Yes a poor end to a poor year, a record low 29 trips for me this season and packing the boat away for the winter weekend after not wetting a line since the 1st of Oct.
Always next year, roll on late March
This was the most unreal season ever !! Not moaning about my broken boat again...had my last fishing trip mid September!!
Not only was the fishing totally different, the weather and sea currents made me believe I was a total beginner. We have been out on tides and weather, where we normally would fill the boat up and struggled and on days that looked hopeless, we caught well.
We really struggled in prime season like August, but did well in March or April, where we normally don't get a sniff.
TopTop wrecks like Adam Beck, Eagle, Trident, Gateshead, HC Flood gave us blanks, whilst some of the not so good suddenly held fish.
One wreck was accountable for most of our good catches and almost all of our double figure catches (forgive me for not naming it


)
Anyway, the stamp of fish was better than normal. The average fish were 6-7lb and we had 14 fish over 10lb (of which 7 were over 15lb) between all of us.
The cracker of the season was James` 24lb ling, Ashley`s 18lb uptider cod and yours sincerely 18lb cod just 1/2 mile out on a 4 inch shad !!
I think the weird weather and currents were still a knock-on of El Nino and La Nina and the totally awkward behaviour of the cod was because of the inshore herring run.
It can only be a good thing to have the herrings back, but it seems we have to re-learn fishing for the cod !