Monday 6 May 2013

Southwesterly wind = Bass - 2nd May 2013



After a couple of unsuccessful lure fishing sessions earlier in the week, the forecast for Thursday evening was for strengthening southwesterly winds. I got to the beach about 45 minutes after low tide. Two anglers were already. I set up two rods, one with a three hook flapper with size 1 and 2/0 circle hooks baited with lug and the second with a pennel pulley baited with crab.

Nothing much was happening until close to dusk. Then I felt a series of nibbles, but no bites so it was probably small fish (flounder or coalfish tugging on the bait). Then I had a stronger bite at about 10 pm. This time the fish was hooked and turned out to be a 27 cm flounder, taken on lug.

About 5 minutes later I had a much stronger tug again on the three hook flapper rig. It was a small bass, about 37 cm in length.


At that stage I switched the pennel pulley rig for a two hook flapper (size 1 and 2/0 circle hooks) and baited it with lug and razor. About half an hour later I had another sharp knock on one of the rods. At first I thought it was another bass, but as I hauled it out of the surf I realized it was a dogfish.

It was quite for a while; then about 40 minutes later I had another flounder, of about 25 cm. This was followed shortly afterwards by a small coalfish.

Ten minutes later there was a sharp pull on one of the rods. I grabbed it and lifted into a fish that was putting up a better struggle. A few minutes later I hauled a 46 cm bass out of the surf.


The bite became more frequent over the next half an hour over high tide with a couple more small flounder and another three coalfish. However, once the tide began to drop the bites died off. I stuck it out for about 30 minutes after high tide before packing up.

All fish were taken on lug, but I had no interest in the crab or razorfish. The total catch for the session was 2 bass, 1 dogfish, 4 flounder and 4 coalfish.

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