I want to get better at fishing the waves as they tumble around the shoreline

One of my best bass of a few years ago came when I was deliberately “holding” a Gravity Stick Paddletail on the 6/0 3g belly-weight corkscrew weedless hook in the back of some shorter, dumping waves on a slightly steeper beach than I might usually find around me. A good friend of mine who I have fished with for a fair few years now is miles better than me at fishing those tumbling, close in areas which can sometimes entail almost a parallel approach to your fishing, but I very deliberately targeted that specific session to try and improve my approach - and it worked.

The other day I went out for a bit of a punt, as in I know the ground around low water, but there’s a cut-off point and you need to get out of there not long into the flood otherwise you’re stuck for hours on end. Recently though we found a different way in and out which now gives me the opportunity to see if the area might fish around the top of the tide as well. It’s a bit of a climb up and down but it’s okay if you don’t go running down because you’re so excited at the conditions - what, me? Never! - so I had a good go the other day but blanked good and proper. If there is one thing I never mind though is not catching if I feel like I am investing time and energy into future fishing options. I will never know how this area might fish at different states of the tide unless I put the time in myself and try to figure it out.

What the (blank) session did give me though was a specific area where I could literally cast parallel across the waves as they banged into the bouldery shoreline. I am not sure how well I was fishing this specific bit of ground, but I gave it a good go. I know that my weakness is worrying about that tight line between me and the lure instead of trusting that the lure is fishing away in zones like that whether I am properly tight to it or not. It’s far easier to whack a lure out and wind it in than try to control a lure which wants to literally tumble around in the backwash as the waves roll in and wash out. A paddletail on a weedless hook like the Gravity Stick Paddletail or the Slender Scoop Shad, or a paddletail on a jig head like the Savage Minnow Weedless or the Fiiish Black Minnow don’t always need to be swimming in a straight line to be fishing properly, and it’s that “correct” mental image which I need to get better at overcoming………….

And allow my lures to wash around a good bit more right where these magnificent fish we obsess about are so adept at hunting for dislodged and/or disorientated food. I think a lot of us probably try too hard to keep a tight line all the time, when perhaps we should better trust that some of the lures we might turn to are actually working more naturally when we kinda help them move around with the movement of the waves. I am not sure if this makes any sense, but I know how I might tend to just angle my cast when I can fish parallel into the backs of the waves so that I can keep that tight line between me and the lure instead of letting it wash in much closer to the shoreline. I look at the photos I shot of myself fishing and I look where my line is angled and I think come on Henry, get that line in much closer to the shoreline where bass are so adept at working for their food.

I don’t worry about losing lures, but I guess we are naturally a touch hesitant to deliberately allow our gear to almost wash around in the sort of ground you can see in these photos. I would mostly tend to fish something like the DoLive Stick on a twitch, twitch, pause kind of retrieve, much like you might also fish the Gravity Stick Pintail (photo below) or that rather nice HTO Slim Snax in the photo above, but surely “twitch sticks” like these are basically perfect for getting washed around in the turbulence? What I do know is that I am now eagerly waiting for some autumnal and early winter onshore conditions so that my local coastline starts to bounce away with lovely fizzed up green water. I am always thinking about fishing - really? - but also how I can keep on improving as an angler. Watching, learning and thinking, don’t be afraid to ask questions, there is very rarely just the one way to go about your fishing. You all have a good weekend, catch you next week.

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