I'm the only plugger I know who hasn't caught on the Feed Shallow, the shallow diver everybody goes to first. I put that right on the 5th cast when the rod bent over for the first time in 6 months. Things looked promising, the 4 of us well spread out, but an hour later when we met up again it was the only fish caught. With the the tide dropping Joe moved away from the group and it was at the next met up we learnt he'd had 16 fish in 30 minutes, 3 times he had 3 in 3 casts, and once 4 in 4. Certainly made the overall tally for the day look good, because the fish never really switched on. I picked up another 5, one on my banker shallow diver again, and 4 off the top. Mark had 6 too, Malcolm 2 with Joe adding another 4 to his 16, the best of which went 4lb 8oz.. So the seasons starts, with a 6 fish haul, nothing wrong with that. Here's a pic of the first fish of the year.
I'm a bit of a tart when it comes to quality, and Mark Padfield isn't. So when we sat down to lunch, the majority of which Joe had provided ( thanks Joe) Mark started taking the piss out of my £125 Costa Del Mars while I had loads of material in the £3.99 pair of women's sunglasses he had on. Apparently he'd lost the expensive £15 ones. "I'd rather have these then the Costa Del Mars, never worth the money, let me try them , Oh Fuck, these are brilliant, I want some". They're worth every penny. Best bit of gear I've brought all winter.
