Casting a plug to the edge of a shoal of feeding
Bass is one of those times when dreams can
come true, when your imagination can meet
reality. Problem is, finding a shoal of feeding
Bass.
We all know that “blitzes” occur when the Bass
ball up a shoal of sandeel’s and chop them to
pieces so that the air above the shoal is alive
with seagulls wheeling and diving to the surface,
picking morsels and hapless sandeel’s from the
wave tops.
But it is also a fact of life that blitzes take place
at dark and dusky times in the morning, maybe
just as the sun puts some soft streaks of
burgeoning light into the horizon. Maybe it will
happen off a desolate stretch of coast in that
calm golden glow of sunset, but it will rarely
happen in broad daylight, especially after the
noise from boat engines tell the fish that the world is awake and looking for them.
We sometimes forget that fish are this planets last truly wild creatures, that your
mind must be adjusted to a heightened level of awareness and instinct that will
enable you to “think like a fish!” Then getting out of bed at silly o’clock in the morning
becomes something you look forward to, the impending adventure snapping your
mind awake and breakfast is something for wimps!!!
This morning was one for BASS club members only. Chris Guest
the owner of “Miss Lynn” a superb 19 foot Nautic Star centre
console boat had put up a day’s fishing as a prize for a draw in aid
of the Bass Conservation Fund. Chris keeps Miss Lynn at a small
marina hidden away in the upper reaches of the River Dart. Well it
just so happens that my fishing buddy Charles Reaves had
recently bought a house not so far away and he regarded this as a
heaven sent opportunity to get some real local knowledge from an
expert. I am not sure how many tickets he bought, but any way he
won the day out, much to his very evident delight!
We had been communicating with Chris via email for several
weeks before the day trying to dodge the murky weather and
ensure that we were all singing from the same hymn sheet when
the magic day finally arrived. “Don’t bring to much tackle, I want
you to use mine” were the instructions from Chris. We were going
Bass fishing close inshore with plug and plastic lures. How close
inshore was a revelation!
Gently bimbling down the estuary at three or four knots( the
harbour authority has a speed gun!) the first thing we saw was a
shoal of Bass working.... Chris said that they were normally just schoolies, but it was
good to see young fish doing their thing before they run to sea.
Once we reached the outer limits of the harbour it was full speed ahead for a while to
get us to a stretch of coast which rarely see’s boat fishing activity. It was a coastline
of small rock strewn coves skirted by barely awash fingers of weed covered rock,
making a habitat almost guaranteed to be frequented by Billy Bass.... but definitely
not a place for the unwary or over bold boatman.... great care and local knowledge is
everything in such close
quarters.
Chris had rigged several
Savagegear 7ft
Bushwhackers with small
Shimano Stella’s or Diawa
Coastal reels, fine braid and
small leadhead Xlayer soft
plastic lures, which he said
the fish along this stretch of
coast were particularly partial
to.
At this point perhaps, a little
explanation is needed why this style of tackle is used. First off these Savagegear
and similar rods at 7 feet long and made to cast 7 to 25 grams are stiff little sticks
which will cast a small leadhead lure or plug precisely where you want them to go.
Casting from a boat a rod of 7 to 8 feet length is perfect. Longer rods for this sort of
fishing are a liability and make the landing of fish a two man job, especially if you
want to release the fish.
Small casting multipliers can
be used for this sort of
fishing but generally most
folks prefer the ease of use
of a fixed spool. Beside
which using fine braid
between 10 and 20 pounds
breaking strain is much
easier with a fixed spool
reel, especially if you can
remember to put the bale
arm across manually, at the
same time giving the braid a
gently tug before you start to
retrieve. What this does is help prevent the little buried loops of braid which can
cause the line to fluff and tangle and can be a real pain in the proverbial if the action
has just kicked off.
Bearing in mind that plastic lures such as the Xlayer might be cast with just a 7
gram(quarter ounce) leadhead, the use of a rod which can fire a light lure using a
“Snap Cast”, light braid line is the only way to go to get a useable distance.
Setting Miss Lynn up to drift across the entrance to a small cove, Chris told us to flip
the Xlayer’s into any likely looking
nooks and crannies, “pay particular
attention to channels between
weed beds” he said “and don’t be
afraid to work them deeper than
you would if you were using a
plug”.
Within seconds Charles was
playing a fish, “I let it sink, twitched
it once and bang! the fish was on”
he said. It was the first of a dozen
Bass and pollack that he caught
that day, not the five/six pound fish
that Chris was hoping for, but none
the less Charles had a great day.
My day was not quite so successful, for some reason I just kept dropping fish until
very late in the day. I had tossed my lure into a dark shadow behind a rock outcrop
when there was the familiar thump and my rod bent into a fish....just!
It was a micro Pollack of about three maybe four ounces. Muttering quietly to myself
I gave it a fast ride to the side of the boat, then a fraction of a second before I lifted it
out to unhook it there was a flash of a silver flank and my rod locked solid for a
fraction of a second. A bass, quite a tidy
bass, had appeared from nowhere and
attempted to munch the small pollack.
Now surprisingly this was something I was
a little familiar with. Many years ago I had
always caught my best bass late in the
season on pollack coloured plugs and
lures. It is logical when you think about it,
on the open coast the sandeel’s have
gone and all that is left are the pollack,
gobies and maybe some sand smelt.
A rummage in my lure bag soon produced
Jackall Squad Minnow in Pearl Ayu which
is a great baby pollack imitating lure.
Three bass in the next half hour and it
was time to go. A truly great day spent
never more than fifty yards from the shore
in good company fishing plugs and
plastics on carbon fibre “tickling sticks”,
brilliant.
Thanks Chris you are a star!! Looking
forward to next year...
Published Sea Angler. 2010..
