THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

New years day Rossall early 1980’s
A magic time, affectionately known as the Fylde coast
jumbo cod era. But, nostalgia and rose tinted glasses aside,
it wasn't a given that if you went out you would bag up with
quality fish. In fact, it wasn't even guaranteed that you would catch anything at all.
There were actually some pretty tough times too as I recall, and often it was very much colder than
today's winters, with freezing fog a regular occurrence, which in a small open boat with nothing more
sophisticated than a hand held compass can be quite daunting, particularly at night, as we often fished
after dark to compensate for weekend daytime blow-off's, though if I'm honest, despite night fishing
supposedly feeling like it should produce the goods, it was often disappointing.
I think we possibly went out too far as evidenced by the successes of the beach night lines. But anywhere
between Bispham and Rossall over very heavy ground in thirty to forty feet of water fishing at anchor
on a good sized tide put you in with a shot.
Some people claimed they had marks, and it's true that there were a few gullies which on their day could
produce quite well. But I've been out and had a burster prompting me to put down a buoy to return to
the following day as we had no GPS back then, only to find that people elsewhere around me caught
while I didn't.
In truth, there were never a lot of cod about. But as a percentage of the species population, a high
proportion of them were decent sized fish, and it's fair to say that every time you got a bite, there was
the genuine expectation that it could result in a twenty pounder.
Quite a few even topped thirty pounds, and Mark Millar fishing from ex-charter skipper Frank Bee's
dinghy had one of forty two pounds, all within a mile or less of the shore.
They would catch them equally as big, and on occasions even bigger, on set lines pegged out on the
beach at night. The problem was that at times there wouldn't be much else about in support, particularly
98