A cracker of a bass to finish off our first group’s fishing

If all bass are special, what makes an extra special bass then? Is an extra special bass to do with the location and conditions and techniques, or is it simply just the size or length of the thing? It’s a combination of everything for me, but if we’re talking purely in size terms then I reckon it’s when a bass reaches that 70cm length or roughly 8lb weight. There’s just something about bass of that size and bigger. I’ll take any bass on a lure because they are such challenging and interesting fish to target, but when Victor beached what turned out to be a 70cm bass on our first group’s last fishing session before heading home the next day, the excitement levels certainly went up a notch at the muscled shoulders and thick flanks on the bass. John and I sure as hell can’t just make the fishing happen out here, but we try our absolute best, and seeing one of our lads land the bass of a lifetime right at the end of their trip makes for a pretty good script……………….

On the lure fishing tackle side of things, it’s really interesting to do my co-guiding work with a truly professional saltwater and freshwater fishing guide. John gets to see all kinds of anglers using all sorts of fishing tackle through the course of a long season out here in Kerry. For sure he’s got various hard and soft lures he will turn to if his clients need a lure or if a specific location demands it and the anglers haven’t got a particular something. As you can guess, John gets to see a lot of different bass fishing lures.

I take his thoughts and opinions very seriously then. For sure we have a huge amount of fun with our anglers and we spend a lot of time laughing, but as much as possible I will pick John’s brains about what lures have been working particularly well, specific colours which he reckons have produced more fish, any new and interesting lures he has seen his clients fishing with, potential modifications, and so on.

So it was really interesting to see John’s reaction to a load of these Savage Gear Slender Scoop Shads I brought along for him the other day. He had never seen them before so I talked him through how I had come across them myself, and how I had been fishing them for “my” bass back home. From the moment he saw these lures swimming, John was saying to me how unique these paddletails look in the water, and you can probably guess what Victor’s fine 70cm bass came on - the 13cm/12g Slender Scoop Shad rigged on the 6/0 belly-weight weedless hook we made for our original Gravity Stick soft plastics. A while back I blogged about this lure working well as described here, and interestingly John was soon onto the Slender Scoop Shad for fishing in a strong run of current with how it seems to work really well as it swings around.

I managed to get out fishing for a few hours myself early yesterday morning (changeover day with our groups), and I landed a couple of (considerably smaller!) bass on the 13cm Slender Scoop Shad swung across the current. Nothing was happening so I thought I would try a slightly different sort of swing/retrieve, and the first time I put a particular movement on the lure it got nailed. My second bass I hooked using the same lure and the same method was the first time I have ever seen a hooked bass jump clean out of the water as I was fighting it, indeed I thought it might be a seatrout when I saw that happen. I don’t know yet if there is something to the slightly different movement I put on the Slender Scoop Shad in the current, but I will get a few of our next group to try it out if we end up fishing an area of current. If I get any inkling that this subtle little method is making any difference I will report back. By the time you read this blog post - thank you as always! - we will be out fishing with our second group. Time seriously flies out here.

Due to covid related reasons we have got a couple of slots in October for these co-guided Ireland lure fishing trips we run. If you want to come and do stuff like this in a truly awesome part of the world, please get hold of me here.

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