We Sleep When We Are Dead

An icy breeze whistles through the window as I lower it a little more, straining over the steering wheel, praying to stay awake just a little longer. I know these lanes well, too well, as to drift absent-minded into auto-pilot and reawaken into consciousness minutes later, knowing that I could not have slept by virtue of still being at the wheel and yet not remembering any of the last 5 miles of road. Carbon blanks rattle in the back and a dry crusty feeling, a mixture of salt and scales, coat my hands. A speed sign catches my attention upon reaching the penultimate village, reminding me to check my speed and, disconcertingly, finding myself to be going well below the limit despite barely processing the road. Just get there, almost done. Stuart and Tommy were ahead, somewhere, or had they bailed off in exhaustion too? I resigned myself to having been picked up by those unjust average speed cameras through Trewennack, at this point making it back incident-free seemed the only thing to focus upon. This time next week I would be wed, a thought that kept me occupied until rolling late back into Falmouth.

It had been a fairly mad summer, getting the green light with mere weeks’ notice to plan a wedding ceremony of reduced capacity. Permission too had been granted to collect much needed tissue samples from the metal-impacted trout of Western Wales. Suddenly it seemed that a spring and summers’ worth of saved activity had to be crammed into the little remaining summer, and that’s not even mentioning the long-awaited chance to travel for fishing. Field working had involved sleeping on the crude bed platform on the border, being awoken by illicit transactions in the same car park late in the night, entering Wales in the small hours of the very morning that travel for work came legal there. We bashed out sampling on three catchments over those days before getting rained off, boxes of fin clips secured in the foot well and datasheets buried safe amongst my sleeping bag – these were worth an inordinate amount to my project. Wipers screeching, I made a call to a Devon farmer, ‘You have sea trout fishing, can I come tonight please?’ my conversational skills had apparently suffered months of reduced contact but there was a tidy window tonight before this low pressure system I was currently sat in reached the south west and I’d received a tip off that this farmer had access to some good water that might soothe my mania to grapple with nocturnal sea trout. By 3am, I was back home, dinner of ginger nuts washed down with whiskey infused tea, a celebration of my success in both making it home and having landed a fine 3lb sea trout on a wake fly.

Catching a break in the madness. 

Unpacking the field gear and repacking for a weekend of bass fishing in Cornwall, I had a message from Pete Tyjas inviting me to join him for a morning of salmon fishing on the Taw, an offer that I could never refuse. I met Pete at the Fox and Hounds hotel early the next morning, he later commented on my looking a little worse for wear, but I was soon bristling with anticipation as we looked upon a pair of fantastic looking pools, weariness washed away. ‘There’s more water we could fish’ said Pete, ‘but this is pretty much the best of it’. That it was, though tempered by the understanding that silver is just shy of mythical in the south west, every swing felt like the line could come tight with the writhing of one of those aquatic unicorns. On my third cast, the water boiled a few meters shy of the tip of my fly line with an undeniable bright flash. No pull though, I brought the fly to hand. Looking down the river towards Pete for affirmation, he was absorbed in making a slick snap T in his own pool, I stood a little straighter as I suddenly felt as though I were standing in the presence of royalty. A salmon, a real salmon looked at my fly. Alas, there was no further action that morning but it lit a spark that would consume me for the rest of that summer, culminating in my first salmon, on a fly and from my local river. Biding my energy, I took some time to admire Pete’s artistic anchor formation before lifting the line across the river to the far bank with pin point accuracy. I looked over to Monty, Pete’s black lab who had followed us diligently down the bank, as if to say, ‘your old man’s pretty good, eh?’.

Down to Cornwall, I found Joe and Tommy in the car park. Joe had been down in Cornwall for a little while already and his report of the recent fishing did not bode well for our odds, but the team was coming together, and anything seemed possible. Stu had made his way separately after work and we made plans to meet in the middle at a promising looking mark. In an effort not to give too much away though, it seems that we’d been a little vague in our description of the point and now could not locate the oracle of bass. Matters were made worse when, stood from a likely looking steep rock mark, our phones buzzed with a picture of a bass from Stu, the man nowhere to be seen and now not returning our calls. We made a run for it, laden with rucksacks and rods, knowing that he couldn’t be far. Finally, sweaty and panting, ankles nervous over the boulder beach, we found Stu casting over a patch of shallow reef. He gladly greeted us, giving way and urging us to cover the ground where there was obvious feeding activity. Over the next half hour, as the sun dipped behind us, I managed to land a couple of modest sized bass and a territorial wrasse, before all fell quiet. We tried to follow the coast along that eve in hope of bumping back in with the fish, but it transpired, after some thought the next day, that the bait fish had pushed in the opposite direction to us, and we had a quiet, albeit pleasant, evening. Fishing over for now, we caught up a little of how life was treating us, each having gone in different directions in the time since graduating.

