Anybody else been oiling reels, replacing hooks, tying new leaders, and generally getting very excited about the bass fishing year ahead?

It’s amazing what a few months away from having what I would class as a realistic chance at catching a bass from the shore on a lure does to you. Every single January into February I look longingly at the shore reports from the Channel Islands especially and it amazes me how relatively little distance separates us yet how different our bass fishing timings can be. Then I hear any number of different theories about when things might kick off around here or anywhere else in the UK, but still I wonder how close we are to actually knowing why one year you might start finding fish say in early April, and then the next year it might be into May, and so on………….

What I do know is that I am getting seriously twitchy here. Whatever pandemic based restrictions are thrust upon us of course have to be taken into account, but I for one will be having a bit of a look around once my coastline clears up after all the recent bad weather. From memory I am pretty sure my first bass of the last couple of seasons came in early April when I was night fishing, indeed I have a strong memory of scraping ice off the windshield of my Epic Berlingo a couple of years ago to head out about 4am one early April morning - and I caught my first bass of the new season.

So my spinning reels are all oiled and greased up and ready to go, I don’t need to load up with any new braid because I reversed a few spools sometime last year, and to be perfectly honest I am finding that this Sufix 131 and indeed Sufix X8 are just lasting and lasting to the point where I wonder when they might actually need to be renewed.

There are a few specific fluoro leaders which I have come to really trust over the years, but there is one fluoro which I keep hearing such good things about yet for some reason I haven’t fished with it so far - Seaguar Ace Hard. I have got a couple of spools here now and I am going to give it a really good go because so many people from the salt and freshwater worlds have been raving about this stuff and its abrasion resistance for so long now I can’t ignore it anymore. It’s obviously very early days for me with this Seaguar Ace Hard, but it does feel rather nice.

When it comes to replacing any treble hooks which I reckon need doing, I have finally settled on some specific trebles which I sort of stumbled upon nearly two years ago now. I have had more than enough fishing and catching and washing and leaving to dry time with these trebles to know how good they are and how long they last, indeed I have a few hard lures here which have been rigged with these trebles from the day I came across them, and I can’t see a speck of rust or any damage to them or the split rings (bearing in mind that I do wash my lures in freshwater and then leave them to dry after most fishing sessions). I will tell you all about these hooks very soon.

I’ve got those three different pairs of wading boots I blogged about the other day which are itching to get a good hammering, and from the bit of time I have spent walking around in these Bestard SAR Pro Water Rescue Boots it’s almost not right how light and comfortable and just like a lovely pair of good hiking boots they feel.

I also have a hell of a lot of Savage Gear related bass fishing tackle here which is being launched in a couple of batches this year. I am having to be careful not to get myself into trouble by yapping about the wrong thing at the wrong time, but there is some interesting stuff coming out next month for starters, and then early summer we have got a whole heap of bass fishing tackle hitting the shelves. It’s really interesting when I see anglers asking about certain tackle related things and I so want to be able to give you all the answers, but I can’t quite yet and to be honest it’s frying my brain with how interesting it has been to help develop all this gear, and how much I would love to tell you all about it. We are also starting to work on products which you won’t see in shops for a long time but which I will start testing and refining in the near future.

But the thing that I am most excited about is the chance to get back out there and explore all these different areas and specific locations which I have been thinking about and exploring and so on. I will of course be fishing the places which I like to think I know fairly well, but there is so much estuary fishing especially which I am itching to have a go at. I know that I will be able to tuck away in some fascinating areas and the chances of me seeing another angler will be very, very small indeed. Nothing has ever changed my belief that a lot of human beings are perfectly happy with not walking very far, and that if there isn’t a cup of coffee and a slice of cake at least half way through the slow amble then they aren’t interested anyway! Roll on bass fishing and let’s hope that by the end of the bass fishing season we are not talking about face masks and social distancing anymore……………..

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