Like the vast majority of sea anglers I suspect, sometimes you just want to go fishing, but don't want to be bothered with all the associated hassle. When that's what I want to do on the boating scene I fish from a charter boat. But when it comes to shore fishing, very often there are not enough easy options to take. Blackpool's North Pier jetty before it disappeared always fitted the bill very nicely, and I know a lot of north west shore anglers were sad at the loss of what was a very prolific winter fishery. No doubt the same can be said of other old Victorian piers elsewhere in the country. Fortunately I have since found a good substitute that fits all the easy fishing criteria to perfection up at Ulverston in Cumbria.

Completed in 1796, the Ulverston canal made the town, which is 2 miles away from the sea, into a thriving port for commercial goods produced there and in the surrounding area which were taken by barge to Canal Foot, and of course for incoming goods too. There was even a passenger service to Liverpool. Then the Furness railway arrived in 1846 and the port slipped into decline. But the stone jetty adjacent to the last loch and to the Bay Horse Hotel is still there looking out over the vast expanse of mud flats and channels that form the upper and inner reaches of Morecambe Bay. You can actually drive down to the jetty on a narrow road which looks as though its passing through the centre of the Glaxo-Smith-Kline pharmaceuticals factory. This terminates in a small public parking area. A few yards back from the jetty is a footbridge marking the point where the canal ends and the estuary begins. In theory at least, it would be possible to cast a line either side of the bridge using the rails as a rod rest and be in with a chance of both coarse fish and sea fish at the same time. Not that I have ever tried it.

The main problem with fishing at Canal Foot is that it takes a big tide over the high water period to bring the water and the fish in close enough to cast to. But as Charlie Pitchers and I recently discovered, it isn't quite as simple as that. On many occasions in the past, I've thrown a rod, reel, a couple of traces and a pack or two of frozen blacklug into the car boot and headed up there for a simple couple of hours flounder fishing. And having just lost a succession of dinghy fishing weekends to high winds, this was just what we needed. So, with a rough idea of when high water should be, bearing in mind that at just over 9 metres the tide wasn't exactly huge, we headed off up the M6 full of expectation. Boy were we in for a surprise.

When we arrived there was barely a trickle of water in the one remaining channel close to the jetty. Elsewhere it was a 'sea' of glistening wet mud. Okay we thought, it being a middle range tide and quite a few miles to the north of Liverpool which was where we had the tidal predictions for, perhaps we had got our timing a little bit wrong, on top of which, it hadn't taken us nearly so long as anticipated to get there on the road. That said, it was past the mid tide point according to the tide table, so the water couldn't be that far off re-appearing. Meanwhile, we sat there watching gulls walking across the shallow channel barely getting their feet wet. We had also picked out a particular large stone poking out of the water to act as our marker for the tide coming back. But instead of getting covered, it was becoming increasingly more exposed. With less that three hours left before the top of the tide, what was going on.

Unsure exactly what to do next, we sat in the car trying to fathom out just exactly how things could have gone so badly wrong. Then around half an hour later and on the verge of calling it a day, Charlie looked up and said 'Quick, take a look at this'. We both could scarcely believe our eyes at what was happening in front of us. A wall of water possibly several inches high was rolling in and spreading out quickly covering everything in its path. Obviously it was a tidal bore. Nearby Arnside gets one. But having fished from Canal Foot so many times over the years, I was taken totally aback. I had literally no idea. Needless to say, I wasn't complaining. Our thoughts then were how long would it take for the flounders to come within casting range.

The answer to that one was not very long at all. With barely a couple of hours left before the water would be on its way out again, both they and we had little time to waste. So we got our baits out as quickly as possible right off the end casting well out into the now flooded channel. And while we were there, it being such a glorious backend morning, a few walkers and visitors to the pub came over to see what we were doing and to have a chat. One happened to be a local who'd lived there all of his life. He was telling us how much it had changed over the past few years. Bass it seems are now fairly regularly caught whereas once it was nothing but flounders. And wouldn't you just know it, as the tide turned I hooked something that suddenly started lunging away from the base of the jetty which could only have been a round fish. Sadly, as the water was too coloured to see, I will never know for sure. But it certainly made an unexpected long and powerful run before the hook pulled.

When the tide finally turned and started running out, the channels emptied with such a velocity that it was hard to hold bottom. And when we did manage by casting along the direction of the tide, nothing seemed even remotely interested in our baits. Whether that was just a coincidence or the result of the ebbing tide is difficult to say off a single experience, as I have only ever fished it previously up to high water. Something to bear in mind then for the future, as is the timing of the appearance of high water, or indeed any water at all. So at best you get a decent couple of hours catching flounders with the now distinct possibility of a small bass. I suppose for such little investment of tackle, bait and physical effort, a level of reward that is about right.