With the warm weather continuing and the sea staying calm for most of the time, fishing has been slow at many of the popular venues. The exception has been Orford which produced outstanding catches.

With the warm weather continuing and the sea staying calm for most of the time, fishing has been slow at many of the popular venues. The exception has been Orford which produced outstanding catches. Many anglers reported bags of codling with between six to 15 fish up to 4lb and some better ones to 6lb.

I went last Friday and managed 13 to 4lb and another angler had 11, including a superb 10lb cod. There were also lots of dogfish and a few smoothounds. The SAMF individual match there at the weekend didn't produce as well, but this is often the case with so many anglers fishing close to each other. However, there was a bass around 8lb taken and to the credit of it's captor returned alive. These catches seem to coincide with the inshore crab moult and last around three weeks.

Offshore, the boats are finding few codling but several skate. Bass are increasing in numbers on the offshore banks and also the beaches. Bass to 4lb have come from Southwold and to 6lb from the Cart Gap to Weybourne beaches. A couple of reports have been of bass to 6lb and codling to 5lb in the same session. The best bass came from Cromer beach at 10lb. Although peeler is favourite, lug and squid are also good for bass.