Firstly, i must apologise to Dave…. totally slept through my alarm this morning for a supposed 5.45am start!!! Phone rang about 6.20am Not only was i late out of my pit, but i think i must have got out of the wrong side too….

Rush rush rush, round to Daves, pick him up, and down to Cleveleys for around 7.45am, a good half an hour later than we wanted really.

Unloaded the yaks and got our gear together sharpish for a quick half hour pumping for a few fresh worms….. low was about 8am so we were cutting it a little fine, but managed to get what we wanted in no time at all.

We had planned to fish Sunday, but the forecast changed at the last minute and the descision was made to fish today instead….Sea state was a little choppier than we hoped for, from land it looked great, but with the Southeasterley breeze, it soon chopped up half a mile from land

The Blue Mink was anchored up a few hundred yards from low water, and at first we headed out past it to a mark we had good results from last year. I think we lasted about half an hour at this spot before we decided to head back in, slightly closer to land. Not before having quite a few dogfish and just the one codling.

It was a fair old paddle back too…..you can just about make out the blue mink in line with the buildings…

As we headed back we paddled within shouting distance of the Blue mink, I think they had only had doggies at that point.

We were soon anchored up slightly inshore of the charter boat, where the sea was still a little choppy, but manageable.

First drop gave a small codling and hopes were raised as to the chances of a few codling for the session

The fishing was pretty hectic to say the least, unfortunately main doggies (one after another!!!) with whiting and an odd codling in between

Around the middle of the flood seemed to be the best time for the codling and in the middle of a couple of codling run Dave hit into something decent, scrapping like hell!!! We both though he was into a god cod, but only once he got his fih to the surface dd he realise it was a late Starry Smoothhound (He always manages to winkle one out even when you least expect it!!!) We both commented how strange the human mind works, disappointment seemed to follow the realisation that it was a smoothound, yet not many months previous we had looked forward to getting out chasing the smoothhound!?!? Go figure!!!

Now if any of you have ever tried to photograph a smoothhound, you will know this can quite often be difficult, add a sloppy sea and a kayak into the equation and you have a nightmare on your hands!!!

We kinda got there in the end though!!

We decided a retreat was the best idea before the tide started to ebb, not fancying a wind against tide situation, and arrived back at shore around high water (2pm ish)

All together we had around 8 keepers, but took 6, 2 for me, 2 for Dave and 2 for terry for the hire of his Kayak Nothing big, probably 3 and a half being the best one.

One of Daves fish was stuffed with small edible crabs…..

There were quite a few lads fishing from the shore when we returned. We got chatting to one chap who said he had a nice Cod of around 5lb, and a small thornie, wasnt too sure if it was a tall story at first, but i soon ate humble pie when he produced the fish from his bag!!! Cracking fish from the shore, and during daylight too

Not a bad little session really, lots of fish, just too many dogfish!!! Weather could have definitely been better, but we cant have everything!!!