It’s such a thrill to “see” ground that you know well in bit of a different light

There are surely a number of different ways which might cause us to see a bit of ground you know pretty well in a different way, and I would suggest that catching or seeing a decent fish is one of those reasons. I got lucky on Boxing Day morning - see here - but that one good bass has got me looking at and thinking about a stretch of my local coastline in a bit of a new light. I live in south east Cornwall and I do a lot of my bass fishing around here, and especially now with the current restrictions and advice, plus for some reason we seem to have a long season and we can sometimes find bass into January around here - IF we get the conditions. We found some pretty stunning conditions yesterday afternoon in fact, and Mark hooked a very lively bass which frustratingly didn’t stay hooked up, but at least that one (briefly hooked) fish says to us we are not wasting our time by having a go………………

Anyway, I don’t need to tell you again about how I got lucky on Boxing Day morning, because the point here is that one fish and when I caught it in the tide and also where I hooked it on this particular stretch of coastline is what has really got me thinking. It’s not as if I haven’t fished this place a whole heap of times, but sometimes something comes along which makes me rethink what I thought I knew and how and when I might usually approach a particular spot - and that one winter bass has been that catalyst for me. I find myself literally seeing the mark in a different way to how I used to. I still know what I used to know about the area, but surely there is a load more to learn? We are creatures of habit and as anglers in the saltwater environment especially we tend to think we have got things sussed when if we start regularly catching fish from a certain mark at a certain time on a certain size of tide and certain conditions, and I wonder if this sense of “comfort” can in some respects hold us back from then mixing things up to see if we can improve our chances of catching more or bigger bass.

And I find all this thinking and planning and wondering so incredibly exciting and motivating. I am not very good at sitting still and I also have a very enquiring mind which I am sure can sometimes affect my fishing in a negative way because I am so happy to mix things up. There have been countless times when I have caught a bass on a specific lure which at times might catch me a load more fish, but what am I going to learn from this? Don’t get me wrong, I love catching plenty of fish if I can, but counting a bunch of bass and then posting my heroics all over social media isn’t my thing, and I tend to be one for seeing what more I can learn. So I look at this bit of coastline and I weigh up how I would usually approach it. I have that bit of knowledge in the bank as such, and in some respects I can fall back on that if needs be. But what really excites me is taking a stretch of coastline which I have fished so many times before - and then deliberately mixing things up because we had to on Boxing Day morning, and it threw up a pretty nice bass. What could continuing to mix things up produce? And that’s just it to me. It’s fishing and we will never quite know, but bloody hell it’s going to be fun and motivating to try and find out………………

I am going to have to ask you to accept my apologies today that the photos on this blog post are actually of me fishing. Having been recently “encouraged” to try and shoot a few social media quality photos of me with some of the bass I might catch - you might have noticed how successfully I have avoided grip and grins involving me plus fish! - I got to thinking how I could actually shoot a few photos of myself fishing when the light gets nice or the conditions get interesting and so on. I’m talking about photos that I can be happy about from a pure photography point of view as well. I love fishing with a few mates but I am also fairly often out on my own for whatever reason, and the other day I suddenly had a bit of a lightbulb moment. I won’t bore you with what I have been trying out from a technical point of view, but I am starting to figure out a few ways in which I can photograph and indeed film myself in ways which just about sit okay with me. You all have a good weekend, please stay safe and well……………..