A bunch of bass - 11th October 2011

I headed to a beach that I have not fished since mid-June. It had fished well earlier in the year but as I had concentrated on lure fishing over the summer I had not returned to fish there. I had also heard report that it was unfishable due to weed after recent stormy weather, but with the light westerly winds on Tuesday I reckoned the seaweed would have migrated down to the eastern end.

I planned to fish 2.5 hours either side of low tide and arrived at about 9.30 pm. There was a moderate surf illuminated by a full moon and just a weak cross-wind so the conditions looked good. I set two rods up, baited the first with crab and the second with razor, both on 4/0 pennel pulleys. I would normally prefer lug for this beach but I was too busy during the day to dig some. After about 15 minutes I had a bite on the rod with crab but it was just a dogfish.

Not long after I had a strong tug on the same rod. This was definitely a bass and fought strongly all the way in especially when I got it into the shallows. It was a good chunky fish of 52 cm and weighed 3.5 lbs.

About 20 minutes later I had a second bass. This was about the same length, but slimmer with a weight of just about 3 lbs.

Close to an hour after that, at about low tide, I had a very strong tug on the rod with the crab and the line went slack. I grabbed the rod and rapidly retrieved the slack and struck immediately I felt some resistance. This felt to be a powerful fish and it took me a few minutes to haul it in close. I could see a good size bass splashing about in the shallow surf before I eased it on to the sand. It was the best fish of the night, a well fed 67 cm bass with a weight of 6 lbs.

I quickly got some photos and as I released the fish it surged off with a powerful flick of its tail.

So far all fish had been taken on the crab so I switched to crab on the second rod. About 20 minutes after catching the 6 pounder I spotted a twitch on the first rod and noticed that the line had gone slack. This time the fish had run a long slackliner before I caught up with it. Then it put up a powerful fight and I was surprised that is was only a 57 cm bass with a weight of approximately 4 lbs.

A little later, after rebaiting and casting the first rod I realized that the line on the second rod had gone slack. I reeled in and eventually connected with a fish very close to the shore. This was a much smaller 42 cm bass.

I fished on for another couple of hours into the rising tide but the bites died off and I just had a small 22 cm flounder. I was surprised that it managed to get its mouth around a 4/0 hook.

I packed up shortly after that very pleased with the result especially as a few recent bait and lure sessions have been nothing to shout about.