Today’s boat trip turned into a war between the old school Red Gill verses the modern Fiiish. Eight of us headed out to fish the sand banks from Selsey and all the way round to Bognor Regis on Wight Huntress.

Expectations had been managed following reports of poor deep water clarity around Bognor and Selsey Bill even though the inshore water had cleared up nicely.

All eight of us spent the first two hours using Fiiish. A few bass got caught but we didn’t really have any momentum until someone tried the traditional Blue White Red Gill Evolution on a 6ft trace behind a weight and they started pulling bass out. The boat then divided into two camps. On one side four who wanted to catch ASAP quickly switched to a Red Gill Evolution and the other four who wanted to prove that Fiiish or similar heavy shads are better. For the next hour, team Red Gills hammered team Fiiish by catching about ten bass to zero.

Team Fiiish talked, planned, tested and hypothesised that maybe we were working the Fiiish too hard. The Red Gills fished very steadily in the tide behind the weight with the only action coming from their tails. The Fiiish on the other hand had been aggressively jigged for the last three hours which in the muddy water could be hard for the bass to track and had only resulted in lots of wrasse. So team Fiiish relaxed a little and just let the tide work the Fiiish. Bang we started catching bass on Fiiish at a level equal to the Red Gills. So at this point conversations drifted from which is best, Red Gill or Fiiish to the enjoyment vs massively different cost of these two lures.

The tide turned, the water cleared and we moved to a deeper mark off Bognor Regis. Straight away the Fiiish was on top and nailing bass on every drop while the Red Gills failed to produce. So on this day the Fiiish or weighted shad, out fished the Red Gill in clear water but in low water clarity things seemed even once we adapted how we use shads.

The advantage of these big group trips is that they result in lots of new learnings on tackle, techniques and marks plus lots of laughs.