& 22.38 hrs, 4.8 metres
SAFETY
28th Jan 2015
Ref:- Idiots not prepared at dangerous marks.
Me and a couple of mates were fishing the other night at a rock mark near Staithes. Anyone who knows this area will know how dangerous it can be, with steep crumbling cliffs, scars with deep Gulley's and holes, and plenty of cut off points. Anyway we had gone down one of the rope descents and noticed 4 people fishing on a ledge at the bottom of a rope descent we don't use anymore due to cliff erosion. At one point we noticed them trying to go up the rope but a few minutes later they were back down, hardly surprising as that rope is near impossible to get up these days.
As the tide ebbed we moved along nearer them and after a while later we saw them come down to shore level and shuffle along the slippery scar ledges very slowly. That's when we noticed that only two of them had working headlamps. We shone our lights on the ground and they walked slowly over to us. Then we realised how badly prepared they were. They were carrying rod bags, tripods etc. Far too much for these places where you go with a rucksack and a rod, that's it. Then we noticed one of them was carrying a small dog! One was wearing trainers and jogging bottoms and I don't think any of them had boots with studs in which are essential in this area. We spoke to them and it turns out they had come down a different rope decent earlier and gone and fished off the ledge. I'm not sure if they had purposefully cut themselves off by the tide or by accident, but it was obvious that they didn't know the area. They looked cold and pissed off. They asked if they would be able to walk back to Port Mulgrave to which we said yes but there are a lot of large rocks to get over and an easier walk was back to Staithes, but they headed off in the direction of Port, shuffling along with their £2 shop headlights. It took them ages to get a few hundred yards.
It's these sort of people that get in trouble and need the RNLI to rescue them. You should always check out a new area in daylight before trying it so please everyone be careful out there! Rant over!
Regards
Matty Lamb ex WSAA member
Many thanks Matty, as you will recall I had a very similar experience with ill equipped anglers on Cowbar jetty last wednesday 21st January.
Peter
Paula & Malcolm Pitman have taken delivery of
300 packets frozen black lug worm
(today Tuesday 27th Jan 2015)
Get it while you can at their shop
Whitby Seafishing Supplies, Church Street, Whitby
Tight lines