We have had a bruising summer, with lots of rough weather.
I always expect July to be a well-disguised write-off. It's probably changed now with the sea warming, but July the 1st used to be the trigger day when the lobsters would march into the pots with their hands up. Invariably the weather would break. I remember one July when I only got out six times. A day's fishing in July was worth more than a week in May, so the lobstermen in Aberystwyth would gnash their teeth in frustration.
What's different is the number of northerlies we get now. On this coast they are the only onshore wind, and they are truly savage. I'm only learning about their strange force now. A fisherman from Fishguard pointed out their strange habit of washing pots along the coast and out, rather than in onto the beach as you'd expect: not a bad characteristic if the alternative is to be crushed into the rocks.
Anyway, we were in a run of northerlies when the kayak had its maiden voyage, straight out into waves I wouldn't have dared enter in the perception dancer.
I had bought a couple of new 50metre gill nets from Advanced Netting
Gone were the days of rigging them myself, as it was only marginally cheaper to buy the sheet netting etc. Another innovation was the floatline, now an integral float-rope, so with no bubble floats to catch up the net.
The footrests on the kayak were, and are a nuisance, and I keep meaning to take them off, as I am forever catching the net on them. I had plans to make some neat, ash peg footrests to screw in their place, but have a far simpler plan (always the best) now, which is to tie a rope loosely between the side carrying handles to rest my feet on. Not only will this not snag on the net or pots, but it might prove a useful rope to hold in an emergency!
So I set a net. However I noticed a seal watching me very closely, so saw netting was likely to be a hopeless exercise. Then I paddled out to check my pots.
The kayak was all I had hoped for and more! She was rather sluggish after the Dancer, but then there was a bag of net in the hold.
She is a boat, not a surf-toy, and my mind reeled on the way in through the waves with the implications for inshore fishing of such a stable, unsinkable craft...
