Lure fishing for Bass – again.

Since getting out just over a week ago in search of my first lure caught Bass, I’ve been obsessing with having another go. I seem to have found in the lure fishing an inclination that I’ve lacked over the last few years to fish my local marks. This is especially handy on those spur of the moment occasions, like this evening, when the opportunity arose to have a few hours out and all I needed to do was chuck a spinning rod, my lure bag and waders in the car and make haste.

I’ve decided to concentrate on a particular area of Northumberland coastline (the same sort of patch I fished last week) and fish it at different stages of tides and in all conditions to try and figure out what works best. While last week I fished the last of the ebb and the first of the flood on a decent sized tide, this week was the complete opposite – the last of the flood and the first of the ebb on a smaller tide. The only similarities between both sessions was that both were flat calm, sunny evenings with clear water.

I went straight for the Savage Gear Sandeel Pencil this time, which is what I got the big Coalfish on last week. I’m not a seasoned saltwater lure angler, but these things just look so much like the real thing on the retrieve. I did a lot of lure fishing for Pike in my youth and most of the plugs I used to use generally required the angler to impart some kind of twitching and jerking to bring them to life, not unlike a lot of the Bass lures I’ve seen. Playing about with the Sandeel Pencil in the shallows though, it looks so natural with just a slow, gentle retrieve – one of those situations where you think “God – if I was a Bass, I’d smash that!”

And despite being a sinking lure, they fish really shallow – even with a slow retrieve you can fish them less than a foot below the surface, which is what you need on these marks, where the depth of water rarely exceeds a few feet.

I had a few chucks around the shallow reefs and gullies that were half filling with the prevailing tide. The whole area is carpeted with bladderwrack which has spent the afternoon parching in the warm sun – and I make a mental note to fish over the area in a few hours when it will be suitably covered at high water.

Sam – one of the lads from seaanglingreports.com – rang and said him and Steven were going to join me for a couple of chucks and confirmed I was fishing in the right area so on I plodged.

Making my way round into a weedy bay, I was fan casting to explore each swim as much as possible. I was searching an area of shallow water right in close and just on the edge of a raft of floating bladderwrack when – WHALLOP!! – something nailed the Pencil lure and started dancing about in less than three foot of water. With a nice bend in the rod and a few feet of line stripped off the drag, I convinced myself that it had to be a Bass, and I was right! My first lure caught Bass was landed less than a minute later.

I was over the moon! I didn’t come out expecting to get anything tonight, more to the point I expected it to take at least few more sessions to nab the first one on a lure, but there it was!

Photographed in all his spikey glory, he was popped back. I don’t think he was quite legal size anyway, and although I am partial to an occasional fillet of fresh Seabass I’m all about keeping the fish gods happy.

Five minutes later Sam and Steven turned up so we had a bit of a natter before they started fishing a bit further along from me. About 45 minutes later Sam shouted over saying they were going to try a bit further round the corner when I had another decent hit and hooked my second Bass on a lure!

This one came in without much fuss and, once the single hook was extracted and a photo taken, he was slipped back quickly none the worse for wear.

I continued to fish on for another couple of hours into dusk, making my way around the bay and then back again to where I’d started – the area now suitably flooded by the tide. It was a glorious evening to be out sure enough, but unfortunately no more Bass were willing to play. Sam and Steven popped back down towards the end and mentioned they’d not had any luck either. So I ended up calling it at around 10pm.

So there it is, I’ve achieved one of this years goals a lot earlier than I expected to and gotten a Bass on a lure – and it’s not even June yet! I’m not done with it yet though, In fact I think I’ve very much caught the bug and can see this being a big focus this year. Perhaps my goal has changed slightly and now it’s about beating my PB 😉