Modest bass but nice to be catching back on home turf!

Joe with a healthy bend in the rod. 

Rods stashed, held from sliding too wildly into our heads on the makeshift rack of strung-up bootlaces and with bags on laps, it was approaching midnight when we dropped Joe off at his campsite, bidding him well for the rest of his stay as he planned a little mackerel bashing in the morning. Tommy, for some reason, assumed that we might go back for the night, though Stu and I had other thoughts. After rattling through some excuses, ‘I haven’t got anything to sleep in’ – I produced a spare sleeping bag and blanket, Tommy made a hostage-esque call to his girlfriend, telling her that he wouldn’t return that evening but was instead being taken to a beach by the bass maniacs. Stu and I chuckled in excitement as we laid out sleeping bags, alarm set in less than two hours to fish pre-dawn on this reliable beach. Tommy, apparently fearful at what he’d got himself into, produced a ransom of caramel shortbread, our dinner for the evening as we laid shivering under a brilliantly starry canvas, waves sweeping up the beach at an imperceptible distance. Chuckles petered out, hypnotised in awe of the milkyway, which spread from one horizon to another, detailed beyond our perception. It seemed the right time to say something profound, but we all just thought it instead and rustled for another shortbread as eyelids grew heavy.

Going to be a cold one!

I guess we must have slept a little, but we were soon awake and switching sleeping bags for paddletails. A couple of hours later, not a touch for any of us, dawn now ripe. If something would happen at this spot, it would have happened by now. A couple more caramel shortbreads, we trundle to a deep rock mark perhaps half an hour away by these little lanes. Here we found plentiful joey mackerel, stomachs full of little sprats, hitting metals and feathers. Following Stu’s success previously with such tactics, I opted to switch from casting soft plastics to livebait, one of these little mackerel for a predator lurking below the ball of smaller fish. As the heat of day arrived, the bait fish pushed further offshore and off the feed, my livebait unmolested save one tug and some mystery tooth marks. By 9am we’d already been up fishing for five hours, hit two different marks and felt like we’d given it a good bash. The decision was made for us as a mother and son pair arrived to our spot, placed themselves between us and proceeded to instruct us on feathering for mackerel – the apparent pinnacle of angling in their eyes, confused as to why we might be using light weedless lures to target wrasse on balanced lure tackle. They didn’t much like the taste of wrasse, so why bother catching them?

Early morning off the beach. Tommy gave Stu quite a lot of flack for the failed prediction of wild action guaranteed at this spot. 

Tommy supplying the livebaits! 

We took a few larger mackerel and returned to Tommy’s garden for some fried mackerel and a cup of tea. Hesitant at the prospect of using valuable fishing time for such frivolities as a cooked breakfast, I came round as Stu promised that we could look through his google earth for marks if we did so, a closely guarded database that would be well worth an hour or two. We basked happily in the sun, casual swigs of tea to wash down the greasy taste of our fried fishy breakfast, discussing options for the evening. Given the wind direction and tide times, our usual favoured marks wouldn’t be performing at their best on this occasion, so into the database of Stu’s google earth it was. I could swear that our faces shone as Moses after his divine revelation on Sinai at the secrets we viewed from Stuart’s pins and notes but, before we had time to inscribe them onto stone tablets, the laptop was closed and we had a game plan. On the falling tide, we’d head to some shallow, kelpy reef to target wrasse under the bright heat of the afternoon sun, before working further round to a point with close access to deep water where the tidal current should be working nice and close.

