With the North Coast still proving unfishable on our regular marks, Rob and Iain decided to revisit some ground on the south that Rob and Nathan had fished successfully for Bass last year.

Fishing commenced around 8.30am, with the tide pushing out and opening up some beautiful,feature filled ground.

Rob motored on and Iain bumbled (lol) with nothing much happening until 11am (low tide) As Iain and Rob caught up with each other, Rob had observed a shoal of fish moving about the surface and had hooked into ‘something’, but Rob was unsure what they were (such was the distance and visability)

As the tide turned Iain experienced a neat follow and nearly hooked into the fish, but it wasn’t playing ball. He covered the same ground again, slowing down with deft touches to entice a strike and BANG! Thank You ! A Fish at last!!

First catch of the day!

Not a bass, but a decent size wrasse over 3lb all the same.

Rob headed back and Iain followed, albeit slowly and surely.

Rob was hunting down Bass; Iain wasn’t much bothered, but the incoming tide showed absolutely no sign of bass racing in for the first spoils of an incoming tide!

On the way back Iain played a couple of wrasse using the Megabass Spindle Worm 5″ VIOS baits – Iain observed, “Thought I had a bass on for a moment or two, hooked into a four and a half pound Wrasse in the shallows over rough ground and it didn’t dart down deep – it ran left, then right, just until the end when it must have noticed a decent crevice and dived down deep, just a few feet in front of me – swallowed 5 inches of soft plastic to boot, good fun.”

Iain's getting bored of Savage Sandeels! He reckons the Megabass Spindle Worms work better and offer more value for money!

It takes a decent effort (and a decent size fish) to swallow 5 inches of soft plastics!

More exercise – fair weather and another few fish ! Can’t be bad!

Lures Used:

Savage Sandeel (Colour Sandeel)

Megabass Spindle Worm 5 inch VIOS Mineral Bait

This little fella really punched above it's weight (estimated around 2lb)

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Arrived at Rods house bright and early at 6.30am and headed off to the first mark. Half hour of covering various points and steve hooked into a fine 4lb 6oz pollock. From the shore, this is a great catch!

A very respectable size pollack from the shore on lure!

Nothing much more going on here, so bacon rolls and a cup of tea, then off to mark number 2. Fished the bay for half hour but the N/E wind started picking up so we moved around to the next bay, slightly sheltered by a huge cliff but still nothing showing.

We discussed various options for the next mark, arrived at chosen location but completely blown out and un-fishable! Doh! Thinking cap back on, then off to our final mark of the day. Arrived at 4pm, started fishing the flood when half hour later I hooked into my Bass. Measured 53cm on the ruler, but when weighed on Steve’s digital scales the fish took it down to 4lb 14oz happy days, biggest of the year so far!

Hooked it on the Duo MOAB (mother of all baits) – 120 MA32

Arnies best of the year so far!

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What set out to be a day of lure fishing for bass, soon turned into a great session for Wrasse!

The first mark made it impossible to actually fish for bass properly, so the decision was made to move around to a small cove we found back in November. It had produced bass up to 5lb and on our previous visit, we hadn’t had enough time to fully explore all the ground.

This next mark proved to be more productive, but not in the way we had envisaged. It started producing fish almost immediately, but there was no sign of any bass whatsoever!!

But the Wrasse! OMG!!

They were hitting everyone left, right and centre, providing a lot of fun and sport!

We were all using the Savage Sandeels 16cm – White Pearl and Sandeel. We did also test out the Megabass VIOS Spindle Worm 5 inch and they worked fine too!

Some 21 fish were caught by 3 people in a solid 3 hour session – 5 pollack up to 1lb and 15 wrasse up to 5lb. We don’t believe any wrasse weighed under two and a half pounds, with most weighing between 3-4lb. At this size, on soft plastics, they don’t half go!

But who would think you would be catching so many wrasse in January?!

With the mild weather continuing and the sea temperature 11 degrees C – it’s clear to us – our lure fishing is not likely to end anytime soon! How wicked is that?

This was about the best of the 5 pollack we had!

Cheesey Grin Time!

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Arnie has been at it again – here is his account:

Arrived at crantock on Sunday at 12.15, low tide at 10.10, started fishing at 12.40. The wind was fairly strong blowing NW, with the swell around 4ft but blown out and messy-white water everywhere.

Started with a big tide minnow 200 and surf 150 but they were still getting beaten up quite bad due to the conditions. I needed to get deeper to present the lure a bit more naturally, so on with the 28g megabass bubble header.

5 casts later I hook into this beauty at 1.10.

Slow steady retrieve to stay deeper, with random lifts to create an upwards darting action, and brief pauses afterwards to enable the lure to flutter back down.

Although the bass are still on the small side (still) we are all still seeing a lot of life in the rock pools and absolutely tons of white bait in the water.

Anyone fancy a dip?! It’s surely still warm enough. LOL

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Mat Arnold decided to go out for a little session on New Years Day and was rewarded with a 47cm (2.5lb) Bass.

“I arrived early at 10 o’clock, high tide was around 10.30. Wind was fairly strong, westerly with gusts up to around 25mph, swell was about 3-4ft. Started fishing pretty much bang on high tide, wasn’t expecting much but couldn’t wait to get going. Didn’t get a touch until 12 when this little beauty showed up.”

It’s clear that the size of the bass being caught are still relatively small, begging the question: When will the bigger bass show, if at all?

There is still a lot of life in the rock pools (a good sign) and the number of lance in the water is normally quite high this time of year. With continued mild weather Bass of all sizes can happily thrive. It is unclear whether a cold snap is due anytime soon (as this can sometimes encourage the bigger bass in)

In Rob Taylors’ words: “Just keep fishing, there is bass there to be caught right now, so get out when you can”.

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