I had come back from our last great social foray of the Summer, desperate to get back out there.
The sea seemed gentle, in a steady Southerly pattern that looked to last for days. I had begged some mackerel heads from Doug the Fish, but nothing like enough to get the pots back working for long in such warm and hungry waters.
Weeks of South and SouthWesterlies have pumped some Caribbean vigour back into things after those sterile Northerlies.
So I set a net that morning. I went down in the afternoon to that frightening roar that is a big surf, piling into the cove. I had forgotten my wetsuit anyway, but saw few gaps in the sets of waves that reared up at the mouth of it and crested in that attracted me to venturing out. My energy and with it my courage definitely fade with the day's lengthening.
I spent the night one ear open for the wind to change. It had only shifted from South to the South-West to invent that pile of surf; a thing I just didn't know about this coast. In Aber, it was a SouthEasterly that could raise a crashing swell from nowhere.
It came back round about 4am, so I went down after breakfast, ready I thought for all worst scenarios.
There is always one you hadn't thought of though.
The surf was muted, but the net was balled up close in on the rocks. The buoys were feet apart. I risked the boil there to try and pull it, but it was stuck tight.
I Hate Waste.
Of a net, and whatever fish had got in there, and whatever shellfish had gone in to feed on them.
That most sickening nightmare for a netsman.
I went the next day, and climbed out onto the rock to drag at it with better leverage. No way.
I will try again on the big low tides that will follow tonight's full moon.
I set another net. A more definite calm prevailed. I was listening more closely to the mood of the sea.
I met Paul from Fishguard at sea who said that most of the Spiders were gone.
But there no Bass around. He had taken a mate out with untold wealth of fishing contrivances who just just succeeded in losing some of his more elaborate lures.
I decided to sleep over in the van near the beach, and set another net. I wanted to be on the spot, determined not to be caught out again.
On the way out, my heart sank, as a young cow-seal was playing in the bay.
Sure enough that morning's net was empty, well-rolled and tossed into a tangle.
Having gone out there I just carried on to reset it and lay the other one. I put them just off the outer edge of the rocks.
The morning was rewarded with three good bass, a mullet, some small pollack (bait thus sorted) a size lobster, mackerel, and a big wrasse. The bass were in the closest end to the shore.
Persistence had prevailed.
That's not the first time going out early has beaten the seal to a catch.
I feel back in tune with the sea.
For now.
Until the next tale of the unexpected.
