Patchy Sport

As the Title suggests, things have been somewhat patchier than a couple of weeks ago. Winds haven't helped as they have been brisk enough to make things awkward at best, plus they have been quite cool temperature wise so we haven't had those classic warm still muggy evenings that seem to be spot on for the Bass to hunt shoals of baitfish. We have caught a few fish despite the conditions, though nothing of the size bracket of before. Some of the time has been spent pursuing Wrasse as well, but despite plenty of bites from them I am still waiting to hook my first one on the soft lures. In spite the lull we are still driving forward with the new methods, and are learning all the time. This drive is also inspiring us to search out new venues and we fished one of these a few nights ago. A tricky one this, mind you all the best one's are!, bites were forthcoming from the Rockfish again and one in particular put a good bend in my rod before letting go, ( teeth marks in the tail of the lure ). Plenty of scope here too, we only covered one small area and there are many others within the mark to go at, during various stages of the tide. Yesterday we returned to one of our other virgin venues for a daylight Wrasse mission, the one where I had an anomalous Bass a week or so ago. Again bites were forthcoming, though   nothing was hooked. Very frustrating all in all, admittedly we would expect the Bass sport to be intermittent, however, the Wrasse fishing has the potential not only to fill in the time between good Bass catches, but be very exceptional in it's own right. I am sure it will be once we fit all the pieces of the puzzle into place, the spots, the lures, the moods of the fish at the given time, it's all part of the learning curve, and a steep one at that.

This year has been the best Sea angling year of my life, not just for numbers of fish, though I have had seasons fishing bait in years gone by when we have been able to capitalise on sport when it has been there to be had, but not in the way that we are able to using these methods. I am also talking about  the sporting aspect of the way we are fishing. Never would I have dreamed of fishing as light in the sea as I did in freshwater, but oh how I yearned to! Having a fair size Bass tear 30 or 40 yards of braid off the reel is one of those feelings I live for now, rather than just hauling it up the beach on a heavy beachcaster. Between the 8wt Fly rod and the 5-21gram HRF rod and the 0.5-7gram LRF rod, there is enough light sport to last me the rest of my life! It can sometimes take your breath away as  first the Fish bolts off on feeling the hook, ripping braid from the reel, then they stop and violently shake their heads trying to rid themselves of the offending item embedded in their lips. It's not all about big fish either, using the ultra light rods allows us to have fun with the smaller schoolies and other mini species when the big fish angling is out of sorts. The sheer effectiveness of these methods over other forms of sea angling cannot be overstated, of course it's not just a case of buying the gear and catching fish, you have to learn the how, when's and where's of it, but once this is in place, even the basics will have you catching more fish. I can see us going from strength to strength judging by the first few weeks of us using this approach, truly awe inspiring is what it is!


Sadly the wind is back with us for a while now, so it'll be time to tidy and clean the gear, recharge the batteries, and re ignite the fire for when conditions come good again, in the meantime thanks for reading.