Of whiting, mackerel and anorexic penguins

HA! I got one. I finally got to see my rod tip bend, I struck on the rod and started reeling in.
Sadly it was so small I could barely feel it wriggling on the end. It was a whiting. I have nothing against whiting except the fact that there's not much flesh on the buggers. They're skinny little beasts.
Last time I bought one it was the size of a big bass that would have fed four. It hung from of each end of my big roasting tin, that I'd packed with sliced potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, stock and saffron. But when I got it out of the oven and came to dishing it up to my wife and in-laws, there wasn't enough to feed an anorexic penguin, let along the four of us.
So when I brought my very first catch in from just outside the harbour at Ilfracombe at 6am on Sunday morning, I thought it was a mackerel. I've nothing against mackerel - a fine eating fish - and would have been pleased to land one - despite the fact my sister and I landed 50 on a one-hour boat trip around Lyme Bay a few years back. But I would gladly have landed and eaten it, as my first fish.
Sadly, though, it was a mackerel-sized whiting and I put it right back in the drink.
I wasn't alone, however, and I just had to tell two guys who were there fishing with peeler crab and squid (and less success than me) that I'd just caught my first fish in more than a year. What a child I am...
So my duck is broken, I am no longer a sea-angling virgin.
Let's see what the future brings!