Sneaked in there with a UK January bass, plus a new fishing podcast by a fantastic Irish angler (who kindly asked me to record an episode with him)

Talk about leaving it to the last moment to find a January bass on a lure from UK waters! It’s not as if I covered myself in glory down in Portugal earlier this month, but I can’t include those two bass I landed as January bass, not when it’s the a good time of year to try and catch the fish of a lifetime in those warmer and often very turbulent waters………………….

I was staying up on the north coast of Cornwall for the weekend with my wife, two girls, my mum and my youngest brother. It was a sort of early birthday thing for me because I turn 50 on the 7th February and the weekend just gone was about the only time we could all get together because of all the numerous cross country races my youngest girl has at this time of year. My wife and I continue to almost play cards with the youngest girl’s events: “I’ll take Loughborough and Redruth if you take Nottingham and Bristol, then I can trade you Exeter if you do Newquay” etc. I joke about it, but if you want to help your kids do good stuff then as parents it takes a lot of effort as I am sure a lot of you here know all about.

Here’s a photo from Friday of Ben putting one of the new APIA Foojin’RS lure rod through its paces

Anyway, I wasn’t really planning on fishing over the weekend, but I did have my fishing gear with me. The forecast was for properly flat calm seas but on the Friday I had met up with Ben Field from the Art of Fishing tackle shop in Wadebridge to do some more testing and photography of some of his brand new APIA Foojin’RS lure rods. I took a spinning reel with me and various lures which I could use to test the specific rods out, but I didn’t take a lure rod with me because we were going to be using the new rods - so technically I wasn’t even going to have a fishing rod with me for the weekend. What sort of happened by mistake though was that I sort of took one of the new APIA rods with me at the end of the day for continued “testing”.

I took Storm out early on Sunday morning for a walk, and although the actual forecast hadn’t really changed much when I had checked it the night before, in fact things felt a bit different. The breeze had some west in it which means it’s directly onshore up on the north coast of Cornwall, the air was damp and drizzly, and I had a new lure rod which needed some more water time. What the hell, so I grabbed my gear but left Storm back at the ranch because the youngest girl wanted her for a 10km coastal path run (we have to share the dog around for all the different things we all want to “use” her for!).

I turn 50 in just over a week but a modest bass like this still makes me grin like a bit of a tit!

I picked a mark where I knew I could be in and out pretty quickly, and although it wasn’t a state of tide I would more usually fish this place, I was really pleased to see that the sea had enough bounce on to at least give me a chance at a fish or two. I know it’s January and we have just had a decent cold snap, but that water looked good. I also liked the overcast, leaden skies, and in no time at all I was wandering around the extensive reef and “testing” all manner of different lures on the new APIA Foojin’RS rod - the Desire 95MH 9’5’’ 12-50g to be precise, and I had matched it with my increasingly beloved Penn Authority 2500 spinning reel. I know enough about this particular rod now to know that it’s going to be a wrench when I have to hand it back to Ben. The perfect open coast lure rod if you fish a lot of different conditions and types of ground? Quite possibly.

Anyway, a fair amount of my “testing” on Sunday morning revolved around casting out and retrieving the lethal 15cm SG Slender Scoop Shad in the Olive Pearl colour, rigged on one of those fairly heavy Berkley Fusion 7/0 11g weedless hooks which I really like as a weightier option. As much as I wanted to play with the APIA rod in real fishing conditions, I also wanted to really fish because conditions looked surprisingly good. I ended up moving up and off the reef and along the coastal path to another section of beach mixed with reef, and although the light was pretty ordinary I set my camera up on a tripod to shoot some very fairly ordinary photos of myself fishing with the APIA rod so I could potentially use them in a review to come and so on.

And I went and hooked a bass while the camera was taking photos of me fishing away! You can’t exactly prove much when you are fishing on your own and the lure which you are fishing with is hit by a fish, but I have had nearly a year of fishing and guiding experience with the Slender Scoop Shad soft plastics now to know when something is a bit special on the bass catching front. What matters by far the most to me though was that unmistakable hit from a bass. As you can see in the photos it wasn’t going to break any records, but a bass on a lure in January is something I will always treasure that little bit more. I carried on for a while with no other signs of fish, but for a last minute Sunday morning session I could not have been happier as I think one of the photos in particular shows!

Above is the link to a new podcast by the Irish bass angler Cormac Walsh. A lot of respect and credit to Cormac for getting this off the ground, and the other day he kindly asked me if he could talk to me for his second episode. I obviously said yes please and the result is above. I will be keeping a close eye on Cormac’s new “The Lure Fishing Podcast” and I hope you will too. Thank you for having me along Cormac.

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