More February bass, Ioving the challenge, March is looming........

My apologies if you are bored to tears with my February bass fishing exploits, because from day one of starting this blog many moons ago, it was never intended to be a sort of “I went fishing and caught a fish” sort of thing. On the other hand though, if you had asked me many moons ago when bass fishing started to consume my life whether I would ever hope or perhaps even expect to see or catch the odd bass on a lure from UK waters in February I’d have said not a chance. Hence these blog posts. It’s not as if I am catching a load of bass around here, but just the odd fish on a lure at this time of year is enough to keep me going and is hopefully of some interest to you kind people…………

Doesn’t fishing always enjoy bringing you back down to earth though? My February “successes” have been limited at best, but you know what it’s like. You try something different or you catch a fish or two when you least expect it, and in no time at all you have convinced yourself that this nature thing can be beaten. You’ve gone and cracked it. Judging from various catch reports I would suggest that more UK anglers than ever are thinking why the hell not keep on giving it a go, and the previous weekend we found some stunning conditions on a bit of reef. Arguably the best conditions I have seen anywhere so far this month - and the three of us blanked! Back down to earth with a bump, and the reality is that this February bass fishing lark is by no means a given.

This APIA Foojin’RS Vivogue 96ML+ 9’6’’ 6-38g lure rod is something else! Feels SO good with the Penn Authority 2500 spinning reel.

We were staying up on the north coast of Cornwall for a few days at the end of half-term last week. My girls are both revising for GCSEs and A-Levels respectively - something I don’t remember doing at all - and my wife is a teacher so she had some well earned time off work. I took my laptop so I could get on with some work around multiple dog walks etc. My fishing gear obviously went in the Epic Berlingo because why the hell not, and a friend of mine happened to have Friday off work and was up for some fishing. The tides didn’t exactly inspire me a huge amount, but the building onshore conditions did. I picked a spot which I have fished a bit but which I feel I have got so much to learn about, and we agreed to take a bit of a punt with the times and state of the tide and fish the place rather differently to how we have done so in the past. February bass fishing on lures is already a punt, so what’s the harm in gambling on a few other factors as well? The one thing in our favour was the conditions though. Bloody lovely. Decent bit of onshore wind, green water, a nice short and bouncy sea, and obviously no other anglers around because sensible bass anglers have put their gear away until later in the year.

And within about twenty minutes of starting my mate Andy shouted that he was into a fish. It was really drizzly and heavily overcast which we all like for bass fishing but which isn’t exactly great for photos, so considering that Andy was also waist-deep in a decent bit of surging surf, I left the camera gear alone and just watched a good friend quite simply loving the experience of catching a bass when you might not really expect to. It was a chunky fish around the 3lb mark which he took on the white SG Surf Seeker, and not long after he got another hit which didn’t hook up. We fished for a fair while longer with no other signs of fish, but that single bass made my week like you would not believe. I won’t go into the reasons, but I know how happy Andy was. What more could I ask for really? My experience of catching bass in February is not exactly extensive, but I do know that we are highly unlikely to connect with many.

This was NOT my fish from Saturday morning - it’s the colour of the lure I wanted you to see

With the conditions forecast to be exactly the same I obviously had to go fishing again on Saturday morning! I was on my own this time and I found some good water but with a touch of colour which seemed mainly to be from the waves dumping on a sandbank and kicking a lot of sand up (bigger tide than the day before). I don’t know if you remember me talking about that Fluo UV red/black colour Savage Gear Seeker later last year when the light is low or very overcast or there is a bit of colour to the water, but that is the colour I went with - in the 28g size. And at about the same state of tide as the day before when Andy hooked his bass, I got properly nailed at range. I think I yelped. Again. It’s becoming a habit. Who said fishing was a lifelong addiction?

I have managed to get my hands on the brand new APIA Foojin’RS Vivogue 96ML+ 9’6’’ 6-38g lure rod for a bit of a thrashing (one of the most interesting lure rods I can recall fishing with, review to come, really shocked at how much I this thing because it’s SO unlike anything I would usually go for). You know how little importance I attach to how our lure rods deal with the fighting fish side of things when it comes to bass and their relative size, but damn that bass from Saturday morning was such fun in the surf on this rod and how it works. I could tell it was a half-decent fish with how the tip slammed around and stayed there when the bass hit the Seeker, and it was such a buzz to be able to wrap my hand around the leader and slip the barbless hook out of a bass which I reckon was a very chunky 5lbs or so.

When that hook came out the bass sat there perfectly calmly for a second or two before nonchalantly flicking its tail and swimming back out to sea. There was nobody around to see me beaming away in the drizzle but I was over the frigging moon to catch another February bass. I never had another touch which adds to my belief that there simply aren’t many fish around at the moment, indeed with the type of conditions I was fishing I’d have expected to see at least a few more bass if that had been say September. I was up to my waist in water for most of the session and it was the first time I can remember feeling at all cold from any fishing for a long time now. We all have our favourite lures, but if Savage Gear found me surplus to requirements tomorrow morning I would continue to panic-buy the Seekers for anything that resembles surf fishing especially. I can’t get enough of them, and it continues to interest me how they help communicate to me when my lure is in some current with how they dig in that bit more when they “find” a rip. That APIA rod is kind of redefining what I think of as sensitivity and feel in a lure rod, and I reckon on Saturday morning I could have almost mapped out where the rips and eddies were with how much the rod and the lure were literally sending the information from lure to rod to arm to addled bass addicted angler brain! March and it being the one month I have never had a lure caught bass is looming. Could this be the year?

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