I started the next spring with two pots. The need for bait, plus increasing excitement about this new, more fertile shore (I had caught my sixth lobster) tempted me to set a net.
Now this was a ragged affair, well holed from its former use as a beach net in Ceredigion. I had rigged it shallow, with only a four foot fishing depth, for setting at low tide on a wide, rocky shore, so had little expectation of it here.
My son was visiting, and stood by in the other kayak as I laid the net. I then returned along it to check that I hadn't left it twisted. There was already a fine mullet in the end!
I left it out overnight, and returned to it to find six mullet, and a few rainbow wrasse. Justine, my partner, was in the other kayak, and received the fish.
I realised that potting was one thing, but netting from a sit-in kayak was an accident waiting to happen. There was nowhere to put anything, and no stability.
I blame my years as a more conventional fisherman for the fact that I instinctively avoided getting wet, and had never even learned to do the "eskimo roll", so was on borrowed time anyway venturing out in a traditional kayak at all.
Having posted a notice in the local boat club, trying unsuccessfully to track down owners of unwanted dinghies, the behaviour of the increasing flotilla of sit-on kayaks caught my attention. They went out in seas that I wouldn't have dared paddle through, even if I had managed to get through the surf without capsizing.
Not only that but they seemed to take pleasure in such seas. Admittedly a lot of them were probably foolhardy, but they seemed to survive it.
I trawled through the different makes and styles on the internet and was attracted to the Ocean Kayak Big Game Prowler. Not a nice name. People have been locked up for less. I took my internet quest seriously. I have done with the bit in my life labelled bad boats. Never take pity on a boat or a puppy.
It was wider than most, but its real advantage was a large weight capacity: a necessity when hauling nets potentially stuck with seaweed, or pots that have bunched together.
There seemed few sit-ons available secondhand,and very little serious discount to be found shopping around. I could manage to get 10% off, but that still meant paying over five hundred pounds for a plastic boat. If I jigsawed it up it would fit in a binliner.
I decided to go for it, praying to the god of male pride that it would perform well!
