Do most of our estuaries have the potential for big bass on lures?

As much as I love my open coast fishing when the waves are rolling in or it’s so quiet and calm at night that you swear you can hear a bass inhaling your sub-surface lure, I am increasingly fascinated by lure fishing for our fine bass in estuaries. In some respects I am almost embarrassed by how little I actually know about the many different estuaries here in Cornwall and then Devon for starters. My two largest shore caught bass may well have come from the Tamar waterway, but to be perfectly honest from a lure fishing for bass point of view it kinda freaks me out how much water there is to try and find consistent bass fishing. Do you spend more time fishing where you know, or do you get out there on the lookout for new ground because this is part and parcel of fishing?

A friend and I took a punt on Saturday for example, and although we blanked, Mark saw a big bass hunting bait really close in. He cast at it, the fish hit his lure, but it didn’t connect. Five years ago and I’m not sure I’d have been looking at where we went with bass fishing eyes on, but isn’t it interesting how the more you learn and open up your mind, the more you also “see” different areas with a more inquisitive pair of eyes? We could have easily fished a few places we know a bit about, but surely the whole point of going fishing is to keep pushing yourself? I understand completely why so many anglers obsess about 10lb+ bass, but as much as these pretty elusive doubles are very special fish, bass fishing is surely so varied and interesting that appendage measuring hero pouting surely becomes somewhat pointless. Surely it’s the fish and the methods and the often quiet and beautiful locations that combine to elicit the most joy?

I think about the estuary systems where I used to spend time fishing for mullet, and then I think about the most likely thousands upon thousands of hours I used to spend at somewhere like Devil’s Point at the mouth of the Tamar, chasing conger eels, cod and thornies especially. I believe it’s about 100’ deep at low water when you put a bait out there, and as much as the Tamar is known for holding some really big bass, never once did I catch or even see a bass on bait when I was fishing down there. I know of some big bass which have been caught down there as a bycatch of chasing other species, but I always wondered whether the bass were moving in and out of the river system NOT actually along the bottom where my baits were so often anchored.

I had a really interesting chat yesterday with a couple of seriously good local bait anglers who I know from my own bait days, and whilst I find it fascinating how many anglers seem to be chasing these stunning looking gilthead bream these days - wow do these hard-scrapping fish tempt me to get back into some bait fishing again - what is also really interesting is how many of the really good anglers I know also talk about the big bass they so often see when they are out chasing the bream. We got talking about a quiet estuary system which from a bass fishing point of view I have yet to hear a single lure angler ever even mention, but I used to spend a fair amount of time getting mentally beaten up by mullet in the various creeks and channels and so on. Not only do these lads catch some good gilthead bream in this estuary, but they also keep seeing big bass mooching around. I reckon that’s four really good anglers who I know and trust who have told me the same thing about this mostly unknown and very underfished estuary now, so guess who’s now starting to think about where I used to go mullet fishing and how I might have a go chasing bass on lures instead? How much do you love going speculatively wandering?

So do most of our estuary systems here in the UK and Ireland and I guess parts of Scotland as well have the potential to throw up big bass to lure anglers? I remember a conversation I had with a lad who has fished a fairly local to me estuary for most of his life, and whilst he has caught I dread to think how many fish from there over the years, he just didn’t think there were what most anglers would call “big bass” moving up and down the rather stunning waterways. This may well be the case and what on earth do I know about this particular estuary because I have never even fished it before, but a part of me also wonders about taking a more stealthy and hunter-like approach and whether you might find a few big fish laying up around the bladderwrack and so on.

Then I think about another very small estuary system again which I hardly know at all, but I do know that it chucks up big bass on lures yet I wonder how many anglers don’t even look at the place because it’s so tiny when compared to say the Fal estuary which looks so big and interesting on Google Earth yet I am somewhat ashamed to say that I have lived in the south west for nearly thirty years and I know absolutely nothing about that particular waterway.

It’s completely down to John Quinlan over in Kerry who I do my co-guiding work with (when the world was normal), but I wonder how many anglers wouldn’t even take a second glance at where the biggest bass I have photographed was caught by one of our clients in Ireland. I love the open coast just as much as you all do, but I can’t be doing with limiting myself to certain methods in certain kinds of locations because that is so far away from what bass fishing has become to me over the years. I love the variety, I had no idea that bass could be caught in so many different ways from so many different kinds of water, and to be perfectly honest it still freaks me out just how much water there is in Cornwall alone that I have yet to even see let alone fish for bass……….