I don’t go out bass fishing without some kind of simple metal lure to reach fish if they are feeding at range. Sometimes it pays off……

A mate and I fished together on Saturday, and to start with we found the bass doing what we didn’t expect them to be doing with where we were fishing. We both went geared up to fish perhaps a couple of specific ways (mainly bumping plastics in somewhat deeper than I tend to fish), but a little while into the session my mate alerted me to a load of feeding birds and what he reckoned were mackerel busting on bait. “That’s not mackerel” or something like that is what I said as I started running towards the commotion whilst clipping on the one metal lure I had in my lure box - which I might add I was not carrying because I intended to fish with it where we were, rather that I always carry at least some kind of longer-range lure with me in case something like this happens…………….

My mate clipped on a surface lure but he couldn’t reach the commotion, but I was into bass from the first cast. They were not big fish at all but any time I see bass feeding like this is bloody awesome, plus I can’t ignore it because surely there might be a better fish in amongst them all? The metal lure I happened to have in my lure box was the little but frigging missile-like 20g Savage Gear 3D Jig Minnow. On one of the casts I managed to get no hits from the smaller bass as I let the lure drop through the water column on a tight line - yes, there were that many fish around. I know it’s often the best fish of the session which doesn’t get landed, but what I hooked and annoyingly dropped a bit deeper down was a completely different bass to the others I landed at range.

How many fish do you need though? I had one metal lure and my mate didn’t, so I unclipped it and gave it to him to fish with while the bass were at what we would call long range. I clipped on one of the new Savage Gear surface lures which are trickling onto the market and which goes out an almost obscene distance - the Slap Walker 12.5cm/20g - and on the lure rod I was using I managed to reach and hook a few fish, but to be honest I soon took the lure off as I don’t really like messing around with two sets of barbless trebles on small bass (I will tell you about this new lure rod when it hits the market, but it’s a new Penn Europe one which I was nothing to do with. It has to be one of the longest-casting 9’ lure rods I have come across for the sort of lures we use most of the time, plus it’s THE one lure rod which reminds me the most of fishing with those sublime and bloody expensive Shimano Exsence Infinity lure rods from Japan. I like it that much).

Anyway, further into the session I did also end up catching a few bass where and how I might have expected/hoped to on this particular mark, plus those “commotion” bass did move in closer eventually and my mate managed to connect with them on other types of lures. What it did prove to me once again though was that for the lack of space a metal lure or two takes up in a lure box, why not carry one or two with you for exactly when this kind of thing might happen? Metals catch bass anyway, but if we remove surf fishing from the equation when I would fish with them most of the time, it only takes being out there the one time when you find visibly feeding fish at range to make it worthwhile always having at least one or two longer range options with you. Lots of metals work great of course, but for me it’s usually going to be a 30g Surf Seeker and increasingly a killer little 20g or 40g Savage Gear 3D Jig Minnow casting jig depending on what casting weight lure rod I am fishing with. I wish there was a 30g option, but the similar shape and also very good Major Craft Jigpara Shore casting jig comes in a handy 30g size.

A similar thing also happened to me at first light on Sunday morning when I went out on my own. Nothing but the one hit when I was fishing in close, and that includes seeing some really big mullet with a few bass mooching around with them, but will they hit my lure when they are mooching around like this? Will they hell! I was also keeping an eye on some birds though, and the moment they came in closer I saw some bass busting on the surface (I am pretty sure they were on sand smelt because I saw one swimming desperately away from a chasing bass, and as per the photo above I also saw a load of them shoaled up the other day). I quickly unclipped my soft plastic, clipped on a 30g Surf Seeker, blasted it out, and hooked up first cast. If I hadn’t had a metal lure or two in my lure box (which I might add was a different lure box to the one I had on Saturday because they are very different marks which call for different approaches, but as I said, any of lure boxes have a metal or two in them) then I would not have reached those feeding bass and I reckon I’d have blanked. How’s that for a Monday morning when it feels distinctly autumnal outside?

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