Wasn't this windy when I was digging me worms

"Wasn't this windy when I was digging me worms," says Matty, as we look at the swells crashing onto the beach. "Don't know where this wind's come from."

Lincolnshire, in a word. As in blowing almost straight across Mussel Bay right in our faces.We plump for a bit Matty fancies anyway, me on the lures, he on the lug.

It's hard work casting the lure, with the biggest Dexter in my box again the only thing I can cast any distance. There's no current between the groynes that stretch 40 or 50 yards out from the Prom. The sea works itself up into a foaming chop as the tide builds instead.

I can fish, sort of. The turbulent water throws the lure around and I've got no control over its speed or depth. I can see the braid stretching across the wave troughs between the tops of the breakers.

Matty's landing his bait near the end of the groynes with what looks like an effortless lob with his beachcaster and multiplier slung low on the handle. He misses a rod-wrencher - the only bite of the evening.

As high water arrives, the waves are bouncing off the sea wall and colliding head-on with themselves, sending explosions of foam into the air. It doesn't take us long to get soaked, despite retreating up the concrete slipway.

For all the frustrations the last few trips have brought, they've also whetted my appetite and left me thirsting to crack the sea - or at very least catch something. I look at the beachcasters gathering dust in a corner of my study and wonder whether I'd be better off resorting to worm or crab, propelled out by six ounces of lead, until conditions change.

But I decide to stick with the lures, perhaps with a tweak or two including lighter braid so I can add a few yards to my casting. I've also murdered a new hook on the lure I was using tonight in little over an hour's fishing.

I sharpened the points up every time they were blunted by bumping into the sand or the hand-sized lumps of chalk and carrstone that litter the beach. You can only touch up the points of chemically-sharpened (etched) hooks so many times before they're beyond salvation when it comes to getting a decent edge to them.

I'm gradually changing lures over to singles, but encountered a problem I hadn't expected with them when I briefly tried a surface lure rigged with two of them tonight - they seem adept at catching around the leader when you cast into the wind.