I reckon that was the dirtiest water I’ve caught bass in

I so love this time of year for bass fishing around here, but as with any saltwater fishing it does of course depend on the conditions we are dealt as we move through autumn and into winter. We can’t complain when we get what we have been going through recently, but it is rather nice when the weather gods forget what time of year it is and give us what we want. We got a lot of good stuff this time last year but not nearly so much this time around……………

I was messaging back and forth a bit with a good angler I know the other day, and when we signed off I thought what the hell I’m going to give it a go. I knew the water clarity was going to be pretty poor, and especially because any estuary was going to be at least pretty coloured - and especially so after it rained all day and night on Saturday - but at last the sun was out and the world looked beautiful again. At worst it would be a chance to swim a few lures and spend time outside without having to wear full waterproofs (most dog walks recently).

So I did a bit of thinking. A lot of the estuary based bass fishing I have done has been based around those last few hours of the ebb tide, indeed the biggest bass I have ever seen caught was over in Ireland an hour or two before low water. I chose to go for a deeper mark I know where I could bump soft plastics along the bottom on the early ebb tide to try and get away from the big rush of colder freshwater which I presume will tend to concentrate around the last of the ebb. I can’t admit to a great deal of confidence when I rocked up and saw the severe lack of clarity to the water, but at least it looked fishable and not like my dog walk on Sunday morning when I saw loads of weed and tree branches running down the estuary after so much rain.

The subject of water clarity and lure fishing for bass is something we all think about and which I will return to again and again on here - because there are so many different kinds of dirty or murky water. I think about what I see as “coloured water” running out of an estuary we fish in Kerry and it’s a completely different kind of colour to what I would see in my local estuary. Then I think about when my local coastline gets very coloured and I try my best to fish it but it’s always full of weed when it’s like this - yet many anglers I know do just fine in more coloured water out on certain coastlines. There are no definite answers here and I find it so interesting how different areas behave so differently in terms of bass fishing.

Anyway, all that build up and I landed only the one bass when I was out on Tuesday, but I am pretty sure I haven’t personally caught a bass on a lure from estuary water with more colour to it. Mark’s double figure fish below from a couple of years ago was caught in some pretty murky water as well, but from memory I think I blanked that particular session. My bass on Tuesday was a chunky 4lb+ fish which I didn’t photograph, indeed I didn’t actually need to touch the fish. I got it into my landing net which I kept in the water all the time, stuffed the butt of my rod down the front of my waders, slipped the barbless hook out of the fish’s mouth (obviously I cut my thumb on the razor sharp gill plate, goes without saying!), and then dropped the front of the net below the surface of the (murky) water and let the bass swim out. I only carry a landing net for specific bass fishing situations (this one here in the Medium size, very lightweight and it just works, and especially when using this simple clip here to secure it to my lure bag), but I rarely if ever see any other anglers carrying one and I often wonder why.

One fish doesn’t prove much of course, but it was a big jolt of confidence that I should be “pushing” dirtier water more than I probably do. I caught the bass on the 13cm/31g size Savage Gear Sandeel V2 Weedless, in fact I photographed the lure after I caught the bass on it - above. You can only catch on what you are fishing with, but I have seen and caught enough bass on pink coloured lures this year to be increasingly interested in this colour for a number of different situations. If you follow my Facebook page then you will see that I ask a number of questions and plenty of anglers kindly engage with me. It’s rather interesting how many of them say how well pink lures have done for their own bass fishing.

You all have a good weekend and thank f&^$ the autumn nations rugby is over! At least the Test cricket in Pakistan has started, what an epic first day for England. I also heard the brand new Metallica this week which seemed to drop completely out of the blue, and I am really pleased that it’s actually rather good. I grew up loving Metallica but I haven’t really connected with anything they have done since the Justice album. I would also like to draw your attention to another new track which another classic band dropped this week, have a listen below. Obituary created one of the first two death metal albums I ever heard (Slowly We Rot), and I can still remember my dad telling me to “turn that shit off” when I got back from Reading with two brand new records (remember what they are?) and started blasting them out in my bedroom. The good old days. I miss my dad so much.

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