July photos

June photo post

Posts will be few and far between on here for the coming months as I'm moving house and any spare time will be spent fishing and exploring some new marks in depth. Plenty of variety on the fishing front at the moment, big, small, salty and fresh! Thanks for taking a look!!

Another cracking session..

Another night of superb conditions saw me once again hit the coast in search of silver. Sea's were forecast moderate although at times it was pretty rough leaving me at the mercy of some pretty unpredictable waves which definitely kept me alert during the evening. A few hasty retreats were made during the session and I admit I was served on a few occasions but waders and jacket kept me mostly dry, apart from my face which the sea seemed quite adept at targeting perfectly whilst whispering "remember who's the boss little man"!. Don't worry seas, I most definitely do! 

Taking one’s life in ones hands was a small price to pay as whilst being kept on my toes by the swell, the bass were busily on the feed and smashing my lures with real aggression. One of which I was sure was going to be huge and refused to surface for a good few minutes giving me the run around of a lifetime. When it finally came to the top I could see it was a good 3-4lb, a good fish but before I had seen it I would have said it was going to be double that.

During the evening I landed 7 bass, lost a couple, and there was also mackerel, pollock and wrasse as by-catch for my efforts. Focussing my sessions solely on bass is relatively new to me but something I'm really enjoying and with the right preparation it is some seriously rewarding fishing. 

I'll leave you with some photos of the fish, thanks for reading as always!

And so it begins...

Fishing the past few weeks has been awesome to say the least. Tides the past few days have been perfect for the bass whilst the smaller ones beforehand were great for some daytime action with the wrasse. There's even been the opportunity to get out and bag a dinner fish or two to accompany the abundance of salad and veg coming from the garden at the moment.

As the month began I was determined to venture out just to get the lure bag organised. I've still been carrying too much plastic so in an attempt to thin things down I had a few sessions of quick fire action to determine which ones would be best to carry on my adventures. There's just no way of sensibly working through so many lures in one session and if anything it just confuses me. When things are slow I often go into overdrive and start frantically swapping from lure to lure in hope of finding the game changer, this never helps and I'm hoping a more slender selection will see me put in a more sensible amount of time with each lure in the water. 

Stuart and I have been focusing on the wrasse as usual in hope of bettering our personal bests, it's always a good days sport and you can rely on some stunning colours and patterns from these beautiful fish.

I defy anyone not to enjoy a day on the wrasse, especially if other target species are not playing ball and I'm always keen to encourage friends to give it a try. My good friend Dylan came down for a few days fishing and with conditions a little challenging to say the least, we opted for some shelter and got stuck in at one of my favourite rocky venues. I've been told I'm not always the most accommodating of companions at times so hats off to Dylan for putting up with me for the duration. After a quick debriefing he was perched on a rock with a box of senko's and some nose weights, it was literally minutes before he shouted over to indicate he was into his first ever lure-caught wrasse.

As I said conditions weren't the best but we nailed a few fish regardless, I'm hoping you enjoyed it Dylan and will return at some point when the weather is better!

Finally as I had mentioned earlier on this year I was hoping to focus a little more on the bass this season. That means forgetting the wrasse for the odd session and with that in mind I headed out last night for the last hours of daylight with the conditions looking perfect for my intended quarry. 

I was lucky enough to get amongst a few fairly quickly with the odd pollock getting involved in the action too. All in all a great little session and the first of many this year I hope! 

Thanks for reading!