Working with the people you’re fishing with to find out what the fish want, and how they want it presented

People have said many things about me over the years - some good, some bad - but I would hope that people who have fished with me would attest to the fact that I get the most excited if and when they land a good fish. I have various strengths and weaknesses and at 52 I think I know myself pretty well, but one thing I am not is jealous. I grew up playing competitive sports, but for some reason I just don’t feel remotely competitive with my fishing.

I don’t count fish, I rarely measure or weigh fish, and all I want to see when I am fishing with other people is anglers having a good time in a cool place. If some good fish are coming in, of course I hope to catch some for myself, but if somebody else is catching more and/or bigger bass than me? Good for them, and damn right I’m going to watch them like a hawk and try to learn what they are doing differently and most likely better than me……………

So a mate and I started fishing nice and early on Saturday morning. I got a bit of a shock at the size of the swell rolling in - pure swell as well, no wind to do anything to it, bit bigger than the forecast - but I was hoping things might calm down a little further into the ebb when the exposing reef might break the waves down somewhat. We had plenty of time to fish effectively between the big sets rolling in, but the one thing you do is never take your eye off the sea and be ready to move fast if necessary.

We fished for a while, and when I could eventually get onto a specific rock I hooked but dropped a bass around a rock on my first cast out there. I then landed a bass on my second cast, with the thought of “what the hell have I been missing with these Decoy Violence VJ-36 (weedless) jig heads?” running through my brain with those first two casts and then getting hit a couple more times. The size 3/0 Decoy Violence VJ-36 jig head sits SO perfectly with the smaller 120 size Savage Gear Gravity Stick Paddletail for example, indeed when I have put this blog post up I am going to do some online shopping and get myself some more of these jig heads. Specifically some of the lighter ones now that I have got to grips with what these things can do.

Anyway, so those early fish and hits came from swimming a darker coloured paddletail - the khaki Gravity Stick Paddletail - at a fairly shallow depth. You know how I love a white lure a lot of the time, but we had overcast skies on Saturday morning, hence my thinking with the darker coloured lure. Did it make a difference? I will never know, but I caught fish so there had to have been at least a tiny bit of “correctness” to my attempts at thinking like a fish!

But then things went quiet as we moved around and out with the ebbing tide. Andy was also fishing a paddletail nice and shallow, but we had lost the fish and it felt like there should be some more around with the good conditions we had. At some point into the ebb we began to access some slightly deeper water, so I had a bit of a think. I can cast and cast with the best of them, but my brain is always trying to figure stuff out. It’s why I love this lure fishing for bass so much, the way it forces us to think on our feet. Doesn’t always work of course, but if we’re not catching fish when they were around AND we are both fishing the same way, surely it makes sense to change things up and see if a different approach might work?

So I’ve got slightly deeper water, there are good sets of waves rolling in but the reef is affording us more protection as I hoped it might, and there’s a definite tinge to the water. We are both swimming paddletails fairly shallow which had worked earlier on, but either we have lost the fish or they are there and we need to change things up. I hadn’t really noticed that tinge to the water earlier on, I presume it was caused by the swell. What’s my thinking these days with more coloured water? Get your lure down on the deck if at all possible. I love a white or chartreuse lure when I am swimming or twitching something shallow in coloured water, but I have this thing that when I am bumping stuff along the bottom, a darker lure makes more sense. I don’t know if it’s the correct way of thinking as such, but it’s worked plenty of times before.

So I turn to what has become one of my go-to lures for bumping along the bottom, the Savage Gear Sandeel V2 Weedless in whatever of the two sizes suits the sea conditions and depth the best. I went with the larger 33g version in the Green Silver colour I really like. Off comes the shallow-swimming Gravity Stick Paddletail 120 rigged on the 3/0 Decoy Violence VJ-36 jig head, and on goes the Sandeel V2 Weedless. It goes without saying that plenty of other lures are going to get you down on the deck and fishing effectively, but with the Sandeel V2 Weedless I got to help design a lure I specifically wanted to fish with. So I fish with it!

First cast with the change of lure and I deliberately let it hit the bottom on a controlled drop. For reasons around current and sea state I decided that instead of fishing rod tip and bumping the lure along the bottom, I would make sure I got that “tap” from hitting the bottom and I then pointed my rod tip almost at the lure and retrieved it at a speed which I knew was keeping me right down there because the lure would sometimes bang a bit of rock. On the angle I would then slow the retrieve down a bit as it came up the side of the rocks to my feet, essentially how I might target pollack from the shore. First cast like this and I hooked and landed a bass, then I had a few more fish but I was very conscious that my mate wasn’t catching - and there were fish around. Can’t be having that.

It doesn’t remotely mean that I’m the better angler or anything silly like that, but I’d found what the fish seemed to want at that particular time. I can’t be catching a few bass and not have him into some as well. Not if I can help it anyway, but at the same time I don’t want to be some overbearing twat. If he was catching the fish and I wasn’t, you can be damn sure I’d be asking him what he was doing differently to me. My mate had a rummage around his lure box and came up with a blue coloured paddletail on a jig head - sorry, neither of us were sure what make it was - and clipped that on. Another fish for me but nothing for him and I seriously can’t be having this.

Out came one of the two washable lure boxes I carry for a session like this, and I handed him a Sandeel V2 Weedless in the khaki colour, another of the colours I specifically like for fishing like this. He then started to fish like I was and he went and landed a bunch of bass. Who was the most excited? Quite possibly me! Fish were coming in and it’s about as much fun as life gets. Next time it might well be my mate who’s cottoned on to what the bass wanted at that specific time and place, and I haven’t. I do love it when one specific session gets me thinking about so much different stuff……………..

Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.