February was our first planned wreck fishing trip of 2003, after a poor winters ground fishing for Cod which only produced three reasonable fish of 19lb 17lb and 11lb and about a dozen codling between 2 and 4 pounds we all hoped that this trip would produce some quality Pollack which move onto the wrecks in February and March and perhaps a few cod which normally are later moving onto  the wrecks, normally May onwards.

I phoned our skipper Phil Batt on the evening before the trip to confirm weather conditions were suitable. He said the forecast gave a freshening south-easterly wind by midday and suggested an early start to get the best out of the weather, so we agreed to meet at 6-45am for a 7-00am lock at Soveriegn Harbour Eastbourne. I asked him weather he had been out during the previous week but he had to cancel two planned trips due to weather so our trip was the first one after having his boat out of the water to anti foul the hull  and generally prepare his boat for the new season. He also said that there was a no information about how the wrecks were fishing as weather conditions had curtailed both commercral and charter boats being able to reach the offshore wrecks.

We met Phil at 6-45am and were soon leaving the harbour heading south into a light breeze and slight sea after steaming for approximately two hours his twin diesels started to slow indicating we had arrived at our first wreck of the day which turned out to be the only one we fished that day. Phil positioned the boat for the first drift and signalled us to lower our assortment of pirks, jellyworms and redgills towards the wreck we all started jigging pirks and retrieving Jellyworms almost instantly one by one rods started arching downwards with hooked fish. Seven out of eight were all playing fish, one by one codling were being boated averaging four to six pounds. we lined up for the next drift. Again when we were above the wreck rods arched downwards with more codling of a similar size but no sign of the Pollack we were expecting to catch.

After about six drifts the cod started to get bigger with several fish well over twenty pounds being boated, all the fish we were catching were coughing out fresh sprats which indicated they were in a feeding frenzy. we had all lost track of time and Phil shouted out only half an hour before it was time to start the long steam home, we had all had four hours of arm aching fishing, as we headed for home  we could now take stock of our catch, we had broken several club records firstly Gordy Wheeler with a new club record cod of 24lb 8oz closely followed by Chris Millis breaking his own club record Pollack with a fish of 16lb 8oz but the amazing thing was we had boated 119 cod and 8 Pollack weighing 1085lb. Top rod on the day was Gordy Wheeler with 215lb followed by John Kelly with 191lb and Brian Seager with 151lb.

This was a truly amazing days fishing which normally only you read about or watch on a John Wilson video but yes it had happened to yes this time it was a dream come true.

By John Manktelow