THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

each side which I bent over in the traditional way to grip, but with the bends on one side going the
opposite way to those on the other.
This was so that which ever way it settled out it would have four well spread grip wires instead of the
normal two biting into the seabed.
Unfortunately, I very quickly learned that it wasn't quite as simple as that, because depending on which
way you bent the wires in relation to the positioning of the attachment loop, and which side of the boat
you cast it from, you might very well end up with the grip wires all pointing skywards. Lesson learned,
I switched to putting all eight wires into the nose.
To do this I had to find myself an open ended mould, which I did by using an adjusti-mould with the
plunger removed and the side pouring hole sealed up.
12 ounce super grip lead
What's more, this could take up to
twelve ounces of lead. As for the wires,
these are separated off into four pairs
fanned out like a grass rake, then bent in
opposite directions so that there was no
right or wrong way for the lead to settle
out.
Believe me, twelve ounces of lead with
four well spaced gripping wires can
hold out in some pretty ferocious flows.
The one draw back here is that if you
don't also use a long tubi-boom to
dangle the trace away from the wires
during casting, it can self tangle.
This, paired up with the short pennel
bolt rig presenting a double blacklug and squid cocktail streamlined by using elasticated thread is a
pretty formidable piece of terminal kit.
In terms of chronological timing, none of the above fits together as one continuous flow, but there is
none the less a more general sort of pattern to it all, the next step on the journey being over to the North
Sea.
Fish availability must have been much of a muchness from the Humber right up the east coast into
Scottish waters during the late 1970's and 80's. But you wouldn't have thought so reading the angling
press. According to reports, there was only ever one venue, that being Whitby.
It had the wrecks; it quickly built up a fleet of boats capable of ever lengthening forays offshore, and it
had the angler catchment area, swelled by people journeying from all over the country to what would
become the UK Mecca for catching cod.
It certainly had the fish, and a lot of very big, occasionally even huge fish mixed in amongst them too.
It also had tackle and tactics specifically tailored to suit its needs, which were either less or completely
none effective when used elsewhere in the country away from the east coast. Big pirks or 'jiggers' were
the order of the day, attached to the bottom of a string of muppets.
Unlike the Gantocks, due to almost suicidal tackle loss rates over some of the wrecks, the pirks here
were often home made from lead filled chrome tubes, used as much as sinkers as they were lures.
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