Harry Codini

On Sunday I took part in the Cod fishing challenge from Grimsby/Cleethorpes with my dad and uncle Ben. Ben works at the marina and has a lovely boat called the 'Coastal Surveyor'.

This was my first sea fishing trip on a boat and a return to my birthplace of Grimsby. I hadn't been back for years and the first time I would get to see what was left of the world famous fishing docks. As a kid I followed the mighty mariners - Grimsby Town FC, experiencing their rise to the old second division. Unfortunately both the football club and the docks are on the verge of disappearing for good - one about to drop out of the football league and the other barely noticeable - there are only a handful of boats left.

The cod season was also suffering- reports were of a terrible season being made worse by a strange red seaweed. Ben had tested his boat a few weeks before with my Dad on the river Humber - out of four boats only 3 fish were caught - pretty poor for a once fertile cod spot - a prime example of over fishing.

We arrived at the dock with the sun shining, greeted by Uncle Ben and a boat fully stocked with rods, bait and sandwiches ready for the off. There were 40 boats sailing from the marina and another 30 or so launching from the beach at Cleethorpes. Our chosen spot would be towards the North shore of the Humber heading due north from the dock gates. The radio was ablaze with banter and safety announcements from the other anglers and organisers - a re-assuring sound as this was my first trip on a smaller craft and the professionalism of the organisation was excellent.

The fishing was going to be an epic affair - 10.30 am start and a 6.00 pm finish. Rules allowed two rods per person with two hooks per rod, our bait selection was squid and black lug worm. Ben had rigged the rods with a variation of patternoisters and straight ledgering. The river had a heavy flow, with the tide due to turn around 2 pm we settled down to fish.

We watched the boat traffic pass by, holding on to the side when larger vessels came down the nearby deep water channel, waiting for the cod to turn on.

The radio was a good gauge of the other competitors, most hadn't had a bite which would be the general theme for the whole match. There were reports of a few fish around the 6lb mark. The fishing was so bad we got excited at catching the odd crab.

The fishing was slow, not even a bite, we waited for the tide to turn to see if our luck would change. A large cargo ship passed by which prompted Dad to recall how many fish he had caught course fishing when boat traffic had churned the swim up - cue the only bite of the day!

Dad landed a 4.5lb cod, the blank was saved for the boat!

There was very little to report for the rest of the day as the fishing was very poor, Ben and I didn't even register a bite! The sight of all the craft retuning to port was a heart warming specticle. The winning fish weighed in at 12lb winning £1600 for the angler from Boston. A local write up can be found here. The sportgrimsby website has a video of the boats launching from the beach.