Anybody out there who fishes for bass and doesn’t love a great big boulder field?

I think it’s reasonable to assume that bouldery ground is basically perfect bass ground because there is so much potential for bass to find numerous different food sources in all those nooks and crannies and gullies (which I tend to think of as killing channels). I met a thoroughly nice and highly motivated angler the other day when we fished some ground he was kind enough to show me. I am convinced that the sudden change to a cold NE wind direction is what killed the actual fishing for the session, but wow was the ground about as sensational as I have ever seen. I know the stamp of bass this lad has caught from this spot before, and it ain’t exactly rocket science to understand why fish like that might be hunting over such good looking ground………………….

If you fish boulder fields yourself then you are going to know all about the potential for a fishing related injury though. I don’t care what any shoe company says about the carlos fandango grip on their so and so boots or shoes, because I am not moving around on this sort of ground without decent studs in the soles of my boots. One wrong step on so much of this ground and you’re going down hard for starters, plus if the place tends to fish best on a bigger flooding tide - as this place does where I fished with this lad David - then you can so easily get yourself cut off if you stay on various rocks for too long because either you’re catching or you feel like you might hook up at any point. Literally every single cast I made the other day felt like it could produce a big bass; the ground was that awesome.

Around where I live and do a lot of my fishing we don’t actually have many boulder field type marks. Some bits of specific locations have some good bouldery action, but go looking around at various parts of Devon and Cornwall on Google Earth and when you dial down into specific areas it’s pretty incredible how much bass ground there actually is like this. I don’t know a hell of a lot of it I might add, but I do like it when you “find” somewhere interesting on Google Earth AND it also looks like a decent walk from any kind of car parking spot. The further the walk the less the potential for other anglers in my experience. Most people don’t like walking or scrambling very far.

After the other day - this blog post here - and with where David got me fishing earlier this week, I am starting to collect a number of specific areas that I am desperate to check out and fish. I love my calmer estuary fishing because it forces me to think and fish in such different ways for bass, but I do have a particular love for really rough ground and bouncy conditions. It gets the heart racing which might not be ideal in my case, but you know what I mean! I am not sure it’s any good for my heart to keep watching the Autumn Series England rugby matches I might add, but we live in hope I guess. How much hope we can have as the double world champions roll into town is somewhat debatable, but you all have a good weekend and may you enjoy some bouldery bass fishing action sometime soon…………..