Many moons ago, aged 8 or 9 years old, I began sea fishing with my father.  My dad had bought some of the latest fishing gear an Edgar Sealy Sea Spray beach caster and a Garcia Mitchell 602 multiplier reel.  The bug didn’t bite my Dad, but it bit me hard and the passion began! 

I started fishing off Harrington Pier with a bright orange handline. I would spend hours fishing off the bottom level of the pier and still vividly remember my joy in landing my first cod. I had cast the handline about 20 feet from the base of the pier. The hook baited with a limpet that had been prised off a rock on the nearby beach. I remember pulling the handline in and feeling the tug of a fish and watching in awe, heart pounding with excitement, as this huge fish came through the water to the surface. As I pulled it up onto the pier I was hoping the hook would hold and the fish not drop off. The cod safely landed I couldn’t get home quick enough to show my parents my massive fish. Looking back now the fish was only about 1½  -2lbs in weight, but at that age it was huge! 

As a youngster I would spend practically all my spare time at Harrington, in the summer swimming and fishing off the pier or into the harbour catching mainly eels and small flounders on my handline. Then I got a little older my Dad told me I could use his rod and reel, I was over the moon with excitement and after many birds nests I mastered the multiplier reel.  I couldn’t believe how lucky I was, so thanks to my Dad I had this fantastic rod and reel.  

 I was lucky to meet another young keen angler called Gary Ryecroft. Gary lived on Rose Hill overlooking the harbour and pier.  We fished together for several years, played in the same football teams and went out drinking together in later years and remain friends to this day.  Gary’s parents house had a large cellar in which I would leave my fishing gear after a nights fishing on the pier or beach.  After a successful night session on the rocks at Harrington with Gary, I was walking the mile home to Brierydale with a carrier bag containing a couple of cod I had caught. Walking down Moorclose Road towards me was what seemed a huge Policeman. “Right son where do you live and where have you been at 3 o’clock in the morning” I quickly told him I lived on Brierydale and I had been fishing.   He asked “what have you got in the carrier bag and where is your fishing gear”?  Obviously I thought, he thinks I have been burgling houses! Nervously I explained I had left my rod at my mates house and I had a couple of cod in the bag, after a quick inspection he said “nice fish” and walked on to my relief! Not long after Gary and myself were fishing a small rocky point at Harrington and Gary caught this huge cod that weighed 10lbs, it was the biggest cod I had seen up to then. Gary sold it to our local fish and chip shop at Mossbay.

In the early 70s there was still some huge cod being caught in West Cumbria before the commercial boats and local gill netters decimated the stocks. Harrington Pier like the well know Whitehaven Piers just a few miles to the south could turn up some huge fish and I was lucky to witness two big double figured fish being caught. The bigger fish were always caught at night on the higher tides either side of high water in January.  They were usually caught on the far side of the basket breakwater that ran parallel with the pier. At that time I couldn’t cast that far and only the adults that regularly fished the pier knew where to cast and had the ability to do it.  The baskets are still there now, a line of wire baskets filled with limestone rocks to create a breakwater. To cast over the baskets you had to go onto the top level of the pier and cast 90 degrees to the pier towards the steel works at Mossbay, effectively parallel with the beach. You then handed your rod down to your mate on the bottom level and came down the stone steps at the end of the pier.  Those steps are gone, taken out when the pier was refurbished  a number of years ago. One particular calm evening local angler Alan Graham fishing over the baskets got a bite and struck into a very good fish. After a short time pumping the fish in to the pier side this huge cod showed on the surface. I was in amazed at its size, it was huge!  Any large fish had to be walked down the length of the pier to the steps near the Pump House at the beginning of the pier. A nervous time for the angler in case the fish came off. Unfortunately in Alans case this huge fish did come off just as he neared the steps, disappointed wasn’t the word. The fish had snapped the hook snood and escaped!  After the excitement everyone carried on fishing and a local angler from Salterbeck who’s name I cannot recall hooked into another big fish again fishing over the baskets breakwater.  This time the fish was walked to the steps without incident and landed.  This massive cod that later weighed in at 22lbs had in its mouth the hook  and snapped snood belonging to Alan! I can’t recall the exact time interval between the fish being lost and then caught again, but it couldn’t have been more than 30-60 minutes. Everyone was amazed the fish had escaped and just returned to the same feeding area and was caught for a second time on a lugworm bait. The second large cod I witnessed caught was a fish of 18lbs again from the baskets area around the same time, but with less drama.

These are some of my early memories of my sea angling.

The Passion Begins!!