Thursday, July 29, 2010, 08:15 AM
Posted by Administrator
For some reason, cleaning my backside seems to occupy a large part of my day. It was 3pm and I was putting the final shine to the butt, when Grumpy walked in the front door with a smile on his face and a plaster on his finger.Posted by Administrator
I sat him down with a nice cup of tea and asked him what was going on ?
It transpired he had left early in the morning taking care not to wake Mrs Grumpy and had arrived at Gorleston at about 9am with the Jimmy. Well actually they arrived twice, because they had to go back to the sweet shop so The Jimmy could buy them some sweeties and bottles of pop.
They unloaded the boats on the road as his 4x4 thingy is too high to go under the car park barrier and as you would expect from a couple of pensioners they creaked about getting ready and eventually had the Kayaks on the shore line and took a few minutes to recover from the exertion.
The highlight of the launch seemed to be the number of small flies on the boats and much discussion was had as to what they were and whether they should take photos to record the event. Apparently Kayakers get quite excited about this kind of thing and like to make 20 minute videos of flies and other crap to put on forums.
I would say at this point that they both intended having a recreational paddle and for this reason Grumpy had only packed one small rod and they were both mentally prepared for endurance paddling rather than any serious fishing. This might explain what follows.
They paddled out to the White Swan, which is the third old wreck in this saga (Saga - get it ? damn we cats are sharp) to be greeted by lots of buoys and pieces of rope, something called a commercial had laid out there. Once clear of them they started what they thought would be a quick fish followed by that paddle.
Grumpy drops his new 100 gram "muppet" lure attached to four mackerel feathers. This didn't have time to hit the bottom when the rod went wild and two nice schoolie bass had hooked themselves - Yum Yum Unfortunately one came off near the surface and the other was returned after David Bailey done his bit.

So the recreational paddle was abandoned after the sonar was showing more fish than chavs at a Katie Price book signing. They then spent four hours running up and down in the current throwing lures and feathers about in what was a Bass feeding frenzy.
They both lost three fish each on the retrieve and The Jimmy managed to hold onto a nice brace.

Grumpy very nearly had his first heart attack when after 30 minutes of inactivity his 1.3 metre rod bent into a "C" and he struggled to pull in what he thought was a snag. A bass of about 4 to 5 pound had taken his plug and a pouting had taken the jelly. The pouting slipped free near the surface and Grumpys best Bass ever was on his lap.
It was at this point that the lack of planning paid off. With the forceps in the stowage area and no glove, Grumpy was trying to free a large and strong bass from the lure with his hands. Result - one treble hook deeply planted in his birdy finger and one pissed off Bass, so pleased with that result, it leapt back into the sea waving a fin as it went.
Luckily the Jimmy is used to dealing with such life threatening injuries from his time in the battlefield. He deftly removed the hook and snatched Grumpys life from the jaws of death.
The last hour went quiet as the sun went in and the numbers of fish dropped markedly. So the old boys headed back to shore with a smile on their faces and Jimmy with his tea for the evening. And where was my Bass - that's right still at sea - AGAIN !


So the old dears dragged the boats back to the car park and loaded up ready to go home and find Grumpy the largest and most dramatic plaster they could to dress his wounds.
Ready to drive off, a cry of "Oh Fuck" was heard around Gorleston as The Jimmy realised he wasn't going to get out under the barrier with the Kayaks on the roof, that they had spent so much time loading on. An hilarious end to a great days fishing.













