was up and things were starting to defrost. Dale made a cuppa and before the kettle had boiled the engine had defrosted and fired into action!
Tea down the hatch, we went for a sporty launch in the surf around high tide and headed out. Problem no 3 - no GPS signal!! - Maybe due to the cold conditions. We settled on a mark for the last of the flood and managed some dogs, whiting and pout. Still no joy with the GPS by the time the ebb had started but we headed out and Dale used his skippers 6th sense to sniff out a likely looking mark!
We quickly deployed the gear and sat back, due to the big tides the window would be short. Within 10-15 minutes a nice bite registered on the uptider and I reeled into a bouncy fish which took some line...cod on! Soon this beauty was in the net...18lb 8oz - well happy.
Some times it only takes one fish to make it all worth while!
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