SEA FISHING: Sport hasn't improved over the last week and fish seem to be at a premium on all the region's beaches. Aside from a few dabs and whiting, the fishing has been incredibly tough.

Sport hasn't improved over the last week and fish seem to be at a premium on all the region's beaches.

Aside from a few dabs and whiting, the fishing has been incredibly tough. I've seen a couple of codling caught in the Lowestoft area and these were a couple of 2-3lb fish, the stamp of fish that usually hang around through the winter and have provided some good sport in the last couple of years. Unfortunately there haven't been enough of them this year to make them a realistic target.

There's also been a three pounder caught off the pier at Cromer. It illustrates the state of the cod fishing right now that we're talking about less than a handful of fish despite all the coastline we have to go at.

Whilst the lack of sport may keep some pleasure anglers off the beaches, the match anglers have been toughing out the conditions. Thirty anglers from Stowmarket fished a match at Orford over the weekend, half fished at the Crouch while the other 15 fished the Narrows. A princely weight of 8oz won the match.

The wolf moon and associated big tides didn't help the Holt SAC members at Kelling on Sunday either. No round fish were caught but Alan Doy managed six flatties for 1lb 7oz, Pete Morse came in second with six fish for 1lb 2oz and third place went to Paul Fenech with five fish for 15oz. The week previously the shingle was the only place where you could be confident of a bite - it seems it's a struggle there now too.

I'm still hopeful that we'll have a spring run of codling, but I doubt we'll see those mature fish back to the beaches until next winter. I hope I'm wrong but I have a feeling the spring run will be made up of smaller codling this year.

There's some merit in getting tackle and rigs in good shape ahead of the hoped for spring run and the returning bass - we're into the short month of February already and with March only a few weeks away don't waste this quiet time!