I tend to fancy it when I get down to my fishing spot and it smells of fish - like this morning

Have you ever gone fishing and the sair literally smells of fish? Hear me out here, because there’s a lot of bait around our coastline at the moment, and sometimes there has obviously been a significant amount of it getting killed by larger fish and birds. I am guessing the oily looking slicks left behind must smell somewhat of fish because that’s what I smelt this morning when I was out on the open coast before first light. As were the bass………….

And for about half an hour or so the place was rammed with fish. A couple of mates were due down later, but I couldn’t not get there nice and early, and when there are that many fish around you know that I tend to play around with lures to see if there are any noticeable preferences. They were not big fish and to be perfectly honest I think they’d have hit almost anything, but when my mates arrived it was just starting to feel like the shoal of bass had moved on somewhere else. I did get a couple on the surface but I caught more on the soft plastics which I can hold a bit longer around the structure that was being washed by a gentle bit of swell.

We spread out though, and we all caught a fair few more bass. I am guessing most of you here love autumn as much as I do for bass fishing, indeed it’s a completely different feeling out there on the coast and also up the estuaries. The place feels alive again after that glorious summer weather which for me signals more of a lifeless kind of feeling on the bass fishing front. It’s amazing to see all this bait around, but I personally believe we’ve got a better chance at bigger bass when it all calms down again and we’re properly into that later autumn and early winter. I love that time of year around here - IF we get the conditions. You all have a good weekend and I hope you’re finding a few as well………