Looking at and thinking about water I already know (and need to check out) with a different set of eyes - what have I been missing?
A select few anglers I know and get to fish with a bit have really got me thinking about bits of water almost all over again. I was talking with a friend the other day and I said something along these lines - in some ways there’s estuary fishing and then there’s estuary fishing. I think of my introduction to estuary fishing which was mostly along the lines of bumping stuff around during those last few hours of the ebb tide - had some awesome fishing, ain’t about to stop fishing like this! - and then I think about how much more there is to an estuary system and how one might approach it……………..
If I take one bit of water I know fairly well as an example, if I am honest with myself I know I haven’t properly got to grips with it. I know there can be some serious bass there sometimes, indeed a fish that turned over my little Savage Gear Pop Walker 2.0 9cm/11g surface lure still haunts the odd dream. We have had some good fish from this stretch, but most times I fish it I am left slightly frustrated that I am missing something. A few times I have had bass charge say the smaller Gravity Stick Paddletail - big bow wave behind the lure, heart starts racing! - but the bass seems to have run out of water and backed off from hitting the lure. As long as I live I will never forget the bass above which came out of nowhere and smashed that killer little Fishus Lurenzo Espetit 11cm surface lure literally right off my rod tip. And I mean right off the rod tip. I know I yelped.
The few times I have tried night fishing this spot has resulted in a grand total of very little. I know the bass haven’t suddenly sodded off because they are scared of the dark, but I have fished the place how I would during daylight hours and it hasn’t worked for me. Which in turn gets me thinking about what I have been learning so much about recently and whether the “fish something vaguely appealing tight to the bottom and slowly” approach might produce the goods at night.
The Savage Gear Ned Dragontail Slug 10cm, looks amazing when you bump it along the bottom or twitch it around
How do I hold some kind of lure in place for longer is a thought that has come to mind many times before. With what I am learning about creature baits/crab or prawn imitations, and also wondering how much bass related traction there might be with the whole Ned rig approach to perch fishing in freshwater, in turn it’s got me looking at all these different bits of water and mentally adjusting my approach. There’s a quiet waterway I drive past sometimes which to be honest I have shied away from checking it out for bass because I simply couldn’t really visualise how I might go about fishing it. I don’t actually know if bass would be that far up this particular waterway, but as I think about it in these slower, more “bottom contact” based terms, and also connect my thoughts to a few specific fish in very interesting bits of water that I know about recently? Exactly why I woke up at 4.30am this morning was because I got to thinking about somewhere else and I wanted to do a “flyover” on Google Earth before I head out for a look. What have I been missing?
You all have a good weekend. It’s a massive Six Nations weekend, plus it’s England v Australia in the ICC cricket tournament tomorrow morning. From a sporting point of view I am not that disappointed the weather’s so bad out there at the moment, but there are signs of spring on the way and I for one can’t wait to see how this year unfolds on the fishing front. For sure it’s going to be different to 2024, but if you’re anything like me then you’ve got a bunch of ideas about how you might shake a few things up and see what happens. Gotta love the learning curve……………
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