….land of the small fish. Sea fishing on the suffolk coast is a funny old game, it would be extremely easy to lose interest when times get hard. The name of the game here is adapt and overcome, a good angler is one who can still keep catching fish no matter what the situation is laid out in front of him. Lots of weed – fish under your feet, lots of crab activity – pop it up in the water and of course most importantly fish for what is in front of you. Scale down tactics and keep those bites coming, a big fish can take a small hook but a small fish more often than not cannot take a big hook. 

Saturday had arrived, the mrs was off work and we sat in the house watching a film with the kids, a thunderstorm rolled over head lashing down a fair amount of rain. Not exactly prime July weather but something we are getting used to now year after year. A message had pinged up on my phone from Scotty asking if I was fishing that night, originally I wasn’t going too but the more I thought about it the more I thought why not. A plan was hatched, we would go digging over low for whites and lugworm then we would head to Felixstowe to see what we could winkle out on the flood, hopefully a sole or 2 may show as the tide pushed up the beach.

We arrived at the Landguard a couple hours past low after a nice little dig, the water looked good for it so I was soon ready to start my session. My weapon of choice tonight was the Grauvell Vertix YLED beach ledgering rod an awesome superlight bit of kit, this was paired up with the Vertix Zenet reel loaded with 8lb line and a 2 hook flapper with size 6 Aberdeens weighted with a 2oz plain lead to add some movement. First cast was flicked out and the rod settled into the rest within seconds the tip whacked round then slackened off, was it the tide? I watched for another minute as the line slowly moved down tide with the tip making erratic movements, picking the rod up I could feel something lunging along in the tide and it was fish on. With this rod being so light it provides great fun from smaller fish, whatever this was pulled back a bit and as it got closer a small ray popped up on the surface. Only a tiddler but what a nice way to start the session.

Shortly after this we made the decision to move location as the weed was awful and on light tackle it was making a right mess, we upped sticks and headed to the open beach at the dip to see if it was any better there, plan C would be to head into the River Deben as a last resort but all hopes were pinned on the Dips. After parking in the cliff top car park we walked down to the open beach to be met with a mirror like sea, the wind was not reaching this area under the cliffs and it was beautifully warm. I flicked out my first cast and lay back on the shingle, the hoodie was off here and it was t-shirt weather, it appeared there was no weed either so we all settled in and started firing out lovely lug and white rag baits to see what was in the area.

I was fishing at all distances here, it looked ripe for a sole and I was trying my hardest to find one. The night so far had produced a couple of whiting for me, (yay I love whiting), Scottys partner Jo had caught some whiting too along with a perfect little hound pup and Scotty had been trying with crab baits to no avail so he switched back to fishing worm baits. I heard him call over and could see the shape of a little sole on his line, target species achieved for him, not the biggest but it was still a sole and after a couple of pics it shot off back into the bay. I was still fishing hard, changing baits every 10 minutes and really working the area of water in front of me but all I had to show for my efforts was more whiting. The time was now 1am and we were starting to talk about jacking it in for the night, I had been chatting to Scotty and Jo and wandered back to my rod to re bait, the tip was bolt upright and the line was sagging, something had dislodged the lead and with weight on the end I reeled it in. Soon sliding up the shingle was a whiting on the top hook and a baby smoothhound on the bottom hook, thoughts of a doormat were dashed yet again. Soon after this we packed up and made our way back to the car the night had not been as productive as we hoped but that is fishing for you.

With the session over we had decided amongst us that with August approaching the road trips would soon be starting further up the coast, this is the time when the sole fishing really comes alive and all nighters on the sandy beaches are on the cards for us.