A Depth Fish!

by Geoff
(El Rompido, Spain)

It was 2001 and we were cruising down the English coast (from Germany) it was evening and there was no wind. The boat, a 36ft racing boat, only had a tiller autopilot and could only be used under motor. As we were fast running out of fuel we decided to go into the shore and anchor for the night. Problem 1, we had no depth sounder so we went in until "it felt right" and anchored.

It was just offshore of the seaside town Hastings. It was a very warm evening with no swell, no wind (at all) the sort of weather you get in England every 250 years.

We had eaten and were sitting in the cockpit when I decided to find out how deep the water was as we were getting to low water, didn't want to suddenly sit on the bottom. So I decided to get out the fishing line, or rather mackerel line as this was the only line we had, with a weight on it.

Over the side it went and disappeared approx 2.5 meters into the now very dark water. I felt the weight touch the bottom pinched the line with my fingers, to mark for measuring and started to pull up. Immediately it was obvious there was a fish on it!

In fact there were 3, 1 mackerel and two green colored fish about 20cm long that I have never seen before (or after) but they tasted very good.

This was the only time in my life that I caught 3 fish when not even fishing!