April Drought

My good friend and Angling Partner informed me the other day of how many blank sessions I had so far endured since we recommenced Fishing in the Salt. I say 'I', because My friend has managed to catch on two occasions recently! Once on The Fly, and once on a Lure. The Lure caught Fish was a good 3lb'er and was caught from one of our 'Back of the Island' marks. Although they were good captures and well done, they have been slighlty disappointing in that there have been no follow-ups or multiple captures, just two odd fish out of the blue. This shows that they are not present in any significant numbers.

It's been really frustrating as despite the bright sunny weather We have been experiencing lately over here, the Easterly winds that have been blowing for the last few weeks have really kept the Temperatures much lower than they should have been. This time last year things were well under way, and the Fish were already about in considerable numbers, the bizarre thing is that the average Sea surface Temperatures are actually slightly higher than the corresponding time last year.

I keep asking myself if We started too early this year, but to be honest, you have to start somewhen and We could only make a judgement based on last years results. Luckily the Weather forecasters are predicting a change for this coming weekend, with the Wind switching around to a Southerly direction and a significant rise in Temperature. Could this be the trigger to bring the Bass inshore in good numbers? I hope so, because at the moment I'm going a bit stir crazy!

I have a number of Fly patterns that I'm raring to try out this year, and some new materials as well. Nothing fancy, most of My patterns are derived from classic one's and adapted to My own Ideas and findings. Thats the great thing about tying your own Flies, once you are proficient, you can customise to suit your own findings or certain situations and scenario's.

Rest assured I will be reporting back on how they perform plus any tweaks or twists if necessary. One Fly that was very successful for us last season, was a small white one based on a Glass Minnow pattern. It proved to be very effective in the shallow water over some Sand Flats where we discovered vast numbers of Fish chasing Fry inshore on virtually every Tide we fished there.

We tried some of the other usual patterns, but this little one was by far the best for two reasons, firstly, they fished very high in the water, probably no more than a few inches below the surface which was where the Bass were striking, and secondly they were a good imitation of the type of Whitebait being predated on. None of the Fish caught at this venue were big by any stretch of the imagination, but they were fantastic and frantic sport, and each one was handled and returned with as much care and respect as possible.