I can’t believe I am saying this, but I am thinking about loosening my reel drag for a specific bass fishing situation

As much as we tend to try and keep things quiet about where we go fishing, at the end of the day saltwater fishing here in the UK is so much to do with free access to our glorious coastline. We do what we can to “protect” at least some of the locations we might fish, but word sometimes gets out for “various reasons” - what on earth gives us more right to fish somewhere than the next angler though, and if there is one thing that seeing anglers on what was a very quiet location can do is get you back out there on the hunt for different fishing spots. At the end of the day perhaps it’s too easy to keep going back to the same spots because in reality we have a lot of coastline and so many anglers either don’t or indeed can’t enjoy walking very far or for whatever reason don’t seem particularly interested in what’s around the next corner.

And this getting back out there on the hunt for different marks has thrown up an interesting problem for me. I bass fish with a tight drag because I don’t see understand why these magnificent fish we target need to be donated much if any braid, but some locations we have come across recently and how the bigger bass seem to be moving and feeding has got me thinking about a different way of scrapping with these hooked fish. Yep, it goes against my belief and I am having to say this from between clenched teeth - I reckon the way to land a big bass on these marks might well be to slacken my drag off and try to encourage a bigger bass to run out and away when you hook it…………..

This is actually an old photo from Ireland, but it shows a load of bladderwrack

I would guess that most of us spend at least some of our bass lure time fishing over or near weed, but weed isn’t simply weed and it’s really got me thinking. We have come across what seems to be some interesting bass fishing terrain and things point to the potential for some big bass being there. We are at day one of starting to learn about the best times to fish these different locations, but we have had a few nice fish right on the edges of a lot of bladderwrack that has essentially “collapsed” because it’s not high water and the water isn’t supporting the weed. Does that make sense? Fishing over weed at high water is a bit different to deliberately targeting bass which seem most inclined to be hunting right along the edges of the weed - and then with the angle from where you are fishing, it creates a problem because you obviously need to pull bass towards you when to get them in. There is sometimes so much collapsed bladderwrack between us and a hooked bass that said hooked bass goes has to go straight into all that weed as you try and pull it towards you on the rod.

This happened to me not long after a mate got me looking at some areas with a different set of eyes (thank you), a good deal of Google Earth consultations, a few long, hot, sweaty walks, and a hole in my breathables thanks to some barbed wire. We came across what we were hoping to find and there were plenty of small bass hitting bait all over the place, but logic said that the bigger fish would be in amongst and on the edges of all that (collapsed) bladderwrack where more substantial food sources would surely be sheltering. The grownups at Savage Gear have said that it’s not quite time to tell you about these new lures we have been working on, but let’s just say that I rigged one up weedless and weightless and put it out there, not far beyond the edges of all that bladderwrack…………….

And blow me down if a nice big bow wave appears right behind my lure and a proper bass goes and engulfs it. I am deliberately standing right back from the water’s edge which is in fact a mass of collapsed bladderwrack until you get to open water, so let’s say I’m about twenty yards away from this bass I have just hooked. Muscle memory kicks in and I go to pull the hell out of this fine fish once it has grabbed my lure, but what does this fine fish obviously do if you think about the angle I am pulling the hell out of it? Yep, into all that collapsed bladderwrack it swims, everything goes very solid, there is no way I can pull it through so much heavy weed. I have no choice but to get into the water whilst keeping a very tight line, make my way towards where I can see my braid entering the weed, and try reaching around for the bass. By the time I get to where this fish went straight into the weed I find nothing more than my rather lovely soft plastic lure on its weedless hook, minus the bass. I say a frustrated adieu to wherever this fine fish has swum off to.

The next bass I hooked on one of my sample soft plastics ended up weighing 6lbs in this rather clever landing net I am trying out that has a weigh-scale built into the handle (the McLean R111 Short Handle Medium Weigh Net 14lb), but I was more ready for this fish and I was also much closer to it when I hooked up (stealthy ninja fishing!). I was just about to lift my soft plastic up and over the mass of bladderwrack in front of me when the water opened up and my lure disappeared into the mouth of a bass. I was ready and as I hit this bass I was literally pulling it up and over the bladderwrack at the same time. I didn’t want to lose another fish and the logical way seemed to be to fight this bass so hard that it literally came in across the top of the weed and not giving it the chance to bury into the weed and come off like the last one. Green fish are a little harder to hold for photos as my mate Steve will attest to, but I do like how green fish swim off so strongly instead of being completely knackered because they have been pulled as gently as a kitten and then measured and photographed and what have you.

As happy as I was to land a 6lb bass from a location I have never fished before, I lost that first good fish I hooked, Steve lost a fish exactly the same way, and one has to wonder if somewhat larger bass which we think are there can be landed the same way as I had to horse that one in. I trust my braid and leader and knots and what have you, and from a lot of fishing and spending time around anglers around the world I like to think I know how to put the gears on a hooked fish - but gears or not, sometimes the angles work against you and a different approach might be required he says between clenched teeth. It’s easy to fish the same marks in the same way all the time but where’s the excitement in that? Bass fishing does it for me so much because it keeps me thinking and experimenting and problem solving and what have you, and this is one of those situations that has got me buzzed up and sleeping even worse because I can’t shut my brain down after forty years of fishing now.

How about slackening my drag off to the point where I can still set the hook and keep a good bend in the rod, but a bass could easily take line off me and hopefully run out into clear water when hooked - instead of me pulling so hard the fish can only go one way which is towards me and into the weed and getting jammed up. Now this drag setting on my spinning reel would in fact be around what most bass anglers I come across set their drag at, but between clenched teeth and against what I want to do I can’t help but wonder if this letting a big bass (hopefully) run out into deeper water might be the way to go here. As this potential fish runs I could then wade out to the edge of the collapsed bladderwrack, tighten the hell out of the drag once more when I have negotiated my way through all that weed and hopefully not slipped over and got a wader-full, and then pull said bass towards me and my waiting net and all the bladderwrack behind me. But if said (monster!) bass chooses to run straight into the weed when I hook up with my considerably slacker drag? Well I can’t do much about that save for clamping my hand over the front of the reel and pulling seven bells out of it and trying to drag it up and over the weed, and if not, gracefully charging out through that mass of collapsed bladderwrack and trying to grab the bass out of there before it can get the braid and leader all wrapped up in the weed and slip the hookhold as gently as most anglers like to “fight” their hooked fish. There is so much to learn about these new to me locations and I obviously need to work on trying to connect with one of these bigger bass that I believe might be there, and then I can put my new theories into practise and see what happens. Nothing ventured, nothing gained? If nothing else I will get a few waders full of water and no doubt the odd faceplant into the bladderwrack as I try rushing through it to try and access clear water. I trust that anybody I am fishing with at the time would not laugh at all!