Is lockdown and not going fishing causing you to examine your own fishing and how you could do a few things a bit differently when we are back out there?

It’s not as if thinking about fishing doesn’t occupy most of my waking and indeed sleeping life anyway, but this Groundhog Day kind of life that most of us are living at the moment isn’t giving those of us who are obsessed with fishing the chance to mentally offload and reset by actually going fishing. I accept completely that going fishing is way down the list of what’s important in the grand scheme of things at the moment, but I would also argue that a lot of people benefit from going fishing in ways that are way beyond the simple act of hooking and landing a fish. I wonder how many of us have looked beyond the actual wanting to go fishing so badly it’s like an infernal itch in the small of your back that you can’t bloody get to, and instead are now looking at our own fishing and how we might shake things up a bit when we get back out there…………....

I wonder how many bass anglers who fish with lures are itching to have a proper go at surf fishing for example? How many of you here have vowed to yourself that this is the year to crack night fishing with lures and make it into a regular part of your armoury? If night fishing is already a proper thing for you, how about catching bass at night on surface lures? How about getting onto something like Google Earth and planning a few good coast path walks on the hunt for new marks to fish and begin working out? Are there any estuaries near to you that you haven’t had a look at for bass fishing? And so on and so on until my head is fit to burst! Standing still in fishing is not on the cards for me and without a doubt it’s the constant learning that lure fishing forces me to do which keeps me so utterly absorbed and hopelessly addicted………………

If I look at my own bass fishing from say last year then I can’t help but smile at how much fun I had fishing in the surf, and when we are back out there I intend to do a lot more of it when conditions allow. I love it. The buzz at hooking even a 2lb bass in some hectic onshore conditions at first light and you find yourself grinning away like an absolute loon at how much fun this is. But I have so many ideas for different places I want to try on the surf fishing front, and even very locally to me there are so many things I don’t know and I have a few theories I have come up with and I want to see if they ring true or false. A few anglers have left some very interesting comments on here before about fishing those tables of water right in front of you with soft plastics such as the DoLive Stick and I have some fascinating sample lures I have here which I so want to shout about but I am not allowed to yet.

As much as night fishing for bass has become completely normal to me over the last few years, if I am honest with myself I didn’t do enough of it last year. Now this has a fair amount to do with heading down the surf fishing route whenever possible because it’s such a blast, but it is also easier not to go night fishing sometimes when it’s not getting properly dark until after 10pm and with the tides you might not want to be out there until say 1am in the morning and you need to be up the next morning for work or getting the kids to school and so on. How easy is it to talk yourself into fishing the last light and first light periods when the coastline is flat and calm and lifeless and you convince yourself that it’s nearly nighttime so surely the fishing is going to be the same as it is as night? But it’s not, and I know it. I am not saying those periods can’t be really good sometimes, but I believe I know enough to know that when my coastline goes flat and lifeless, this is the time to get out there when it’s properly dark. I can get by with not much sleep if needs be although my wife and girls I know would say that dad can get rather grumpy when he does too much night fishing!

And then I look at my not liking big moon nights for my night fishing and I have come up with a plan of attack to see if I can get over this and end up with even more nights when I can head out there full of confidence. I need to go at this in exactly the opposite way to when I started to try and get into night fishing with lures around here and I made such an obvious mistake because I started gambling on locations because I was sure they would throw up bass at night when what I first needed to do was to (night) fish where I already was during the day - instead of taking a punt on a spot and blanking and then convincing myself that bass could not find my lures and night and what have you.

So when I can get back out there I am going to suck up the lack of sleep and concentrate on two or three locations where I tend to feel very confident of seeing bass at night when it’s nice and dark - but if I can get the right sea conditions on big moon nights when I would usually fish these locations on dark and half-moon nights (confused?), I am going to head out there with a mixture of white and dark coloured needlefish and soft plastics and various sample lures and I am going to bloody suss this out. I want to see if fishing on a clean sandy beach makes much difference to fishing a shallow reef when the moon is big and bright (again, locations I already fish at night and have caught plenty of bass from), and if you hear a very excited yelp one quiet night then it’s most likely me hooked into a bass under the fullest of moons. If I fail then so be it and I will obviously blame the moon and not my own inabilities, but surely lockdown has shown all of us how we can’t take things like freedom of movement for granted and when life gets back to a relative normal again we need to make the most of all opportunities instead of that awful “can’t be bothered” which can creep in from time to time. Damn right I want to be out there like I would normally be, and holy frigging cow when we can be I am going to do all I can to become a better and more knowledgeable angler.

You can thank me later because I am going to make your Bank Holiday Lockdown a whole lot better by alerting you to the glorious fact that the mighty UK black metal band Winterfylleth has released their new album “The Reckoning Dawn” today. I have had it on repeat on Spotify since 6am this morning and I have nearly cried three times already at the sheer majesty of this organic, flowing and epic style of black metal that washes over you like an everflowing stream of melodic, hypnotic brutality. Winterfylleth will help get you through another Groundhog Day, I guarantee it. Cry along with me. Wherever you are I hope you are staying safe and well during these mad times……………