People:
Just me
Duration:
7:30 - 9:30pm
Tide:
LW 7:30pm
Weather:
Overcast, westerly offshore wind circa 20/30
Bait:
Plugs
Rigs:
Devils own
Target SpeciesBass
Results:
Blankity blank
Report:
Was watching the golf during the afternoon and pretty much decided not to fish and have a couple of beers around wine o'clock. But for whatever reason, perhaps I was too lazy, or perhaps it was due to the fact that my normal beer fetcher (3 yo daughter) was asleep on the couch, I never managed to get one open. So Clarkey wins and I'm getting itchy. Beer or fishing? Feck it, I haven't caught a fish in over 20 years, and having just taking up fishing again (bought 2 rods and 2 reels and a couple of lures) I decided to go out and "fish".
My wife loves the fact that I go out all determined and full of beans, trying to catch fish, only to come back with a smile, the kind of a smile one makes after holing a 30 footer for bogey.
I have been out previously over the last week or two, sunnier weather, only a slight offshore wind, good clarity and at high to rising tide. But today was opposite. Overcast, tide was fully out and was quite blustery. Reading website like these, the stock advice is to try what works best for a specific mark. So I did!.
I began walking the shore, clambering over rocks looking for a suitable mark to fish from. Again, the stock advice is to reci the area at low tide to get a feel for the place. It really is amazing, hoping from rock to rock, jumping over narrow gullies. You really do get a feel for the place and where the bass actually feed and hunt. I saw loads of eaten crabs in gullies with no way out, that must of gotten trapped and mercilessly devoured by biggies.
I managed to find a nice spot with no or very little seaweed on it to fish from. With the tide being fully out, I was casting mainly on to clean ground with the odd boulder or two in from of me. The bird things (terns?) where diving about 40/50 meters in front of me and there a fair few sprats in the water around the rocks where I was standing. After about 10 minutes I saw a fish jumping about 30 meters in front of me. Didn't look big, but if I was to guess, it would have been around 10 inches and most likely a sea trout?
Game on, there is definitely fish here. I was going to catch a whopper and slap my wife around the house with it. 15 minutes later, reeling in my lure and observing the action in the water as it came closer, a fecking bass came to the top, near where I was standing and nearly foul hooked itself on the lure. Christ, I though. There ARE fish here and I nearly caught one! I was wagging my tail like mad. You ever notice how a dog wags its tail when its sniffing another dogs bum? Well, that was me. Que another 10 minutes and another sea trout jumps. Slightly bigger. Nice slash and at around 12 inches.
But, that was it. No more sightings or fish jumping. There was still plenty of sprat around the rocks and I beavered on for a while. In the end I nearly got trapped from the incoming tide, even though I was watching it like a hawk.
Overall, I did enjoy roving the terrain as the tide was fully out. Seeing all those dead ends with no way of escape. You really do appreciate how these fish predate. Also, today, one got the distinct impression, the bass behaved like buzzards over the clean ground. Waiting for the tide to come in so they could begin their hunt again over those nooks and crannies that I observed before.
Last edited by roryodonnell on Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.