Blue Warrior's Day:
I too awoke at a stupidly early hour - 4.30? to load the car and leave in time to get to the slip to help out. As Martin said, many hands made light work this year, and very quickly people were signing in and departing.
As the forecast was for winds to increase to F6 later and I had to be back to help with the scales the plan was to head offshore in search of eels, that I felt would give us the best chance of a specimen round and heaviest fish. A good run out at nearly flat out saw us anchored and fishing by 9.00am. A big tide meant at least 2lb was needed to hold. No doggies was encouraging...I soon had 2 fat pout onboard at 2lb apiece. James that had an eels take, but his line parted upon striking (thought the National Boat Champ would have known better! ) It was then my turn, and the nod nod fight had me convinced Mr Cod was to blame - no such luck as a small double strap came aboard. It was then an hour or so before Golden Balls hooks his winning fish - a cracking 38lb eel. We sacked it and tethered it to the boat for the rest of the day - but as he caught it at about 10am - it was a little too long, and unfortunatly it didnt survive.
So apart from the 1 big eel, we had only 5 bites between ourselves all day - pretty poor. The 6 mile run back to Old Harry wasnt fun into the teeth of a F6 - struggled to make 6 knots all the way.
Well done to all involved - personally I was knackered afterwards and getting up at 4.30am this morning for work was even harder!!
Roll on next year!