Silly numbers of bass in warm autumn sunshine, about as much fun as a couple of “mature” bass anglers can have

Sometimes it all comes together to the point that you walk away after a few hours because you’ve caught quite enough fish, and Saturday for Andy and I was one of those sessions. The guiding in Ireland was tough, but even if the fishing had been more like a normal year I obviously don’t get to fish myself. Those first few sessions when I get back home are extra special whatever happens on the actual fishing front. I physically need to go fishing like so many of you here. I had a few small bass in the surf the day after I got back, then on Saturday I got it into my head to fish a spot which I am learning more about but I didn’t know what would happen on a really big ebbing tide…………….

I am typing this early yesterday morning as the rain lashes down and the strong southerly wind is howling, but on Saturday when we headed out fishing we found really warm weather and seriously bright conditions with awesome looking sea - to the point that I think the bit of colour to the water had to help with the sunshine. What we also found later on was plenty of birds (and bass) feeding on what I believe were sprats, but the birds weren’t around when we started fishing from the rocks as I had planned. What I didn’t quite know was how far the water would strip out so I was interested to see whether we’d be on the rocks or on the beach towards low water.

Because I so enjoy trying new stuff out I clipped on a Savage Gear hard lure which is coming out sometime soon - slim profile, casts well, very strong rolling action, good hooks, strong colours, grippy, couple of different sizes - and chucked it out into a big gully. The sea conditions were as stunning as the autumn weather, and about half way into my first retrieve of the day I got nailed. The bass fell off the new hard lure just as I went to lift it up for unhooking, but would we face the curse of a bass on the first cast and see no more?

Me thinks not! Where Andy and I started off fishing was crawling with fish, but they wanted the lure down a bit. Andy was whacking out a 30g Surf Seeker and letting it sink a bit before slowly retrieving it. He got hit or hooked up on most casts he made. I made sure to catch a couple of fish on both sizes of the new hard lure and then I started literally underarm casting the larger 12.5cm/28g Savage Gear Savage Minnow Weedless in the white colour. As the lure dropped through the water column for the first time it was getting hit by bass, and on a slowish straight retrieve I hooked up on multiple occasions. We aren’t talking big bass here, but most of them were a half-decent size and you know how much harder they pull in really fizzed up water. I then changed over to a 30g Surf Seeker in white with a big 3/0 single barbless Mustad Kaiju hook attached with a braid loop which I blogged about a while back. I did what Andy was doing and made sure to really slow the retrieve up so the metal kept a bit deeper. Bang, fish on, again and again!

The big tide was stripping so fast and the gully we were fishing went dead after a while. Andy moved off across the rocks and radioed me a while later to say that he had just landed another couple of fish, so I made my way towards him. I pushed further on but didn’t find the fish, and by then we were standing on the sand because the water had gone out so far. I wondered if this would happen so now I know, and I guess we were now surf fishing. As per most of the photos you can see here. This is when we started to see a lot of birds working on a lot of bait.

I haven’t seen Ben from the Art of Fishing for a while, but I am very aware that when I do, I am going to have to reluctantly hand back his very lovely APIA Foojin'RS Art Magic 90ML+ (UK Custom) 9' 5-36g lure rod which I reviewed here the other day. I haven’t fished with the rod for a while and I find that this can be a good way to almost come back to a lure rod I think very highly of and “check” that I still like it as much as I did when I was regularly fishing with it. After yesterday’s brilliant session with this APIA rod I like it even more than when I reviewed it! Bloody hell it’s some rod. To go from deftly fishing a bunch of different lures around the rocks - I like to think so anyway! - to hitting a 30g Surf Seeker literally as hard as I possibly could into some gorgeous surf conditions was quite something on this APIA Foojin'RS Art Magic 90ML+ (UK Custom). The rod just takes whatever you throw at it and literally giggles with how effectively it does so.

I paired the rod with a Penn Slammer IV 2500 spinning reel yesterday, for how I fish a lot of the time it’s a great combination. I tried the orange Daiwa J-Braid Expedition X8 braid in the 27.2lbs/0.18mm/PE#1.5 variety for the first time. Very early days of course and a lot more time is needed, but I know when a lure is getting out there really well and noticeably cutting through the waves. Andy and I moved around the beach a lot and caught a load more bass of no great size but which all felt at least twice the size in the increasingly heavy surf. Interestingly Andy turned onto a few more bass nearer LW when he changed over to the discontinued Savage Gear Psycho Sprat metal lure in the 30g red/black version (my lips are sealed). I had forgotten how well these lures cast.

We were giggling like a couple of tits and when the water really started to charge back in on the flood tide we took the decision to walk away because we had literally had our fill. Once the emotion of such a glorious bass fishing session has calmed down I can get on with wondering even more about how strange 2024 has been, because when that bait is around there are suddenly a lot of bass - which pushes me towards wondering even more about what’s been going on with the different food sources which more usually bring the bass within casting range. Whatever the case, Saturday afternoon is in my head forever so I can recall just how much fun those few hours were in such glorious autumn weather. If everybody knew how much fun fishing was they’d all be doing it……………..

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