February might not traditionally be the best time to try and scratch an estuary bass related itch, but it worked!

There’s a large amount of foreshore in a certain estuary that has always looked really good to me. I have only fished it a few times on the ebb and I haven’t covered myself in glory at all - but it just looks too good not to be producing. It’s not a very long drive, it’s very quiet and tucked out of the way, to get at most of it requires a bit of a walk which a lot of anglers don’t seem to like, and I don’t think it gets fished……………..

Which all adds up to the sort of ground I tend to like, but it has been playing on my mind that I should be doing more to try and work the area out a good bit more. If it ends up not being very productive then so be it, but I can’t see a reason why I couldn’t catch some decent bass there. I am always up for taking a bit of a punt and seeing what might happen, indeed one particular area which threw up a good few decent bass on the creature baits last year came about by doing just that - taking a calculated punt and working hard to figure stuff out. I have never seen another angler there and I will be pretty amazed if I ever do.

Anyway, I got to thinking about this area which I ended up fishing for a few hours first thing this morning. I fish way more ebb tide periods in estuaries than the flood, but my few endeavors on this ground during the ebb had not worked. I have a few theories as to why, one of which is that the windows of when bass might be mooching around on the ebb in specific areas could be very short, because at some point not that long into the ebb, the water’s going to disappear and expose the mud banks. There is no way I can get at the main channel when that water recedes off these mudbanks, not unless I fancy sinking into deep mud and potentially never getting out! The bass will know these timings far better than me, and I could have been previously fishing into water where the fish have already vacated. If they were even there of course.

So I decided to try a smaller tide and fish the early flood instead. See if I can find the bass moving in to feed. The main problem with my planning was that it’s February, and traditional logic as such suggests that trying to scratch an itch at this time of year in an estuary system that also has a hell of a lot of freshwater in it isn’t exactly what you might call a cunning plan. I woke up at 4am though after another epic and very weird dream - heart attack pills really do wonders for your dreams! - and thought what the hell, let’s give it a go. If nothing else it would be a decent walk in some slightly better weather and I’d be able to start gauging the various cut-off points on a flooding tide.

Yep, I definitely yelped when about an hour into this morning’s session I got the distinct sensation down through the rod that a bass was nipping at my 5g cheb-rigged Nikko Craw 3.2’’ creature bait. I seriously like these Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp L12 Weedless hooks for the various TPE soft plastics I might fish with (Nikko Craw, Z-Man, Savage Gear etc.) because they hold the lures perfectly in place and they are sharp as hell. I kept the lure gently moving then struck at a harder “tap” from the bass. It was a small bass at best, but bloody hell I was over the moon with it! I got to scratch a bit of an itch that different timings at least can work on this ground, and it’s only February. I am taking this morning as a win!

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