Had a friend staying, really tough fishing, but we just about managed to find some

My mate Del who lives in the magical Isles of Scilly had a window with work and family where he could get over to me for some bass fishing. I know it’s December and we can hardly complain that much about the weather, but on the tides I wanted him here the other day the conditions were so bad for bass fishing and we kept delaying until we were almost running out of time and had no choice. Del came over at the start of this week and he knew full well that I would not have chosen literally anything about the conditions and tides for a proper crack at a few bass……………..

But we hadn’t seen each other for far too long, and what the hell, we were going to give it a bloody good go and have a good laugh while we were at it. If there is one thing I am really noticing about this late autumn into winter period is the very noticeable lack of weed in the water. I guess most of it has been ripped off and washed away throughout the year and not properly grown back yet, because at other times of the year and similar, very dodgy conditions I would usually have been completely screwed with too much weed. So the lack of clarity to the water wasn’t exactly ideal, but at least we could actually fish it and not pull in nothing but weed for hours on end. We were fishing!

The other morning I made a call on a specific location which I thought might be worth a crack on a big ebb tide and fairly bouncy sea conditions. For a day and a half we had been getting kicked hard with a combination of hectic seas and bigger tides - don’t like - but finally the sea was calming down a bit and there was a hint of the water clearing up. We got down to our chosen spot and on my second cast I got hit hard but the bloody fish didn’t stick. I rarely go out without at least one IMA Hound 125F Glide lure in one of the two lure boxes I tend to carry at my side, and with the lack of water clarity we have had this week there was always going to be a white colour Hound in there. If lure fishing is so much about confidence then a white Hound Glide is it for me, and a couple of casts later I hooked and landed a very angry bass in what I reckon was quite likely the dirtiest water I have caught a lure-caught bass from the open coast around here. You know those bass that do anything to try and spike you when you grab them for unhooking and release? Yep, that was this bass all over!

I was obviously very pleased to have found a fish but of course I wanted Del to be the one to catch. He had been thumped hard a couple of times but hadn’t connected. It wasn’t until later on when we moved locations to take advantage of a big flooding tide that I heard a yell from Del who was into a bass. I happened to have my 70-200mm lens trained on him because the light was looking really good, so I kept firing away as he brought the bass to hand and released it. Any bass of any size in the conditions we had was a more than worthy success! Del caught his first UK bass for far too long - how easily does life get in the way? - on another lure I never go out without these days, the smaller 11.5cm/22g Savage Gear Sandeel V2 Weedless. I just really like the simple versatility to be able to swim and bump this lure around at different depths.

I couldn’t fish on Thursday morning because I had a heart appointment that had been cancelled and rescheduled, but my mate Mark very kindly picked Del up and took him out fishing in what were some far better conditions with improving water clarity and so on. When I saw the lads later on I was over the moon to hear that Del had landed a tidy bass on a Keitech Swing Impact Fat paddletail that he had rigged on a J-hook jig head and fished it hard through some strong rip currents. I remember this paddletail from a few years ago and I had forgotten how good they look and how much I guess that big paddletail must really thump away in a bit of current and colour.

We tried again yesterday afternoon and got properly skunked in some pretty tasty conditions, but in my defence I don’t tend to like the big tide low waters that much around here. We had the backup of this morning and a location I tend to like on a first light high water and big tide, but annoyingly Del got a phone call to say that fog was expected to mess up the flights this afternoon so I need to drop him at the train station a good bit earlier this morning and we can’t fish the last session we had planned. I am going to head out for a run in the dark with Storm then drop Del off, catch up on some work, then I should be in a position to take advantage of an interesting looking forecast - bloody typical! - as the tides start to neap off a bit over the next few days. It’s been a blast but damn it’s been some tough fishing. At times though the light has been incredible. Plenty of food for thought and I have learnt a lot over the last few days which needs thinking about a whole lot more. You all have a good weekend, see you next week, can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas…………….

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