One of the first thing I do in the new year is to start putting all of the upcoming tournaments, events meets and social’s into the diary. In the UK it is now impossible to attend everything because there is just too much, but I do my best to get to as many as possible though the year.

It doesn’t take long for the year to kick off and last weekend saw the annual Blue Anchor Cod Bash, sponsored by Reel Fun of Portishead and raising money for the RNLI. I’ve been attending this event for the last three years and have caught some huge cod so this arranged with a few fishing buddies from around the country to make a weekend of it and make the most of the surprisingly good weather.

The Saturday was the day of the competition and after a quick safety briefing around forty kayak anglers were launching onto the murky Bristol Channel hoping to connect with a monster. Unfortunately the cod fishing was very quiet with only four anglers bringing one to the scales, but with plenty of conger eels, thornback rays and big whiting being more obliging everyone enjoyed a great days sport.

After the presentation we retired to the local pub to plan our attach for the next day. On Sunday there were just seven of us remaining and we decided to make a much longer paddle to where we had seen charter boats anchored the day before. It didn’t make much difference to the fishing with a few small cod making an appearance amongst the usual species but with everyone catching plenty of big fish again it was a superb day afloat.

So – just one week into 2017 and I’ve already had one fantastic session. Great company and great fishing whilst raising money for a great cause.

If that’s the start of things to come throughout the year, then bring it on..