Sea safety

Within the last week a local angler was washed from the rocks by a freak wave in heavy sea's. He was in the water for over 20 minutes and, by all accounts, is lucky to be alive. This seemed an opportune time to log about safety.

Fishing is never without risk. When you spend so much time near the water then anything can happen. It might sound stupid to some but there are plenty angler's out there that would agree with me when i say that the adrenaline rush of a close shave is all part of the fun. But it's things like these recent events that remind you how careful you really do need to be. Certainly I am guilty of complacency. I fish the same marks in big ground sea's and the more time you spend on a mark the better you get to know how the sea has an effect on it-where the splash and run will come up to etc. This then gives you a false sense of security, which clearly could be deadly. With this in mind i'd like to give you all a few pointer's towards some step's that you can take to help avoid any potential danger.

Billy no mates?

The very first piece of advice I would give to anyone is to never fish on your own. I know that not everybody has the luxury of a like minded fishing buddy, who can usually fish at the same time and is happy on the same mark but with fishing forums and the like it has become a whole lot easier to find a like minded angler to fish with. This is imperative for yours and your fishing buddies safety. A good casing point of this is a story about a Newquay angler I know who went to a well known North coast ray mark that's about a mile from the car. The walk down is fairly easy but a little sketchy at times. He simply misplaced his foot, slipped over and turned his ankle. With this he was unable to put any weight at all so couldn't even contemplate the walk back to the car. Luckily for him it was a mark that has good mobile signal so he called the emergency services and was promptly airlifted off of the mark. It's just so easy for things like this to happen.

Tell somebody where you are going

Another thing that you should always do is to tell someone where you are going and roughly what time time you will back. They also need to understand exactly where the mark is. We anglers might know where pot dog cove or swamp donkey point is but your Mrs might not, so take the time to explain. Also bear in mind that there will be plenty of occasions when you might not be able to get onto the mark you wanted to but a quick text back home at least put's someone into the picture. If your going to be late then again, send a text to let someone know.

Take your phone

You mobile phone is probably the most important piece of safety kit an angler can have. Often marks don't have signal so it's always good to keep an eye on your phone on the walk so that you are fully aware of exactly where you need to get to so that you have the ability to make a call. It is also worth a look at buying a waterproof case for your phone. Good ones aren't horrendously cheap but the cost will still pale into insignificance when compared to the rest of your gear. You can buy something like this Aquapak to just use whilst your fishing. They also have the benefit of keeping sand and squid juice off of your phone. If you need something a bit more substantial then these Griffin survivor cases have had some awesome reviews. I've got one of these on my Christmas list.

Have a good look

It's always worth spending 5 minutes looking at what the sea is doing before you drop down onto your mark. It doesn't matter how well you think you know it, different conditions can produce wildly different swell patterns. Swell comes through in set's which can often be minutes apart and differ in size so make sure you spend enough time looking.

Use a good light

A good, bright, tough head lamp is another vital piece of equipment. Gone are the day's of heavy lead acid batteries and halogen bulb. LED light's are where you need to be looking now. They are vastly lighter, brighter and last for miles longer. They also don't need new bulbs every other session. There is a good lap to suit every budget. I'll do an in depth headlamp guide at another point but here are the headlamps that I can recommend.

A good budget lamp is a Chub SL200 at £24.99. It's got red LED's for the beach and a nice bright beam for the rock's.

LED Lenser H7's are a good mid price lamp at around £50 (they are available cheaper from the states but bear in mind that LEDco can tell an American one by the serial number and won't touch it for warranty purposes)

My favourite lamp for the rocks is a petzl ultra. There not cheap but they built like brick shit houses and should last a lifetime.

It's important to have enough light to light up the path, the rock's and pick fish out.

Keep watch

Whilst your fishing you need to keep on eye on the sea. Swell can kick up from no where on changing tides and changing wind direction. This is especially important when fishing on the rock's in the bigger swells. There are often occasions when you need to drop down a little lower to land fish. It doesn't need to be said now but whoever has the rod in their hand keep an eye on the swell while the other drop's down to land the fish.


Clothing

There are a couple of options as far as clothing goes. The first, and generally the most popular is to wear a good floatation suit. There are plenty of them on the market and each have there own features. I stock the ones that i think are the best built, made by mullion (the folk's who make the floatation and submersion gear for the RLNI) They also have positive buoyancy trousers that most don't have.

The other option is to wear good quality waterproofs and a life jacket. I perfer this option for a couple of reason's-Good waterproof's are lighter and much more breathable and a life Jacket has much more buoyancy then a floatation suit. Life jackets are light and small so don't really get in the way.

Footwear is also worth a note. I wear good quality walking boots and tend to get a good couple of years out of them. I have sold an awful lot of Snowbee rock hopper boot's recently. Although I haven't tried them yet myself I'm told they grip to wet rock like shit to blanket.

I hope that none of you reading this ever need any help from the emergency services but if any of the points I have raised help a single one of you then this post was worthwhile.

Just remember, it's only a fish. It's not worth your life.