B.A.S.S. is kindly making a whole bunch of fascinating articles about bass fishing freely available to us all

B.A.S.S. is one of those organisations that I take my hat off to in a big way, indeed if you go bass fishing and you aren’t a member or at least aren’t fully aware of what this passionate bunch of anglers are about then I urge you to go to their website here and put yourself through a crash course in all things B.A.S.S. And now B.A.S.S. have decided to make freely available a load of interesting articles about all things bass fishing (two articles are already up - here and here, plus a foreword and introduction), and I am copying and pasting below here from a recent post on their website:

“The current Coronavirus lockdown is likely to be proving a challenging time for many bass anglers who would normally be out and about enjoying some early season sport. To try and support anglers through this difficult time, BASS are going to publish some of our bass angling literature, as a series of blogs, in the hope that this will educate, entertain and generally help pass the time until we can all return to the rocks and beaches. The book ‘Bass and B.A.S.S’, compiled and edited by Geoff Gonella contains around 85 selected writings from the Bass Anglers’ Sportfishing Society. The book was first published in 2008, but is no longer available to purchase from the Society. The writings are both exceptionally informative and enjoyable and are as relevant today as they were when they were first written. The book contents will be rolled out in the coming months, in the order in which they appear in the book. The articles are grouped into various subject headings such as bass behaviour, bait fishing, lure fishing, fly fishing, good days and bad days, bass conservation etc., in short, something for everyone. We thank the many people who contributed articles to the book, and especially Geoff Gonella who compiled and edited the book, ably assisted by Peter Macconnell and John Morgan. We also thank Henry Gilbey for providing additional photographs to accompany the articles. Alongside the book we will also be publishing articles written for our regular column in Sea Angler magazine. These are brief pieces which aim to introduce various aspects of bass angling and showcase the Society to a wider audience. The first piece ‘A Territorial or Opportunistic Bass – Which one are you targeting?’ by Marc Cowling has already been posted. Please enjoy this wealth of bass fishing information, and if you’re not already a member, why not join? It’ll be the best £25 you’ve spent for a while.

How cool is that? I have never read this book before and I am really looking forward to these articles coming out on the B.A.S.S. blog. As you know, I haven’t been lure fishing for bass since before I was born like a number of experts have and I’m fascinated to learn more about how things might or indeed might not have changed with lures and methods and general approaches and so on. I know that current times are and will be challenging for a lot of us in ways that we most likely don’t even realise yet, but I guess we are all going to go fishing again when we can, indeed I would argue that time on or around the water will never have been more important when we are allowed back out there - so please take the time to read a bit more about B.A.S.S. and consider joining up. There are a bunch of benefits to joining and I reckon the 10% discount on purchases from say Veals Mail Order alone would pay for the yearly membership fees for a lot of lure anglers.

You all please have the best Easter weekend possible under these truly mad circumstances. The weather has been almost ridiculously nice down here in Cornwall and I can think of worse places to be right now, but all of us are severely restricted in our movements and I wonder how many of us addicted anglers are suffering severe withdrawal symptoms? My bass fishing season was fully underway this time last year and whilst you never know how each year is going to start, the fact that I can’t get out there has convinced me that it surely has to be the best start to a bass fishing season ever - because we can’t get out there obviously! What you don’t know might not hurt you so the saying goes, but sod that completely because my head is wrecked beyond belief. Please stay safe and well and I hope that you can enjoy this glorious weather as best as is currently possible………………..