That first bass hit after not fishing for a week+ was like an electric shock
I would suggest that there’s a bit of a difference between not going bass fishing for a while because of the weather or time of the year or family stuff etc., and not going because you’ve been “advised” to for medical reasons. For sure we all get frustrated as hell when the conditions are against us, but some bass anglers are able to do something fairly viable in most conditions. We live for the right conditions but of course we are never going to get them all the time……………..
I couldn’t fish over the weekend because of family stuff, and then on Monday I got stuck with clearing some work, taxiing kids around, and going for a bit of a longer run because this running thing has seriously given me the fear! I have done a lot of hard work to be able to run a minimum of 3 x 5k per week these days, and I am screwed if I am going to let myself lose that level of fitness now that I have got to where I currently am. Anyway, Monday was a no-go but the forecast was looking rather nice for Tuesday. I haven’t seen onshore winds on a weather forecast for a long time now, so I did a bit of thinking and worked out a location and a time that I kinda fancied on what was a miserably small tide. I knew via a couple of mates and what they found locally over the weekend that weed could be an issue, but when you haven’t cast a lure for over a week you’re going regardless!
Storm and I stood atop the cliffs yesterday afternoon and I saw the sea conditions I expected and of course hoped to find. What I would call gentle to gentle/medium broken surf was rolling in, and with such a small tide I knew that the green water was going to hold for longer in a bunch of gullies I like fishing on an ebb tide. Like an impala I skipped down the cliff path and damn did it feel so good to put that first cast in and feel like I was an angler once more. Of course I hoped that I might hook a bass on that first chuck, but it wasn’t to be and I started fishing and moving around and working my way towards a set of gullies as the tide slowly ebbed.
The 8cm/33g size Savage Gear Gravity Pencil
And as my mates said, the weed was a real problem. I really wanted to try fishing with the two heavier versions of the Savage Gear Gravity Pencil, a lure that I was aware of but to be honest had overlooked until a couple of lads got me thinking about them again the other day. Small profile but really heavy for their size, and wow do they cast well. I tried both the 7.5cm/25g and the 8cm/33g versions and they frigging fly - but the weed was far too bad to be fishing any kind of lure with a couple of treble hooks on so I put them away. I know the Gravity Pencil fishes with a bit of a slalom on a straight-retrieve, and I also know how they are designed to work on the drop, but yesterday was not the day to be fishing them. I liked the conditions but not the amount of weed! When I hassled Markos Vidalis of Savage Gear for some long-casting, very shallow-diving hard lures - the SG Gravity Shallow - it was his Gravity Pencil that he started with for the overall type of lure body shape.
Anyway, I was fishing and struggling with a lot of weed in the water but I bloody well wasn’t giving in! I ended up alternating between a white 11cm SG Slender Scoop Shad on the 6/0 belly-weight weedless hook and a white 12cm Gravity Stick Paddletail rigged on one of those Xorus Texas Power 5/0 7g weedless jig heads (photo above) that I bought from the excellent Mr.Fish tackle shop/website the other day. I don’t recall many clean casts from yesterday, but I believe these simple setups were keeping me fishing relatively effectively in a decent bit of turbulence at least some of the time. But still nothing was doing and to be honest I found myself in a bit of a trance like state of cast, retrieve, and repeat.
Later on down the tide I managed to get around to this set of gullies I was aiming for, and with a bit of building surf I switched over to the white 30g Surf Seeker because I knew it would reach the bit of water I wanted to concentrate on. You know how many different lure rods I play around with, but for all the money we can so easily spend these days on lure fishing tackle, I still think the “budget” Savage Gear SGS5 9’6’’ 9-35g rod is just about the best sort of light to medium surf fishing rod I have ever fished with (review here). You can call it bias if you want to, but if Savage Gear/Pure Fishing got rid of me tomorrow I’d be keeping hold of this rod because with a Penn Slammer IV 2500 or 3500 or Penn Authority 2500 or 3500 spinning reel on I think it’s an incredible rod for fishing like this. Goddam it gets a Seeker out there.
And then I finally got hit, and when I say hit what I mean is that it’s been so calm and lifeless out on the coast for so long now - plus I haven’t fished for a week+ - that I had almost forgotten how hard these glorious fish can hit you in a bit of fizz when you’re fishing a metal at range. One moment I am in my trance like state of cast and retrieve, and the next moment something rudely slams into my lure and over goes my rod tip. It was literally like an electric shock zapped down my arm. I know I yelped because I immediately turned around to see Storm looking at me rather quizzically, and when a modest but incredibly welcome say 3.5lb bass came to hand for unhooking and release you would not have found a happier angler anywhere in the Uk yesterday afternoon. Goddam this fishing thing is awesome!
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