Daytime bass fishing - 2nd & 3rd April

2nd April: It was a lovely sunny day so I decided to have a daytime beach session. I was not all that hopeful of catching much, maybe a few flounder. I arrived at the chosen mark and found a nice surf, not too big despite the storms the previous couple of days and best of all it was weed free. I set up the rods, one with a 4/0 pennel pulley the other with a 4/0 running ledger - not a rig I use much but thought I would give it a go for a change. Both were baited with a couple of big juicy lugs left over from my session the previous Thursday night.

Not much happened for the first hour apart from small flounder tapping the rod and stealing my worms. Then I spotted a slightly stronger twitch on the rod with the running ledger, I grabbed it and felt another tug, struck and was into a good fish. It was pulling strongly but I coasted it in on a breaking wave. It was a well fed 54 cm, 4 lb bass. I then realized I had forgotten my camera. So got one on the phone, although the quality is not great.

About another hour passed without much happening, then there was another subtle tug on the same rod. I picked it up, waited, I could feel some very slight tugs and thought it might be a flounder, then there was a stronger pull, I struck, and had something a lot stronger than a flounder on the end. It was putting up a good fight and eventually I landed a 56 cm bass weighing 4.25 lb.

 

About 20-25 minutes later there was a knock on the other rod with the 4/0 pennel pulley. I grabbed it and struck. Again I felt a strong fish but it ran a slackliner and surged in towards the shore. I thought I had lost it but reeled in the slack as fast as I could, briefly caught up with it before it charged in again, but this time I could see the fish in the breaking wave, I connected again and hauled it out of the surf, this was a even nicer fish, 57 cm and well fed

I had one more bass after that, smaller at 36 cm and taken in close.

3rd April: I dug some fresh lug at low tide and headed to the beach for another daytime session. It was another lovely sunny day, although a bit more cloudy than the previous day and the wind picked up later. The surf was not as strong but again it was relatively weed free.

I set up three rods this time, one with 4/0 running ledger, the others with 4/0 pennel pulleys, although one of these became a pulley rig after I got snagged in close and broke off the upper hook of the pennel.

It was relatively slow start, but after about an hour I had a 41 cm bass, on the running ledger. This was followed about 45 minutes later by a second just under 40 cm.

At about 4.30 pm I decided to move down the beach, moved about 300 m. This proved to be wise decision. Shortly after recasting I had another small bass. It was quite for a while then I had another five between 6.00 and 7.00 pm. The biggest was 46 cm. 

 

As I was packing up I realized that the line on rod in close was running parallel to the beach - I thought a bass had run a slackliner and started to retrieve, there was something on the end but it didn't feel like a bass - it was a 36 cm flounder.

So not bad for daytime bait fishing, 4 bass on Saturday and 8 bass on Sunday bringing my bass total for 2011 to 56. But even if the fishing had been poor it would have been great to be out on the coast on two such nice sunny days.