After a pit-stop at Anne’s pasties (I brought two so as to give one to Charlotte when returning to Devon, however both only lasted approximately 15 minutes) I pulled up in our chosen layby. Parking in this stretch is a real premium so, wary of the start of Cornwall’s busiest summer, lounged about reading in the remaining space to the disgust of hungry-eyed drivers until Stu and Tommy arrived in another car. Following the footpath along, we caught sight of a likely looking spot to bush-whack down onto the tidal golden granite platforms below. Stu rigged up with a small Texas rigged senko, whilst I opted for a larger 3 inch ‘creature’ style lure, with appendages suggestive of the claws found on much of wrasse’s natural diet. In the clear, calm water, we could clearly see wrasse tracking the lures back to our feet, making polarised glasses potentially as helpful here as on any classic trout stream. After a little while came the interesting pattern that, though the worm style baits certainly attracted interest from more wrasse, the larger ‘creature’ lures seemed to pick out aggressive slams from larger individuals. Whether the lures were being recognised as crustacean food items and the wrasse hunting as they might on crabs is hard to be sure on, with a possibility that these very territorial fish just wanted rid of potential competition. Indeed, many of my largest wrasse to date have come from large paddletail lures, perhaps invoking more of an aggressive response rather than an attempt to fill their bellies. More surprises waited from these brilliant, attitude filled fish later on…

Brilliant colours!

Golden.

Tommy got a good lesson in 'HRF' for wrasse. 

The wrasse fishing was excellent, with multiple fish occupying each kelpy bed or rocky shelf below our feet and we took to sight fishing under the rod tip, leapfrogging each other and making short underarm flicks towards likely looking habitat patches. Double hook-ups were aplenty! Importantly, we were able to collect some fin clips from the wrasse we captured (with the hardy fish returned unharmed!) to contribute towards the genetic samples of a fellow PhD researcher at Exeter, examining the population connectivity and structure of ballan wrasse to better inform management of the controversial live wrasse fishery around the south west coastline.

As the tide slackened, action quietened down as did the, now quite tired, boys. We tried picking out some spider crabs with a landing net, having not brought a snorkel, and pestered the odd remaining wrasse. A brightly coloured orange and green black minnow 90mm with a light head worked well to this end, sneaking up to ledges and then jigging along under the rod tip. There were more follows than takes but it eeked out the afternoon before we were due to make a move, and a few more boisterous wrasse made powerful, strong dives against the tight creaking drag. In this dirty, hook, hold on and pray style of fishing, a short, fast-actioned rod is a good bet in delivering the light lures but also having enough grunt to hold the wrasse during their powerful first run. I could scarcely remember fishing ever having been so much fun. Looking around to show Tommy and Stu my latest catch, I found Tommy settling down for a nap on the rocks and Stu already far gone, at peace, cap over his face. He was laid to rest in his happy place. Alas, no peace as, in my immaturity, I dangled a lure over his face, jigging it over his mouth. Stu often talks of trying to think like the bass and, during a period of obsession and sleep deprivation a couple of years previously, Stu boasted of how he understood the bass, knew what they were doing, had become one with the fish. In this vein I wondered if, occupying the psyche of a bass, he would snap at a lure dangled in his face. Sadly, it transpired that he didn’t but was simply quite confused, probably called me a tit in more polite language, before starting thinking about our next mark.

Double hook ups!

Bright lure, bright wrasse. 

Dreaming of bass, or being the bass? 

Traversing along the coast, hopping over boulders and rockpools now crusty with salt under the baking summer sun, we made our way towards a steep granite tower of a headland. Rods were passed between us as we scrambled downwards from a high point, the sun now masked by the wall of golden rock behind us. Large, sharp crystals give excellent grip smearing walking boots down sodden, wave eroded fissures in the rock but also bite hard on wet hands, giving a smattering of cuts to admire during the working week to reassure that the trip hadn’t just been a dream after all. We laid down our gear on a sloping ledge and stood afoot a broad platform, arriving as per our planned time. The location immediately proved its quality, with glimmering shoals of sprats holding themselves in tight balls just a few meters from shore, telling of the anxiety of nearby predators. Racing to rig up, we were all soon into mackerel and pollock, hooking up close in and below the bait shoals. After seeing to a supply of mackerel for supper, it was apparent that a change of tack was required to get into more quality fish with such an abundance of mackerel and average pollock.

