We have been lucky up here lately, for the last week or so we’ve had some lovely settled weather meaning the sea had been nice and flat, well, on the morning’s anyway. Not one to miss a chance to take advantage of a calm sea I arranged to meet two kayaking buddies Matty & Ben for a morning’s Cod fishing. Matty arrived at sunrise as he had to be back early where as I had a little lay in arriving at 6.30am, unloaded and setup the kayak. I decided to troll a lure on the way out in the hope that there maybe a Bass or two about but it’s still a bit early in the season up here for Bass fishing, they can’t be far away though.
A 25min paddle out later and I had found Matty just finishing his last drift of the morning, unfortunately he had to pack up a bit earlier than expected due to his Scupper Pro kayak giving him back problems. Matty had landed two Codling and lost 7-8 more including some “better fish”, obviously a few fish about so myself and Ben were hopeful of a few fish.
The cliffs of the North Yorkshire coastline
We still had about one hour remaining of the flooding tide so I decided to do a one mile drift then follow the ebbing tide back, it makes life a lot easier rather than continually paddling against the tide to start new drifts. The drift started with nothing much happening apart from getting snagged and loosing my first set of gear. I drifted about 400yds before latching into my first fish, after a spirited fight a nice plump little Cod of about 3.5-4lb came up through the clear sea. Not a bad start to the day so I was pleased, I heard Ben on the VHF radio telling Matty that he had landed his first fish of the day as well at 4lb+. I continued drifting for a further 350yds before I had my second fish, it felt a little better than the Cod putting up a good fight from 70ft below. To my surprise it was a Ling, my first ever Ling as well so I was very pleased. A strange looking fish the Ling, if you haven’t seen one before think of them as a stretched Cod 
We had reached slack water (high tide) and the end of my first drift of the day, it was a big tide so we knew we wouldn’t have to wait long before the tide swung round and we could start drifting north. Whilst waiting for the tide to change we headed ashore to stretch our legs and have a bite to eat. Paddling in we could see what was remaining from a recent rock fall, it’s not very often we have a large rock falls but when they go you really don’t want to be anywhere near it!
A recent rock fall
By the time we had finished our snack break the tide had turned and bringing a slight SE wind with it, with the tide and wind working together we were drifting rather fast so a drogue was deployed to slow the drift to the same speed as the tide. Fishing wasn’t exactly hectic but I managed a few more Codling to 3lb but they were all returned to fight another day. We were a few hours into the ebbing tide by now and the fishing had slowed down so we decided to work an area a little further north, we started the new drift and within minutes I was into a decent fish which promptly feel off, checked the terminal tackle and dropped back down. Drifted 30yds and bang was into another fish, it put up a good fight and a nice 5lb Cod came to the surface. It was my biggest of the day so I was very happy, unfortunately just when we seemed to of found the fish the wind had picked up to the point that we had to make our way back in. Maybe we could of stayed out a little longer but when white caps are forming on the surface you know it’s time to make a move. The wind was expected so we weren’t caught out, it was an interesting paddle back ashore though with waves crashing over into the kayak but was also fun surfing the waves so not all bad news.
I finished the morning session with 7 Cod and a Ling (only kept two Cod) where as Ben managed the biggest of the day with a nice cod of 7lb 4oz, a new pb for Ben so he was a happy chappy
A nice Codling taken on a 4oz jig
Paddling on the Yorkshire coast
