Another year in a bass angler’s life

Here I am again, reflecting on another year in a bass angler’s life, and looking forward to another one to come, with my usual mix of excitement and optimism (will I never learn!).

Exploring

One of the more enjoyable parts of the ‘quiet’ period over the late winter and spring is looking for new marks. We tend to gravitate towards our favoured, reliable spots, but at this time of resetting things, and with no ‘pressure’ to get out there and catch, a few non-productive afternoons are time well spent, and could turn up a potential silver mine. We did find a couple of ‘humdingers’ but have yet to give them serious rod time. Better not leave it too long as I don’t know how much longer two old codgers will be able to get down the cliff!

Fishing abroad

After numerous trips to Ireland, my fishing abroad has now switched to the Channel Islands. I don’t get the same opportunities to fish there as when my son was living on Guernsey, but love to go whenever I can. The island, and its near neighbours such as Herm, are so beautiful, and with the great company of the local anglers, who wouldn’t want to visit as often as possible. I wrote about my most recent trip in my October blog.

A new canine companion

A year or so after losing our last golden retriever, a six-month old Archie joined me in October for his first fishing trip.

Archie’s first fishing trip

It has to be said that taking a (very) boisterous young dog fishing is not without its challenges! Hopefully he’ll get there in the end, and so far he has (mostly) brought me luck, despite his antics.

Fishing patterns

Apart from a couple of fish in the mid-fifties on crab in May, from an old favourite mark revisited, my season didn’t really get going until mid-July, with a 60cm fish. This was my first decent bass from an estuary, and was taken on a Dark Sleeper lure.

A 60cm bass taken on a Dark Sleeper lure.

This pattern of fishing seems to have become established for me in recent years, and I find the period from mid-July until the end of September the most productive and enjoyable of the year.  It’s possible to catch right up to early new year, but the latter part of the year can be  inconsistent, and a struggle against the weather at times.

A Christmas bass

One late season success was this 61cm bass, caught just before Christmas on squid.

A Christmas bass – it looked like it could do with munching on a few mince pies!

Despite the disappointing results of late, when you get perfect conditions you have to make the effort, and the prospect of tapping into the December migration adds motivation.

An hour passed without event, but a short move along the beach produced a bite on the first cast with razor – a 40cm junior bass with attitude! The next cast was a re-run of the first, except that the bite didn’t result in a fish.

I had brought along some (refrozen) squid for variety, so on it went. Five minutes later, the rod was thumping in my hands, as my would-be captive signalled its intention to regain freedom. No such luck – the top 1/0 Chinu hook had done its job well, despite the ensuing struggle, while the seemingly redundant 5/0 ‘Ultimate Bass’ bottom hook dangled freely outside the fish’s cheek. It’s interesting how larger fish often seem to do this, almost as if they’re going for the pointy end of the squid, and avoiding the beak at the head end, something which younger bass may not have learned to do yet. Catching this fish on squid reaffirmed for me what an excellent bait it is. Likewise mackerel, which also produced a 60cm bass for me in the summer.

“What a beautiful fish” I thought,  whilst at the same time being struck by how thin this fish was. A fish of this size would normally be fattening up for winter and full of eggs, but I’m not sure it would have even made the   5lb+ estimated by the BASS tape.

So why so slim? Had she come from an area devoid of her natural prey? I almost felt guilty about depriving her of a squid meal, but I think she’d probably swallowed most of it anyway. Why weren’t her ovaries filling with eggs in readiness for an encounter with a young buck from further along the coast? I hope she finds a few nice juicy Cornish sardines (pilchards) as she makes her way along our shores, and avoids the monofilament walls of death set to prevent her reaching the spawning grounds.

Meeting a new challenge

Estuary fishing for bass was the last big challenge I wanted to meet. I know this is not everyone’s cup of tea , some preferring the rugged coast and wave-pounded beaches to the quiet backwaters of tidal rivers.

Perhaps I’ve reached the time of life when I can enjoy this type of fishing, but I needed to see results before committing to it. Last year saw that happen.

I had always thought that estuaries were places which produced mainly school bass, and it is certainly true that they are very important nursery areas. Yet in recent years, reports of anglers catching big bass while fishing for other species, like bream, and while targeting bass with lures has changed that mindset.

My estuary catches weren’t prolific, but were regular enough to give me the confidence to stick at it. The average size of fish I caught was the same on the coast and in estuaries at 43cm. Of the 9 x 60cm and above bass I caught last year, 3 came from the coast (2 on bait, 1 on lures), while 6 came from estuaries (all on lures), including my biggest fish of the year at 68cm.

A beautiful 68cm bass – my best of 2021. This fish took a 5″ Fish Arrow Flash J paddle tail soft plastic in the weed margin.

Safe to say that I will be fishing estuaries more in the year ahead. It’ll be interesting to see if this affects my pattern of catches over the year.

