Last bass of a dreadful month - 28th April 2012

I headed out on Saturday evening for the last session of April as the weather for the last two days of the month looked to be too grim for fishing. There was quite a strong cold northeast wind blowing down the beach when I arrived. I had fished nights in Jaunary that were warmer! On the positive side there was a nice surf, not too big, just the size of surf that can produce good results on this beach.

I set up two rods; one baited with crab, the other with rag/razor on 4/0 pennel pulleys and was fishing by 7.30 pm. First cast I had a good tug on the rod with the crab. It was a 49 cm bass.

That was a good start so I was hopeful of a great session. However, it was not to be. The rod tips remained motionless. As the tide pushed in the weed became bad for a while but then cleared a couple of hours before high tide. But there was no improvement in the fishing. The only other bite I got for the remainder of the night was a small coalfish.

I packed up at about 11 pm. The one bass I caught brought my total for the month to 14 which was rather disappointing compared to 37 bass in April 2011 , After some very good results in the second half of March I have been anticipating some excellent fishing in April. This is normally one of my best months for bass fishing but the dreadful weather with persistent cold northeasterly, northerly or northwesterly winds ruined any chance for a repeat of the results of last year. One would expect some respite from the cold weather and northerly winds over the month but the warmer south/southwesterlies never came. The nights were very cold all month, some were even frosty, so it wouldn't surprise me if the sea temperatures were lower at the end of the month than they were at the start.

Last year at least half the bass I caught in April were on lures but this year all were on bait. I had a few attempts at lure fishing but didn't see a hint of a bass never mind catch one. So over the last week I focused on bait fishing as I reckoned that gave me a better chance of getting a few fish. I am not sorry to see the end of April 2012, let's hope May is a better month.