Poor.….
In all seriousness, it has been a slow start to the “season” for many in the north east as far as Bass fishing is concerned, at least when specifically referring to lure fishing for them.
To be fair, the North East is towards the bottom list of areas which can considered synonymous with top quality Bass fishing. We have some cracking ground which would give even the most seasoned of Bass anglers a tingle in their dingle, but due to seasonal variations in food sources, baitfish migration patterns, typical weather conditions and a whole host of other factors I’m sure to be ignorant of, the majority of our resident in-shore Bass stocks are smaller schoolies. You are sure to find the occasional fish of substance in amongst them after hours and hours and hours of fishing, but in reality a 50cm Bass up here is a belting fish. Anything bigger than that might as well be a local record.
There are certainly enough of them to make venturing out with the lures worthwhile though, particularly during the warmer months when there are Sandeel’s and Sprat’s and other baitfish aplenty.
Things have definitely been slow on the uptake this year though and whereas I’d had quite a few Bass by late July last year, the same this year I was still yet to connect, as have many other anglers in my area who’ve been grumbling about the correlation between the lack of fish and the unseasonably cold weather early summer. Finally though over the last few weeks things have started to pick up and a few fish have been turning up.
Once again, as has been the pattern for me this year, the second there’s a window with near perfect conditions I seem to be otherwise engaged. The marks I fish most regular are shallow, weedy reefs requiring:
- Flat calm and clear
- Big tide
- Last couple of hours of high tide
- Ideally at dawn or dusk
Getting a window where all of these factors line up is very much a lottery – and you can guarantee that when it happens I’m bloody busy. My latest session was no different, where I’d had to endure multiple message from mates a couple of nights previous boasting of the bags they’d had, whilst I had to content myself with only being able to fish a couple of days later when the tides were much smaller. I was still determined though as all other factors in the list above were favourable.
Even despite the small tide, I felt confident something would happen as a fished all my usual spots. Birds were feeding and regularly scanning the reef for life and there was the noticeable presence of baitfish in the various pools I was wading; 2 factors which have been absent for the majority of my sessions so far this year.
Even so it was obvious I wasn’t going to bag up in the same way my mates had, as I thrashed the hell out of the area with my usual surface lures, SPs and sandeel pencils. I even resorted to a shallow diver at one point – which doesn’t get as much water time as it should.
2 hours in and finally my luck changed. With the onset of dusk and with high tide in less than 1 and a half hours I’d decided it was “off the top or nowt” and clipped on a patch 125 in my favourite 500g colour and positioned a cast as tight to a weedbed as I could, where the last few inches of the bladderwrack could be seen floating on the surface. Half way back, I turned a small Bass over. I resisted the urge to strike as I knew the Bass had just attempted to stun the lure rather than taken it, which they seem to do often with surface lures. Limited experience tells me that if you keep working the lure, they will usually hit it again, and tend to hit it properly the second time. This fish obliged perfectly and finally I was into my first lure caught Bass of the season.
Truth be told it was tiny and barely troubled the 7-30g Shimano Basstera, but at this point I’m just relieved to finally open the account for the season.
