Home to the Mersey

I took the trip 'home' back to Merseyside tonight to catch up with 'the family' and drop off a few presents at the same time. Killing two birds with one stone I met 'our kid' (The Bait Fairy) behind Guinea Gaps baths with the hope of catching a cod. He arrived with 150 or so lugworms and some smelly squid, as you do, and we started fishing at about 1730.

The finest lugworm. A gift from the bait fairy!

This was my first sea session proper on UK shores for a good few years, so suffice to say my rigs were almost non existent, still TBF came up with the goods in the shape of a pennel pulley rig. So on one rod I used said rig with big baits, 4 big lug worms piled on a 2/0 hook tipped off with squid. On the other rod it was a live bait rig, a small size 2 hook with worm bait to attract and hopefully hook a small whiting this was effectively the 'hair' and was attached to a 2/0.

Sadly despite the excellent bait, the weather was very warm and the cod refused to play ball, the air temp being 11 deg C when we started fishing at 1745. There were numerous small fish on the feed but using such big hooks impeded my abilities to catch these in any number, indeed that was supposed to happen, to leave the bait free in some part for cod, but sadly that part of the master plan failed to materialise.

I did manage a small dab and a decent whiting about a pound, and last cast I did hook a pin whiting on the live bait rig, sadly it was too little too late.