Rough Day Down the Coast

Seas in the NE have been rather large in the past few weeks.  Hopefully signalling the start of the Cod and the Winter season.
Unable to get out fishing at the minute I headed to the coast for the afternoon with my family and my camera to see exactly HOW rough.... I wasnt disappointed

The River Tyne and Crawleys (Browns Bay) 22nd September 2016

I have had a lot of time off work this month and had yet to really get out for a good bit fishing. Weather today was forecast to be lovely so I picked up some bait and headed out to a mark in the River Tyne that I had discovered a few weeks back.

HW was at 0800 and I was only just able to make it for dead on high tide due to doing the school run this morning.  Conditions looked great so I baited up (fresh crab) and got to it.

I only fished for a few hours but managed 4 or 5 small codling.  I decided to make a day of it and so I headed off early to grab some lug worm from the tackle shop.  I then high-tailed it down to the coast to find a rock to sit on for a few more hours.

Crawleys is a great mark just on the northern edge of Browns Bay.  I had heard that it had been producing some good fish lately so I thought it was worth a shot.  I got set up for half-tide and planned to fish down to LW at 1400.

First cast saw me get a few small bites which came to nothing.  Second cast saw me pull in the first red Cod of the season which weighed about 1.25lb.

 While fishing I noticed lots of small fish swimming around in the rock pools.  This little chap stayed still long enough for a snap...

I fished until about 1320 until disaster struck.... my rod stand tipped while I chatted to a few fellow anglers.  My rod hit the rocks and I smashed/snapped/destroyed 5 rings which put an end to any further fishing....

Oh well at least I had one!

Whitley Beach 14th Sep 2016

We headed out for an early winter session last night.

Although it is typically the back end of October before Whitley Beach starts fishing for the winter, conditions were good so we took a chance and headed out over Low Water.
LW was around 2100 so we arrived at 1800 and got set up.  There was a nice bit of movement on the water and despite the thick mist it was quite a pleasant night for fishing.

We had bites more or less immediately.  My dad pulled in a small lobster on his second cast.

As the tide dropped we moved out on to the rocks and fished into some heavier ground.

An ever-so-dependable rockling turned up a few casts later followed a short while later by a bigger Lobster.  

As darkness fell the bites continued but we were unable to catch much else other than a few small codling.  I had a go of capturing a few shots of the beach with my Galaxy S6.

Once darkness fell we found that in the rockpools around us the crabs were out and about.  I caught this guy trying to catch one of the small codling we had caught earlier in the evening.  If you ever come across one of these (Velvet Swimming Crabs) be careful.  They move like lightning and are aggressive as hell.

We packed up at around 2100 and headed home.  All in all a pleasant (albeit early) start to the winter season this year.  We plan to fish a lot more of the local beaches this season so hopefully a lot of these reports will include lots of cod!