A seal encounter

I recently had an encounter which adds a new dimension to the concept of fishing with friends. This young chap/chapess joined me on the beach for a couple of hours while I was catching my final bass of 2021.

Sammy the seal, who joined me on a Cornish beach on a late December night.

He made me jump when the ‘rock’ next to me moved as I turned to refresh my bait! He didn’t seem too bothered by my presence, just shuffling up the beach whenever the waves got too close. I kept as far away from him as I could though, so as not to disturb him too much, and kept the use of my light to a minimum (always good practice when bass fishing).

I reported this sighting to Sue Sayer from the Cornwall Seal Group who was very appreciative of the information. Sue commented that the seal looked like a very skinny pup.

Joining Cornwall IFCA

November saw me joining the Cornwall Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority. I’ve long had an interest in fisheries management, and this four year voluntary appointment allows me to bring the sea angling perspective to meeting the undoubted challenges which Cornwall faces in this respect. My particular focus will be on the sustainable management of the bass fishery, but if there are any other issues relating to recreational sea angling you’d like me to raise, do let me know via email robin.bradley@btinternet.com.

Like all IFCAs, underpinning CIFCA’s work is an important scientific programme. Marine biology is a passion of mine, and I hope to be able to help with this in some way.

Juvenile bass surveys

During 2021 I took on the organisation of the programme of juvenile bass surveys in Cornwall. Although familiar with the surveys, having been involved since 2013, running them is a different matter altogether. With a lot of help from Derek Goodwin, who has run the surveys since the 1990’s, and our fantastic team of volunteers, I think I managed to negotiate the various administrative, practical and reporting aspects of the work, and look forward to starting this year’s programme in May. I gave a brief outline of our findings in my November blog.

If you’d like to get involved with the surveys, or just find out a bit more about them, please feel free to get in touch via the ‘Contact’ tab on my website.

BASS Science

BASS has always been interested in the science aspects of bass, and has its own Science group drawing together information about the biology of bass from a variety of sources.

This is one of the unique aspects of what BASS offers its members, and I’m pleased to lead this group as we move into a period of increasing research on bass, hoping to understand more about its reproduction, movements and lifecycle.

Ghost story

Finally, I never could resist a ghost story, especially ones which involve fishing. I’m grateful to the Piscatorial Raconteurs and Friends for this tale from Jeremy Croxall ‘Thatchers Beat’ which featured in their Christmas edition. Enjoy………..

That’s all for this month folks, thanks for reading.

8 Replies to “Another year in a bass angler’s life”

  1. Hi Robin
    Thanks for another entertaining and informative blog post.

    Very best wishes for the coming years’ fishing and your science-based endeavours.

    Would it be too optimistic of me to suggest that I might make it down to Kernow this year?

    1. Hi Steve,

      glad you enjoyed the blog.

      Let’s hope things come right for a visit in the summer. I’ll keep you posted on potential filming dates for the bass surveys once we get going again in May.

  2. Interesting read Robin. Like you I’m finding better size fish in the estuaries than the open coast. Do you think the pilchard shoals off shore are part of the reason for this ?

    1. Thanks Dave.

      That’s an interesting thought Dave, and there’s certainly lots of food for bass in estuaries if they can’t find this on the coast. The results I got could be just a one-off, caused by something like this, but I suspect there may be a sub-population of adult bass which use estuaries as their regular summer & autumn feeding grounds, habitually returning to the same areas each year.

    1. Cheers you marginally older old scrote!

      Looking forward to giving those ‘humdingers’ some serious rod time – provided we don’t need Zimmer frames by then!

  3. An interesting read Robin.
    The bass fishing on the open coast in West Cornwall has been very poor this year compared to 2020. The coast from Penzance around to St Ives has seen huge numbers of tuna and nearly every time I’ve fished they have been feeding in the area. Must spook the bass surely.
    The estuary fishing is interesting and you never know they might become more productive if more bass move in to them for safety from the tuna.
    Friends have had some big catches of gilthead bream on the beaches that were once bass hotspots with large numbers of fish with a number 5lbs or more. I wonder if the bream have an effect on the bass as well -bit like grey squirrels driving out the reds.
    Be great if the bream proved catchable with lures as they fight much harder than an equal size bass.
    Talking of old age my joints are really struggling these days climbing up and down, don’t understand it really, spend more time sliding around on my backside than feet at times. Still find the open coast with rocks and swell exciting but I ought to start doing a bit more sheltered estuary fishing. I’m one of those that has caught decent size bass while flounder and bream fishing in the past.

    1. Thanks Peter.

      Some interesting thoughts there. Like you, I’m concerned about the number of tuna on the coast, and the effect this is having on bass and the baitfish they feed on. But I think some tuna may find their way into estuaries as well, so not sure how much of a refuge they would be for bass.

      Gilts seem to have coexisted with bass in estuaries for a few years now, so I’m not sure why they would force them out on the coast?

      I’ve certainly found estuary fishing easier on my old bones!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *