I do love it when changing something up a bit then produces a fish

I wasn’t going to go fishing a couple of days ago, but by mistake I had a look at a webcam, then checked the tides, then got to thinking, and then worked out that I could carry on working here at home and nip out later on to catch a bit of the ebb tide. I knew the water out on the coast had been fairly coloured up from the winds the other day, but I fancied things to have cleared out a good bit………….

I found some stunning conditions, way better in fact than I had hoped. I nearly face-planted on the cliff path because I was in such a rush to get a lure in the water when I saw the sea, but I was on my own and nobody was around to witness an ageing angler literally skipping down the cliffs. If I can proffer any advice now that I am a “mature” 53 years old, it is this - don’t ever fully grow up. Life’s serious enough and I am guessing that most of you here see your fishing as a way to unwind and enjoy the outdoors.

Anyway, so I start fishing. Because it’s sunny and the water is very fizzed up and pretty green, as per the other day I turned to a white Gravity Stick Paddletail rigged on the Savage Gear 6/0 corkscrew weedless hook with the 3g belly-weight. My go-to if you like, and on this ridiculously good “budget” lure rod I continue to play with and giggle at how good it is, I like this approach but after a while I am not 100% sure I’ve got things quite right. When you’re fishing on your own you have nobody else to bounce off and see if another technique or rigging option might be better, but I do love the challenge of thinking things through and trying to match my approach to the conditions in front of me.

After a while I came back from the water’s edge to have a drink of water and a bit of a think. I love the conditions, I love the state of tide, but I’m not sure I am presenting the lure quite right. I trust the white Gravity Stick Paddletail implicitly, and especially in the sunshine and the increasingly green fizzed up water, but I think I need to be fishing that smidgen deeper. Just beneath the real fizz if that makes sense? Closer to the rocks on the bottom which I know are there, then as the water really shallows out further into the ebb, I can come back to the 3g belly-weight approach I had started with.

I carry a selection of different weedless hooks and jig heads when I am out on an open coast session like this, and ever since a friend really opened my eyes up to the Decoy Violence VJ-36 weedless jig head, I carry a few different 3/0 and 4/0 versions specifically. I can’t prove that it makes any difference, but I just feel that the Savage Gear Slender Scoop Shad benefits slightly from putting the weight near the front of the lure instead of the belly. Both approaches work great and it’s marginal at best, but I really, really like the 13cm Slender Scoop Shad rigged on the 3/0 Decoy Violence VJ-36 weedless jig head and the 15cm Slender Scoop Shad rigged on the 4/0 Decoy Violence VJ-36 weedless jig head. Jig head weight to suit what you are trying to achieve.

I did my thinking and turned to the 15cm Slender Scoop Shad on the 4/0 Decoy Violence VJ-36 weedless jig head. In the bouncy conditions I felt like I was now fishing this setup really efficiently, with enough control to maintain contact but also allow the lure to do its thing in the turbulence - but that smidgen bit deeper and “grippier” than the 3g belly-weight approach I started off with. I could also let the jig head drop to the bottom and bounce it back along the bottom

When I eventually connected with a plump bass around the 3lb+ mark, damn right I was grinning from ear to ear. I know we’d all love to catch loads of big bass every time we go fishing, but it’s not very realistic to expect this. This ended up as a one fish session which I feel was a success because that single bass came when I had done a bit of thinking and then subtly changed my approach to try and affect the outcome. It really floats my boat and the information gets logged away for future sessions of course. No photos of the bass because I was on my own and there was nowhere for me to safely retain the fish for a couple of pictures. Slip the barbless hook out the moment the fish hits the shoreline and put it back. Love it!

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