Sunday January 8th 2012

Venue - Sutton staithe/ Barton Turf


Weather  As it turned out, bright sunny and no wind !


With more windy weather forecast for the weekend we again felt it might be more sensible to fish from a bank rather than afloat. The venue was to be another staithe not far from Stalham at a place called Sutton.
As soon as i opened my door to start loading my gear something did not feel right. For a start there was no wind what so ever and the sky looked clear 
 (no rain clouds as forecast). With the car loaded i set off to pick Neil up and was soon sitting on his drive expecting him to come out as usual and load his gear in. After 20 mins with no signs of life, lights or movement i decided to go and collect Dean then return to collect Neil later. I arrived outside Deans to find the same scenario, no lights on and no movements. As i waited i got a text from Neil saying he had over slept and would meet us at the venue. Another 15 minute wait outside Deans and still no joy so i decided to head off as well.
I arrived at the venue about 7:45am, a good hour after we intended to start, and there was a bright Orange ball starting to appear in the sky !
Neil arrived soon after and we soon had 4 rods out covering most of the dyke.
Despite seeing a large swirl as we were setting up, things started very slow and it was about an hour before my float rod showed any signs. This resulted in a perfect miniature "Jack" all of 2lbs. We fished on without any more action until around 10 o'clock and decided to have a move back to the staithe at Barton Turf where we fished last time. There was already a couple of other anglers Pike fishing when we arrived but we managed to find enough room to get fishing again. 
By now the conditions were more like a September afternoon, bright and fairly sunny and very mild for the time of the year, about 10c, not the best conditions for Pike fishing. On speaking to the other anglers there, sport was very slow, non existent in fact !  We carried on moving and changing  baits to try and find one but admitted defeat around half One and headed of home to watch the Manchester derby cup tie... 
Dean did eventually wake up, about half 8 to a dead phone and so no alarm. In the end i think he drank his flask and ate his sandwiches watching the football too. In hindsight he didn't miss anything but was still gutted that he had missed his fishing. A new alarm clock was his next purchase !