At long last we arrived at our destination, driving at twenty miles per hour somewhat prolonged our driving time in the car. Opening the car boot was another matter though; all at once the cluster of tightly packed fishing gear almost flew out of the car, although we still ended up lagging the tonne of equipment down the path. Ironically the path was steep and therefore we were grasping on for dear life holding the hand rail. Thankfully we got down the first out of probably many trials, as we composed ourselves we literally took a few steps and we were, finally, at long last at our marker. We could start.
Unfortunately we were now at the forefront of the weather which means we would need to face piercingly cold winds and a spot of heavy rain that fell when it chose to. Everything that has chilly feel to everything even the shingle seemed scared to move in fear of Mother Nature, frozen in place. One by one the lines were whipped out to sea, you could hear the crack of the line and whip reflex of the rod after being cast.
Slowly the wind and the rain wore down on our originally high spirits however as my dad used to say, “Were not going till we’ve caught something!” Truly, I didn’t actually mind since I was dragged out of bed for this so I wasn’t really paying attention however as soon as the tip of the rod twitched, my dad’s face became a beacon of light.
Being what I would call a professional “fisherman” does that to a man, fishing is really just his hobby which fulfils some of his free time out of work, however you could say that it was more of a controlled obsession. Old Daddy had been fishing since he was a little boy, it’s what he did to keep himself busy since his mum and dad were usually on tour somewhere foreign, unable to take him he stayed with his Grand Mother and of course, Clacton being a sea side town what better activity would there be to do except from fishing.
Anyways, back to the riveting story I was telling you. The line cracked under the pressure and we were alerted to the greedy fish nabbing the bait on the other end of the line. Quick as a flash my dad was standing there rotating the handle on the reel, dragging this poor little fish in whether it liked it or not. The fact of the matter was that we were having cod for dinner tonight.
As soon we had the fish “hooked”, the sea starting to rage and boil. For some reason Poseidon didn’t favour us catching this little wonder. Despite the raging sea which whipped up really suddenly we managed to land the fish.
After we got him for good, we started to slow the reeling so we didn’t damage the fish as this was our tea. Apparently it was “healthy” for us but I never believed that all this trouble was worth it. Finally we got him, him being the fish over the sea wall and onto the mat we had brought with us. Had a quick look and threw him into a bucket of sea water we’d collected prior to the bad weather.
My executive job was to start reeling in the other lines since the weather had not surprisingly worsened therefore we were forces, literally of the sea wall and into retreat. It was at this point in time that I had realised I hadn’t really done much in the terms of fishing, I think I was just dragged along on this suicidal mission for the company which to be frank wasn’t that great either. I was just concentrating on staying dry which I also failed at since I was sodden, wet through.
Once again we packed up everything, making sure that the rods were safe and heaven for-fend damaged. Thankfully they were ok, so all we had to do was take the three parts off from each other and then put them in the holders.
Dragging the ten tonne of what was now dripping with water equipment up the hill was simply torture since contrary to popular belief I am deffinatly not a body builder, never was and nor will I be however for the “good of the morning” I did it, not happily but even so it was done.
All in all I have got to say that, that morning was: wet, windy, cold and generally a miserable morning however I can also pretty happily say that both me and my dad were happy we actually caught something in the maelstrom a foot during the torment. If anything it was an experience which I would do again and again without a battle of my eyelashes.
