It’s official - Cornwall had its wettest January on record. But bass are still being caught in estuaries. Do you ask yourself what you’ve been missing?

A friend of mine fished the open coast a couple of days ago and found what he told me were stunning conditions - clean water, no weed, nice short sea etc. But he caught no bass and he was surprised. We talked about it and I said that whatever is going on these days, don’t forget that February and indeed March around here are what I think are the toughest two months for open coast bass fishing. Hell, it was only a few years ago when I caught my first ever open coast February bass…………….

But bass related stuff is going on. I am guessing that some of the “changes” we are seeing are down to global warming and associated factors, but one principal variable which I think has to be considered is the fact that there isn’t a lot of historical data of bass catches on lures in estuaries for the first few months of a regular year. I am not saying that no (bass) anglers were out and about in estuaries with lures in the past at this time of year, but even the most diehard angler has to admit that cold, coloured estuary water in the middle of winter has never traditionally been a go-to thing.

I am guessing that like me, you also hear of a few big bass coming to estuary based flounder anglers during the winter months. I don’t know if various populations of bass remain in some estuaries or not all winter long, but I went back through my blog and found this post here which describes what was then the earliest in the year (very little!) bass I had ever caught in an estuary on a lure. It gave me a huge amount of confidence to really keep at it with the whole creature bait thing, and the more confidence you feel, the more you are inclined to push and try things.

I was really surprised to be getting reports and photos of a few bass on lures in estuaries when I was away in Kenya over Xmas and New Year. Surprised mainly because I saw that the UK was having a serious cold snap, so I couldn’t really believe that bass would be looking for food in such shallow and cold water. But they obviously were. And here we are now after the wettest January on record in Cornwall - February hasn’t been any better so far! - and there still seems to be the chance of catching a few bass in water that I don’t think was really being seriously thought about a few years ago.

So is it just a case of global warming and so on being the main reason why this is possible, or is it because more anglers are coming into bass fishing and they are basically ignoring the “traditions” as such and thinking what the hell, why not give it a go? Then you have a few old gits like me who obsess about this one species of fish probably far too much and also think what the hell, let’s give it a go.

So have we been missing out on some extra bass fishing if you like that’s been almost under our noses all this time but the collective understanding was that it ain’t happening at this time of year, in these locations, and with the sort of weather conditions we’ve been getting? I know what I think, but what do you think?