Sea fishing: Slim pickings to show for braving the elements

On closer inspection I saw the mate was thinner than Cyril, about the same length with a short black-tipped tail. It was a stoat that clearly thought it was a squirrel. Cyril was running up a beech tree collecting nuts and then back down to bury them.

Stoat was mimicking Cyril without the nuts. They danced around each other with such speed and grace seeming to enjoy each others’ company. There was no aggression between the carnivore and the rodent. Who would have though that, or was it a cunning stoat grooming Cyril for lunch?

To top it all the pair were dive bombed by a large bird of prey who aborted the mission at the last moment.

Violence and death are just around the corner in nature, from the spider and fly, to the lion and deer. This is no truer than under the waves of the North Sea where they all sorts of living creatures seem to eat each other.

I took all this as a good omen for the fishing trip. Would I see more unusual pairings such as an owl and a pussycat in a beautiful pea green boat, or perhaps a porpoise and pouting playing ukuleles?

Eventually I arrived at Bridlington and met able bodied seaman Roy in the driving rain.

How many times has the weather person got it wrong for you this year? I know they are an easy target - witness Peter Levy pulling weather man Paul Hudson’s leg on Humberside’s Look North.

This fishing outing was one of those slightly wrong forecasts with “a possible shower clearing out to sea as the day goes on”. In actual fact it was a case of wall-to-wall wind driven drizzle until midday. In this wet westerly wind it was a waterproof leggings and wellingtons day.

Hardy beach dog walkers cheerfully waved us off as David launched the boat from the trailer into the waves. We were quite moved being waved off as if we were going on a cruise around the Baltic and readily waved back. It dawned on us we were the only boat to be launched that morning but as Roy had driven all the way from Huddersfield I was determined to go out.

Off we sailed towards Flamborough Head but as we neared it we could see large waves and swell meeting in an angry union of water.

After being attacked twice by tons of water on the starboard side I quickly turned back and made for the shelter of the cliffs in the Danes Dyke area just north of Sewerby Hall.

We dropped anchor and baited up with dirty squid to fish on the sea bed. Squid is as indispensable as the teapot is to the good people of Yorkshire when it comes to catching cod or skate.

We had been advised that some large skate had been caught using this method and at this location. We fished for an hour and zilch. Another hour passed and there was still no skate, but the good old faithful mackerel had been taking the bait mid-water as the weights took the rig to the bottom.

After a few more mackerel and still no skate or cod we changed location and fished near the Flamborough Buoy. After another fruitless hour the grey, wet day gave way to better conditions with high cloud and almost a mackerel-patterned sky.

We were cod-less and skate-less but a few mackerel had saved the day.

The high cloud resembling cotton wool fish scales dotted over the blue ceiling reminded me of the old saying, ‘Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet and never long dry’, and how true for our day’s fishing.