I get itches and I need to scratch them. For sure I fish the same locations time and time again when I believe the tides and conditions are right, but if fishing was nothing more than fishing the same few spots in the same way I’d have walked away a long time ago and done something else (Wash & Go adverts?!). What’s around the next headland or estuary bend or cliff or beach has always fascinated me, and with bass fishing especially I just love how the one species of fish demands so much of us as anglers if we choose to mix things up…………….

So I set my alarm for 3.45am yesterday morning but woke up at 3.30am because isn’t that always the way it happens when you’re going fishing? All kinds of bass fishing fascinates me, but estuaries for me are in some respects perhaps the most technically interesting waters because of the demands they can place on you as an angler - if I might add you get out and about and keep trying different places and techniques and so on. I could of course go to an estuary spot I know and bump soft plastics along a mainly sandy/gravelly bottom on the last few hours of the ebb - I love fishing here and like this I might add - but what am I going to learn if I do little else?

A particular location within an estuary I have fished very rarely has been itching away in my brain for a while now. A very good bass angler I know has kindly pointed me in the right direction to start scratching that itch, but you know as well as I do that you simply have to fish a new area to start getting a feel for it. I wanted to get to this spot bang on high water yesterday morning and then fish most of the ebb. Of course I wanted to catch a few fish, but I went with very few expectations and what I really wanted from the experience (gamble) was to see how the current moved and what the water exposed as it stripped out. I was taking a punt to try and learn stuff for the future.

And if there is one thing I am always happy to do in my fishing is take a punt. Like I said at the top I am also very content with fishing locations I know when I think they are going to fish, but it isn’t nearly enough for me and the way my head works. We didn’t bother a single bass yesterday morning, but the place was absolutely alive with mullet and shoal upon shoal of small sandeels - which we were expecting to erupt with bass attacks at any moment! I can’t really go into why exactly this location has been scratching away in my head because I value quiet fishing, but it was fascinating to watch that current really start to get going and get a look at where it looked most likely we might hook bass in the future. The long walk back to my Epic Berlingo when the tide had stripped nearly all the way out also threw up some fascinating looking ground which I didn’t know anything about. Google Earth is obviously really handy for getting an idea of an area, but nothing will ever beat getting out there and having a proper look.

Because the water was so ridiculously clear I also got the chance to play with a couple of new lures I sort of gave in to and bought because I am weak. I have watched my mate Mark catch a few bass on those really interesting looking MegaBass Dark Sleeper lures, and when you can watch them doing their thing in such clear water it’s noticeable how they can be made to swim/nudge along the bottom somewhat differently to something like the Savage Minnow Weedless or Fiiish Black Minnow. I know that these lures are not new to many of you out there, but I resisted as long as I could before capitulating!

Because of my growing obsession with some very specific bass location related problems that I am hoping creature baits might solve, I gritted my teeth and ordered a couple of those (not cheap!) MegaBass Sleeper Craw soft plastics (I have been told that like with the Z-Man lures you can’t mix them with other lures). For the price of a single Sleeper Craw I reckon you could order a packet of weedless hooks, some cheb weights, and at least a few creature baits - plus you can then adjust the actual weight of the cheb wait to match lure and ground - but MegaBass always make seriously classy lures and I do like how their new Sleeper Craw is basically the whole creature bait thing in one fairly weedless looking package. Clip on, clip off, so easy.

I am seeing a few photos of some good bass being caught by the Ultimate Fishing anglers in various French estuaries. Damn they look good when you get them on the bottom and those “claws” wave about with almost no work from your end on the rod tip. The more and more I fish with and obsess about this quite incredible Savage Gear SGS6 9’ 7-35g lure rod (review here), the more I truly believe that Markos has designed one of the best 9’ lure rods out there if you want as much feel and sensitivity as possible from a rod which can full-blood the 35g Surf Seeker yet still feel every little “tap” from the lures I have talked about above as you work them on the bottom. Amazing bit of kit. Yesterday morning was a proper blank session and I loved the whole thing, but I’ll love it a whole lot more if the “research” we did yesterday leads to us catching bass from there at a later date. You all have a good weekend and may we lose these sodding north winds sometime soon……………….

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Fishing isn’t quite fishing to me unless I’m trying a few new places and experimenting with how I fish

© Henry Gilbey 2023