Anybody starting to wonder if it’s going to be one of those autumn and winters?

I know it’s November already and we have no right to complain about the weather at this time of year, but bloody hell I wish it would do one. I felt so lucky when I got back from guiding in Ireland the other day and had the best part of a week of pretty stunning conditions, indeed on one day in particular we were surf fishing and I thought the water was almost too clear. That ain’t the problem right now, that’s for sure!

I used to love autumn and winter for cod fishing when I was heavily into bait fishing, but it took moving to SE Cornwall to fully appreciate how good this time of year could also be for bass lure fishing. I absolutely love it out on the open coast especially, but whereas I used to hope for SW gales on the spring tides especially for a lot of my cod fishing, now I’d far prefer more medium onshore conditions which keep it nice and bouncy but don’t blow it out with colour and weed. Yep, I know, I am an angler complaining about the weather and sea conditions yet again! I can distinctly remember a winter when I was living in Plymouth when we didn’t have a single SW gale or a single night of frost. I wasn’t big time into bass fishing back then but bloody hell I’d love an autumn and winter like that right now.

As I said, we can’t complain too much about this time of year in the UK, but it was only four or five years ago when around here we basically lost the whole of November and December to weather. The coast was filthy brown to a few hundred yards out for weeks on end and the estuaries were so full of muddy water that I reckon you could have hidden a Russian submarine in the Tamar and nobody would have noticed. I am heading out this afternoon to a section of coastline which I tend to like at this time of year and which I think should be clear and very fishable, but I won’t actually know until I get there. If there is a weather god then this is me prostrating myself before you and asking forgiveness for whatever transgressions I might be responsible for. You all have a good weekend and I sincerely hope that wherever you go fishing that you are finding some good conditions and also a few fish………….