By now, a literal wave was being created as a line of mackerel swam like a Roman legion into the baitfish, with bigger predators below picking off the mackerel. Whilst Stu and Tommy opted for larger lures, I tried my luck at dropping a livebaited mackerel into the fray. Excitement was running high and reeling in just half a mackerel, bloodied and absent from the pectoral fins below, was enough to have us all exclaiming wildly. Bass and pollock don’t bite mackerel in half and leave such a bloody mess, what could it have been? Whilst pondering this and rigging up another livebait, we saw a great form breach out of the water a couple of hundred yards out. We debated the identity, it was certainly a predatory fish from the tail silhouetted, but seemed on the small side for a Bluefin – perhaps another tuna species. The warm seas in SW Cornwall have thrown up their fair share of more southerly species over the years and, with warming seas, this seems set to continue. Before we had time to say much more, my livebait was twitching erratically and, reeling into rather than striking to set the circle hook, I was soon into a powerful fish at my feet, pulling braid from the spool despite a tight drag. When brought to the surface we couldn’t believe it – another ballan, and a plump one at that! Wrasse are not often known to take fish baits, preferring instead a crunchy diet of crustaceans and molluscs, and I’ve certainly not heard of them taking a full sized mackerel live before. However, it was not a coincidence, the local population of wrasse must have clocked into this opportunity for a glut of protein as the mackerel were feeding too hard to realise their perilous position, tight to shore, allowing the wrasse to dart upwards and snap with their ugly molars – the apparent cause of the bloodied half mackerel earlier. Not only one wrasse was captured this way but another, just as fat, followed in quick succession. Utter madness! I begged a photo as the others were also tight into frantic action, too excited and eager to get another lure out to compose myself and the wrasse properly, whole mackerel still hanging from the corner of its mouth.

Proof of the absurdity.

Lots of pollock around this stamp, kept this one for the pot and (no surprises) the stomach was packed with sprats!

It was soon Stu’s time to shine, having been diligently casting a large enough paddletail into the fray that it had been ignored by the mackerel and small pollock, and holding out for a larger prize. He got his reward as his rod bent double into a fine bass, giving him some good stick as it thrashed its head about. There was some anxiety as the fish neared the sharp ledges by our feet – a quick burst of energy here could easily sever the line and lose the bass, which we could now see was a lovely dark, deep-set individual. Happily though, it was soon within the landing net to much relief! Measuring 55cm, it was a better stamp of bass than those the previous evening and we were all made up for Stu, even posing for a chaotic selfie with the three of us, and bass, in the midst of the action.

Dark wrasse from deep ground.

By now the whitebait had been broken up by many waves of predators and we took to casting at more distance, with action less frantic. We still picked up some pollock up to 3lb and a few wrasse, glowing in the experience of one of our most surreal shore fishing sessions to date but as the sun was setting things were surely slowing down. Seeking out remaining patches of activity and retreating as the tide rose, Tommy and I climbed over a couple of car-sized granite blocks to reach a bay behind us. To our surprise, tight to the rocky shelf were yet tens of thousands of sprats, the water black with them. Utilising my landing net, we took turns to swipe whilst the other held open a carrier bag, the mesh of the net being too wide and a rain of whitebait sprinkling our feet before being emptied into the bag. Stu’s face soon poked around the corner, probably curious as to the source of our cackling, finding Tommy to be saying, ‘That’s probably enough don’t you think?’ as I continued to swipe at the sprats, a wild lust in my eyes. ‘Now I understand why commercial fishermen are so greedy’ I let slip, a quote that was recited a week later in Stu’s best man speech. I was coaxed away from the poor sprats after a few minutes, with a morbid carrier bag full of 3-4kg of fresh, sustainable fish.

In our degraded inshore marine ecosystems, plagued by destructive fisheries techniques and overexploitation, bygone tales of such feeding frenzies seem fanciful at best. This though had given us a glimpse of the richness of life that once existed in our seas and might yet return with more progressive regulation and protection. For tonight, we were satisfied and, laden with our scale-covered gear and bag of a few choice mackerel, pollock and whitebait, made a drudge back towards the cars in last haze of evening light. Happily, we all survived the drive back into Falmouth and, cracking out my gas stove in Tommy’s garden, we stayed up late frying whitebait in a Trangia pan of bubbling oil, dousing them in enough salt and lemon to make a doctor shudder. We spoke about rising early the next morning to do it all again but, truthfully, we all knew that we’d be giving the morning session a miss, savouring instead what had been.

Until the next time!