Personal best cod!

So, I've been fishing the Brigg for some time now, and I always knew it had the potential for big fish.  After all this place holds the British shore caught record for coalfish - a monster of 23lb.  I've never even seen one into double figures!

I noticed in my first season there how the general stamp of the fish is bigger than several local marks - I regularly catch 7-8lbers there.  But for some reason I never seemed to connect with anything much bigger.  That was until today.  OMG...  When I hauled up this beast from the depths, my first thoughts were "can I get that in the kayak?!".

The gnarled face of a 15lb cod - click on it to see the grim details!

Yes, my feet are in the water and that thing's tail is in the footwell.  Took about ten minutes to fetch it in, and made several powerful dives that initially made me think I'd tail hooked a big pollack or something.  To be honest, I didn't know what I had on the end of my line til I saw it circling below me like some biege coloured whale! When I finally got to shore, the fish nose was just above my waist while its tail was dragging on the ground.  What a big old, leathery beast!

Thank goodness for those big gill plates - I don't carry a gaff!

This was the start of a fantastic session.  Which to be fair, had started in a less auspicious fashion by me hooking a pout.  As this is a bit of rarity so close in, I thought I'd take a photo.  Clipped my pliers in my pocket as I reached for my camera, and flip, plop, and gone over the side!  Grrr! 

After the whale of Filey was landed, it was basically a fish every drop, with many of them decent cod around the 5lb mark.  All the cod bare a couple of the smaller ones were caught on the bottom SavageGear 4 Play soft lure (largest size, which is only just big enough).  The rest were all on the 30mm Sakura Split shads - cod love these.  Of course, there is always the odd nuisance fish, by which I mean inedible, even if they are often incredibly pretty:

Nice ballan wrasse, with those amazing turquoise tails.  Later in the year, the Brigg really starts to show some big pollack and coalfish.  This one barely counts!

 There was a surprising amount of swell out there.  Forecast was 2ft, which means round the back of the Brigg it will be anywhere from 4-8ft! 

now you don't!

Now you see it...

It's almost impossible to show swell on a photo, best obviously in a video, but I couldn't be arsed to do one.  Suffice to say, there was enough swell to make it very unpleasant coming back over the end o' the Brigg.

Sure enough, I realised that the swell was breaking in more or less a semi-circle in front of me and it was time to head back.  There was a parking meter running, after all!  But crossing that swell where it kicks up over the end the Brigg can be a bit of nightmare if you time it badly.  Waves that look as though they are big but rolling (so passable with care) can suddenly start to break if a big series of them come through.  I waited, and waited, and waited.  And then made a mad dash for it.  I have to confess I got lucky, I was very nearly tipped out twice when my rudder ended up out of the wave, leaving me only able to lean into the wave with the paddle.  It was all a bit too close and messy, but thankfully I made it back into the Bay and found a quiet patch to gut the fish.

Look back over the end o' the Brigg where I just came.  Not for the faint hearted (or sensible!).

Back on the beach, I was finally able to get the beast out of the front hatch and ready for gutting.  Little photo shoot beforehand:

That's not a toy paddle...

If you know the size of cavernous front hatch of the Stealth Profisha 575, then you can see the girth and size of that cod.  Gutting on the beach is not something I like doing, but unavoidable with this fish.  This didn't go unnoticed in the town, and sure enough I had plenty of questions on my way back up to the car.  Did chat with a chap who takes part in the local boat competitions, who said it was the biggest fish he's seen come from the behind the Brigg this year - his estimate was around the 15-16lb mark.

The gutted beast back home - its head is bigger than mine, even after I caught it!!

So with the other half dozen cod (and a random mackerel), the hairy crossing back into the Bay and my lost pliers, it was a pretty exciting trip. What a great sport this is!

Tight lines to all those fishing!