Lure fishing for Bass

Managed to get out today, to be honest I couldn’t resist with a size of tide I like and a light South West wind all with the knowledge that I managed a few the other day with a horrible North Easterly. Arriving at the mark I found loverly clear water with a little bit of chop, looked perfect to be honest, I find it hard not to get carried away and start bounding across the rocks, but this is rough ground and a little care is required especially with what I like to call “Movers”, those boulders that look like they offer a secure footing but then move as you put your weight on them, it’s amazing how large some of them can be.

Which lure first, I was tempted by the Gataride Pearl rainbow but I went with the Tide Minnow 140 Flyer in candy and fired it out, being a sinking lure you have to be a little careful on a rock mark but I needn’t of worried, a couple of turns of the handle resulted in a hit and without much of a fight I landed the first bass of the session, first cast, this could be good. Weighing only a couple of pounds this bass must of been hungry, he had devoured most of the lure, typically I had forgot my pillars so I took a quick photo and then noticed that the lure had badly damaged the gills and the fish was bleeding quite badly, so I left the lure in and despatched the bass, one for the pot can’t hurt and I don’t see the point in returning a fish that has little chance of surviving.

So which lure now, well I had another Tide Minnow in a very similar colour this time a 145F and two casts later I had another fish on, this one felt a little bigger and weighed in at four and a bit pounds, the usual quick photo, returned the fish and cast out again. This time I had to wait for three casts, oh the pain and this bass felt decent too but unfortunately she slipped the hooks, still it was only a few more casts until I hooked into another and landed a three pounder.

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I wasn’t convinced it was worth going fishing today, the wind the past few days has been fairly strong and was still coming from the North East. In the end we decided to go on the toss of a coin, at least the sun was out and neither Tony or I had anything better to do. We arrived at the mark to find dirty water hugging the coast, not what we had hoped for to say the least especially after a 50 minute drive.

Viewing the mark from the cliff top we could see that with a good cast we may be able to reach the clear water, we headed down and out onto the chalk reef and waded as far as we could and managed to get onto a large boulder that served well as a casting platform. After a couple of warm up casts I gave one the beans, firing it high, to catch the wind that was in our favour and landed it just past the boulder you can see in the photo above.

With the lure sitting in the clear water I left it there to settle and then gave it a short retrieve and stopped again this time on the boundary between clear and coloured water, BANG, fish on. OK so this wasn’t a fish that was going to set any records, weighing in just under three pounds, but to know that their’s a few fish about and I had landed my first this spring (excluding the six pounded in Asturias) certainly made me smile. I repeated the same technique and landed another two within a few minutes.

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Having spent a long weekend with Graham, Mark, Tom & Stu in Asturias, Spain I’m finding it hard to think of a fishing holiday where I’ve had a better time. This region of Spain is very different to the parts of Spain you may have visited on holiday, the coastline is stunning with lush green grass and tree covered hills that abruptly end with massive cliffs leading down to surf beaches with extensive rock fields at either end, the scale of the place is insane. This has got to be some of the hardest bass ground out there.

I was lucky to snag a bass early the first morning, and what a great hard fighting fish it was too. Once landed we found out it was a male fish weighing over six pounds and measuring 67cm, what a start.

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I arrived home this evening from the usual hard Monday at work to find my copy of Sea Angler magazine waiting for me. It’s always a good read and I’ve been more than interested since the introduction of the “Bass Angler” section, so much so I thought I’d see if I could contribute. Despite a planned trip over to Ireland at the end of October last year (See report below) Graham and I also made a flying visit at the beginning of the month.

Despite high hopes we didn’t get the weather and conditions we had hoped for, but we still managed to land a few fish. I thought this may make an interesting article and I’m pleased to see it featured in this months issue.

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