NEIL WEBB dot co uk

With the weather being so windy of late and work being a bit crazy over Xmas , it’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to get out on the Kayak. I was actually getting quite excited about the forthcoming trip which is quite unlike me !

So everything got packed into the van and I set off to Weybourne and arrived to find the parking meter broken – bonus ! A non bonus was my trailing lighting rig falling apart on the way up, my crappy welding I’m afraid to confess.

I actually had to think about all my gear as it’s normally just something I do automatically , but still I managed to get launched fully equipped into moderate surf. All well until I dropped anchor and found it slipping. Tried three more times and the same result. Fifth time lucky and it held , until I tried to move on to another spot and it stayed “held” Could I move it – oh no. So after much paddling in circles and tugging I had to give up and cut the line. Cue a visit to Boats n Bits on Saturday.

So for this reason I spent the rest of the day drifting the shoreline, which actually wasn’t too bad as the tide and wind were against each other so I ended up with a slow drift out to sea.

OK how many fish did I catch ? Answer one Dab , which George will be having for supper tonight as I don’t think it will make a meal for us two ! Apart from the Dab it was dead , like really dead. No bites but lots of stuff on the sonar , so there were probably shoals of sprats or some other bait fish. Luckily the shore boys weren’t fairing any better so I didn’t feel too cheated. I have to say though it was a lovely day to be out and a thirty minute fitness paddle rounded the day off nicely.

I read an article recently that said that the female body is the base design , rather like the L version of a car , and the male body is the GT version , which has been souped up by testosterone. So for this reason the female immune system is more robust and we men don’t have such a good defence mechanism !

I am happy with this theory as I’m just getting over a bout of man flu which seems to be stubbornly hanging around and has so far spoilt my weekend and postponed a fishing trip that I was looking forward to today.

George the Cat came in from one of his fights the other day with a scratched nose and a claw stuck in his neck. Apart from his tail resembling a bottle brush , the old boy was quite unperturbed by the experience and certainly made no bones about his sore nose.

So why have I been feeling both grumpy and annoyed at the same time ? obviously the ability to contemplate ones condition accounts for some of it and being a moany male human the rest !

Maybe I’ll be reborn a cat and have to endure a lifetime of sleeping 18 hours a day !

I’m not quite sure why I’ve never tried paintball. Like me, it’s been going a long time but we’ve just never got together !

The lads at work put a day together and I put my name down and as seems to be the trend these days, promptly forgot about it. So Mikey said to me on the Friday “are you meeting us in the car park Sunday?” and I looked at him blankly until he said “Paintball ?” So the diary was quickly rearranged and I tipped up at 8am and headed down there for a great experience. At 54 you do tend to ask whether you should be running around woods with people the same age as your daughter, but hey, I’ve still got it physically so why the heck not ?

Cutting a long story short, we had about 9 or 10 games and yours truly did manage to capture the flag once and leg it back to the base and also launched a brilliant attack via a ditch keeping the “enemy” pinned down ! Also managed to get taken out within seconds in one game as well !

When asked by a colleague, “would you do it again ?” I had to answer “damn right”

Bring on the heart attack ! ! ! !

With Jackie away in Chester visiting her nephew , a weekend of self indulgence in my hobbies was planned !

Saturday was going to be at sea fishing for cod and Sunday chasing a few pike around the broads. Then back in time to greet my loved one !

The forecast was good for Kayaking but maybe not so for cod fishing but that was no problem as I hadn’t been out for a couple of weeks , so any trip was a good trip.

After a nice easy launch a couple of hours were spent hanging over the wreck of the Black Swan at Gorleston. It was Whiting and Dab from the off but no elusive Cod. With a 14c water temperature it was hardly surprising ! So the anchor was upped and I paddled down to Hopton and set up a few hundred metres off shore. Same result – lots of Whiting and Dab , oh yes and one Whelk !

After a comfort break on the beach it was back to Gorleston. With a southerly wind and flooding tide it was a straightforward paddle but guess who didn’t notice the random swell as he passed by the pipes of the Black Swan , well until it was too late and the Kayak took a knock to the side. So with visions of water flooding the hull , I made the last 200m back in record time. A post mortem on the beach revealed that the 40cm scrape hadn’t punctured the fibreglass but had done enough damage to warrant an internal repair (sad face)

Sunday’s fishing trip was duly abandoned and the repairs made along with cleaning an extremely dirty van and various other jobs that couldn’t be ignored any more !

It was a great day out however and I can at least get in the van without fear of catching something unpleasant !

One of the joys of getting older is forgetting stuff that happened seconds earlier ! OK I exaggerate to make the point but it does seem to happen more than it did twenty years ago or is it that I’m now paranoid about getting older and notice it more ?

On Tuesday I met up with a group of colleagues I worked with in the late seventies / early eighties and I guess our reactions were predictable. Pleasure at seeing those people you worked closely with all those years ago but also a lot of catching up on the last thirty years and also some highlighting of the toll the years have taken on us ! Looking around I felt pleased that some had faired worse and some better , so I guess (as I always knew) I’m average – and happy to be just that !

Amazing really that I can remember back to Tuesday to recall the day ! But this memory thing now seems to be a society issue or is it a result of the state of the media we now have ? If an Aardvark farts in Australia it’s on the nine ‘o clock news and the next day we’ve forgotten it in favour of the  kitten stuck up a drainpipe in Wolverhampton.

A while back we watched the daily news eagerly awaiting the latest revelation in the Rupert Murdoch / News of the World scandal. Which MP , which police officer would be implicated and we drolled as we saw a sad old octogenerian , with a penchant for women half his age , brought to his knees and his previous years of arrogance smashed in weeks.

But one morning I watched the news to see youths running riot in London and over the next few days the behaviour of this vermin being emulated in other UK cities. But my memory played it’s tricks again and I forgot poor about old Rupert as I focused on this scum in our society. So where is Rupert now ? is he feeling happier now the tabloids aren’t baying for his blood ?

Just a random thought , wouldn’t it be a lovely conspiracy theory , worthy of a cheap American TV series , if Uncle Rupert had orchestrated the whole affair with the aim of deflecting media attention away from himself. After all , who else would know better how to play the media ?

It’s been a couple of months since I touched this blog and I thought a clean start would be a good idea as a lot of what I put together a year ago isn’t really relevant now.

So let’s kick off with another Kayak report !

It’s not often that conditions come together right but today was one of them ! A low swell, slack tide in early morning and sunshine to boot. So off I toddled to Weybourne, a mark I’ve not fished here from the Kayak before, so it was quite exciting !

I headed off for the site of the old wreck and found a couple of buoys that had been set up by previous visitors, so clipped to one of these and set about some serious fishing. A running ledger with squid on was dropped to one side and I got on with the task of chucking a Dexter Wedge around with a couple of lures attached.

So cutting a long story short six codling, all in the one pound bracket came onboard (three on the Dexter) and a rather large Pout taken on lug. Now these were all caught at slack water and I must have spent an hour and a half at the end of the session with no activity at all.

The Codling went back and the Pouting came home for tea, dishing up a  treat with new tatties and runners from the garden

So a good day was had and my first Cod on a lure.