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Old school

Tope Smoker

Member
Joined
May 25, 2022
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Location
Northern Ireland
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Boat
I am now in my early 60s and have fished since the mid 70s. My dad and i fished out of a 16ft clinker built boat with a 5hp seagull engine. It wasnt fast but it always got us there. Our tackle box consisted of half a dozen 3 feather cod traces ( they were far better quality back then, far more feathers on them) and half a dozen home made pirks probably bout 14 ounce, and a selection of swivels. We had no fish finders or gps back then, our reference points were taken off prominent points on the land. Im guessing most of our cod fishing was in bout 200ft of water. We always went past our marks and drifted over them on the tide and very seldom did we fail to hit the cod. We went to bottom and came up bout 5 or 6 turns of the reel and pirked away, it was always a great feeling hitting into a decent cod, back then the average was bout 8,9 or 10lb. When pirking we were plagued by sand eels getting foul hooked and we had to reel in to take it off the hook and go back down again. Once my dad was on his way down and he hadnt even hit the bottom when his rod started to nod. Those dam sand eels he said. Engaging the reel he started to retrieve some line and his rod bent over. He reeled in with 3 cod on, top 1 bout 4lb, middle 1 bout 10lb and bottom 1 bout 4lb and as i said he hadnt even hit the bottom. My point here is if this simple rig worked back then it will still work now. I dont understand all these new terms for different rigs etc but maybe some day i will learn them.
 
Great memories and I’m sure the old rigs would still work……if only the fish were still there! I often read reports from charter boat trips where the number of cod caught is less than the number of anglers aboard!
Im just a little older than you and spent the prime cod fishing era of the 70’s - early 80s playing football, drinking, chasing young ladies etc, etc. The tales of miles and miles of Tilley lamps on the Norfolk and Suffolk beaches are legendary and one of my little regrets in life is that I never joined them a couple of times in that period. The vast majority of my sea fishing over the decades has been off the beach or rocks and now my infrequent forays out targeting cod are deemed a success if a blank is avoided, let alone a bag full!
The list of different rigs these days for beach fishing is eye watering but I like to keep things simple and just four do me.
 
We were spoiled back then mate, the fishing was unbelievable. This is a bit ironic but our heaviest cod was 21lb and neither my dad or i can claim to catching it lol. We always had an old handline in the boat and sometimes we would have baited the cod feathers with mackeral and threw it over the side to the bottom and just let it fish away on its own. I lifted it 1 time and felt a small bite and thought ah its only a sand eel or something insignificant and left it. We fished away and decided to move over the marks again and after reeling in our 2 rods i started to pull in the handline. Well i knew then there was something more significant than a sandeel. Between the 2 of us we got it in the boat. The 1st bite i felt was actually a small whiting and the 21lb cod had took it lol it was foul hooked aswell with the other 2 hooks. So that is our unofficial heaviest cod mate.
 
As I mentioned in your other post, me & a mate used to do a lot of Boat fishing back in the late 80's. 16ft Plymouth Pilot and a 5HP inboard Brit single cylinder - like yours, slow but it got us there. Never ever saw anyone catching Cod down here, and to this day, I've never caught one. Targets back then were Mackerel (as we knew we could sell them), Pollock, the occasional Bass, and drifting for Plaice.

My mate used to moor his boat up the estuary at the top of the photo below, and the bit of land bottom right is Burgh Island. Only accessible on foot when the tide was out. There were some great deep water rocky marks for Pollock around the back of the island!

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I used to have a 14ft fibreglass boat with a 40+ seagull outboard, used one of those single mackerel spinners and as a dead cuttle floated by, so grabbed it and cut a sliver off. stuck it on the treble hook of the spinner and dropped it over the side, it went down about 20ft and a bass decided it looked ok to eat. All hell let loose and it took off at a rate of knots, my old intrepid pilot screamed and it took about 50yds of line off the reel. tightened the drag and managed to play the fish and eventually got it hand hauled into the boat by the gills. It weighed 12lb 4ozs when put on the scales. I was fishing about a quarter of a mile from the beach in East Worthing. Just goes to show with all the fancy tackle nowadays the old 70's stuff still works. Also had some smaller bass on 6" redgill which were returned whilst trolling at about 2 knots. Those were the days when fish were plentiful.
 
We were spoiled back then mate, the fishing was unbelievable. This is a bit ironic but our heaviest cod was 21lb and neither my dad or i can claim to catching it lol. We always had an old handline in the boat and sometimes we would have baited the cod feathers with mackeral and threw it over the side to the bottom and just let it fish away on its own. I lifted it 1 time and felt a small bite and thought ah its only a sand eel or something insignificant and left it. We fished away and decided to move over the marks again and after reeling in our 2 rods i started to pull in the handline. Well i knew then there was something more significant than a sandeel. Between the 2 of us we got it in the boat. The 1st bite i felt was actually a small whiting and the 21lb cod had took it lol it was foul hooked aswell with the other 2 hooks. So that is our unofficial heaviest cod mate.
Great memories…..
 
@Trampster Do they still have that tractor on stilts thing to transport you back to the mainland after last orders? ?
 
@Trampster Do they still have that tractor on stilts thing to transport you back to the mainland after last orders? ?
Yep, I think it's not long finished it's winter overhaul. It featured in that 'Tractor World' programme that aired last Friday on Channel 5, 9 pm. It's available for download on catchup if interested.

One of my little claims to fame! There was a great Lady called Sue Waugh who ran the Pilchard inn on the island for many years. The Pilchard was one of the pubs on our 'pub crawl list'! She decided to retire back in the early 80's, and had a huge party in a Marquee. Royal Marines dance band, a Rock group, free food, and the real ale was flowing like a River. Fantastic night!

It got to about 10pm, the tide was in, and there was a bunch of Grockles who insisted they needed to get back to the mainland, whereas the rest of us were quite happy to keep supping the Ale, wait for the tide to go out, and then stagger back across the sand.
Jimbo, the tractor driver (who I knew quite well) was totally p1ssed, so he collared me to drive a few trips across to the mainland with the sea tractor! It's quite easy to drive, but the secret is knowing where to steer to avoid any patches of quicksand. I think I finally staggered off the Island at low tide as the sun came up, and went and slept the off Beer in my car!
 
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