Big Tide Bassing

It's coming to that time of year now when it's really worth setting your stool out for a big bass, October being my favourite month of the year. Sticking to mackerel baits through the first part of September and changing to squid towards the end of the month as the cod start to put in an appearance.

Dave and I had planned a trip for last night with the intention of nailing a few bass on the banks. With the big tide and potential weed problems I had also dug 2lb of worm as a back up plan should we need to sit in close and go for a sole instead.

We were afloat for 6:45pm with the intention of finding a few mackerel while fishing the last of the ebb on Culver.We had an hour here before slack water and darkness. I managed a couple of nice hounds and a small spotted ray while Dave fought off a few doggies. More importantly, the mackerel didn't show so we had to make do with a dozen frozen instead.

As darkness set in, so did some very dense fog! A quick rethink and we decided on trying an inshore bank for bass followed by a bit of sole fishing should the first mark not produce.
I'd barely got a bait in the water when it was savagely hit. The first bass of the night came quick and confirmed we had made the right decision.

I sent another bait back out and a bass found it within seconds. This time, tentative non-committal plucks and tugs that were almost impossible to hit. This carried on until I scaled down the size of my bait and bang - fish on. This one was 5oz bigger than the first at 4lb 10oz.

Everything seemed to switch off after this and just as we were contemplating another move, the bass came back on the feed. This time Dave got hit hard and this looked like a much better fish. After a good scrap though and much to Dave's delight I scooped her up in the net as she came along side the boat. A very lean and long fish that looked a lot bigger than it weighed. This one - 7lb 7oz

10 minutes later and I nailed another one, again this one was in a similar bracket to the other two at 4lb 2oz.

Shortly after I got snapped up by a big blonde with us both dropping more bass over the last 30 minutes. With time against us though we had to knock the fishing on the head and get back in while we still had some beach left to retrieve the boat.

Great nights fishing.....only another 4 weeks or so till the cod start to show!