The First Mate bags a nice Cod for his Birthday in January aboard Sweet William

We had a short run out today, just the two of us, to celebrate the First Mate's 13th birthday.

We headed out late, to avoid the early slack water, and arrived at our chosen anchorage just as the tide began to ebb. It was great sport at first as we were plagued by smaller codling, but unfortunately nothing noteworthy came aboard.

We waited on anchor as long as we could, without wasting too much bait, until we approached the next slack water.

We headed offshore for a little winter wrecking session and struggled until the tide completely stopped running. We knew we were in a great spot, and as soon as we just sat pretty much motionless above the wreck, so we could drop right in amongst it without dragging and snagging, we could both instantly feel smaller fish pecking away, so knew the wreck was healthy.

We both reeled up, and changed to homemade two hook wrecking rigs with 10/0 meat hooks, 10" muppets and whipped on some monster cocktails!

We knew we literally had time for one more drop before the conditions changed, so I re-positioned the boat, charged up Henry's muppet with the UV torch, and sent him straight back down while I sorted my own gear out. He knocked into a lovely birthday PB cod for our efforts on the very last drop of the day. As we often joke, it's not over until we say it is

We headed straight back to watch the sunset whilst drifting behind the Tyne's south pier, whilst enjoying a steaming hot stew. As they say, the harder you work the luckier you get!

Even though it was hard going, you're only 13 once, and it turned out to be a challenging but lovely run out.