Sea trout everywhere - no sea bass

Hi All,
This is short report from past few days of fishing.

Warmer weather and good tide were encouraging so decided to take rod and try for sea bass... On Sunday weather was sunny and almost no wind. Water was unbelievably clear and no surprisingly fish were out for food. Shortly it was obvious that sea trout took over the place so my chances for sea bass were slim. It was almost hard to get a cast-retrieve without fish knocking the lure. Even after I sized up my lure. As a effect in just two hours of fishing (hour before and after low tide) I got 10 trout hooked and 6 landed. Indeed nice by catch.

On the Paddy’s day, despite windy and cloudy weather I decided to try out the venue one more time, to see if bigger waves on the surface will help me in catching bass. Frankly I was expecting to catch nothing due to the conditions. Huge balloon on the line, due to the wind, makes bite detection next to impossible. Again I rigged bigger lure (11cm as usually I’m using 9cm one) just to help me cope with windy conditions.

Imagine how surprised I was when it turned out that sea trout were there again. One more time in two hours session I beached 5 fish out of 7 hooked – never mind wind caused balloon on the line!
Most fish were around 19 inch mark with just a few below this figure.

Did anyone of your have ever faced such an issue that sea trout is on their bass mark? I’m got used to catching odd sea trout while fishing for bass but it’s usually no more than 1 or 2 in the year. Is it possible that bass are moving out while other species of fish like sea trout is moving in?

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I know you were after Bass but you have to chuffed with the Sea Trout, i would, nice fishing

nice going tommy, wouldnt mind one of them on my species list as a bye-catch. i hooked a big enough one last year while spinning for mack and the fight was unreal. never landed it tho

many times there are runs of sea trout on bass marks - can sometimes be used by unscrupulous types as a caveat when actually targeting sea trout without a licence...

great to catch them all the same - good report

I wish we had sea trout like that here in Connemara, gone be the days. Disappointing to see the fish marked from sea lice, are there fish farms around there.

I envy you

Good fishing Can I ask what lure it is that your using?

Nice fishing Tommy was trying for bass up my way only small ones around at the moment water is warming up slowly

Hi All

@red
Yes, they are unbelievable fighters: jumps, flips, tailwalk and all sorts of fishy tricks.

@corbyeire
So you say that it is quite common to encounter sea trout in big numbers on bass marks?

You are right, you do need to have license to target sea trout at sea. And you are right that two species in the same habitat out of which only for one license is required are causing loop hole in conservation laws. Personally I wouldn’t mind if license for bass would be required too.

@ofeannachtas
No fish farms in the area, at least I don’t know of any.

@Tom H
The smaller one is 9 cm standard slipper lure and bigger one is 11 cm large slipper. I’m using them almost exclusively while fishing for bass but yet again they are proven deadly for sea trout as well.

@Tony Fella
At least you caught the fish you were after! So in that regard your session was more successful!

Tomaszek

I have bought a couple of those slipper lures, but not tried them yet. What is the best way to fish them??