Those of you that are lucky enough to live near the sea would hopefully have gone to have a look at it over the last 2 days. For those that don't let me tell you that there has been one hell of a sea running. It was very, very big.
For me that mean's one thing. Rock mark Bass fishing. The tides were spot on. Nice big tides and at the right sort of time. The wind wasn't a problem either. 20 Mph southerlies would be blowing right over our heads. The only issue was the rain. It was hard to decide which forecasting to go with but either way it was going to rain. Being an eternal optimist i talked Woody into it with a promise of "light showers, clearing in an hour or two" which was of course, total bull shit.
As i sat and waited for Woody to turn up the rain just got worse. It was a mix of moderate rain with much heavier showers. But I'd got my gear sorted and with the conditions as they were i was going fishing come what may.
I was glad to arrive at our chosen mark and see that no one was on it. Usually there are plenty different places to fish on this mark but on a 10' sea you would be taking your life into your hands going anywhere but the highest point.
The sea was raging. Big, thick, powerful ground swell filled the bay, building from a good half mile out. It was going to be a serious night. One in which the utmost attention was going to need to be paid. The rock's were obviously wet through and very slippy. Where we were fishing we would be safe but extreme care had to be taken when dropping on to the slippy lower ledge to cast.
It was clearly going to be a one rod night. We'd both put two into the car but fishing one rod in wet, windy and swelly conditions is no mean feat, never mid two. Armed with an AWB and Torium 14 i quickly set myself up with a short pulley rig with 40lb trace and two 5/0's, popped a big lug worm on and tightened up the grip wires on the long tail, long grip 7oz Gemini leads I'd brought with me. I carefully made my way down to the bottom ledge and walloped one out just onto the edge of where the white water cleaned up a little and made my way back to my box.
Woody filled the next 10 minutes moaning about the "light showers" but by god it really was raining. There was just no let up. 10 Minutes in and we were both wet through to the bone.
It tends to take several minutes to get used to the movement of your rod tip at the start of a windy session and the monster swell was doing a good job of making it even harder but after a couple of minutes, BANG. A typical Bass bite, a series of short, hard , fast pull's. A quick strike and i was into a fish. Obviously nothing massive but enough to warrant a careful trip down to the lower ledge to land it. A couple of minutes later i had my first Bass of the night on the rock. He was just around minimum but i always put fish of that size back so i dropped down as low as i dare so as to give the fish the best chance of surviving the 20' or so it was going to dropped. But as usual he was gone in a matter of seconds.
Another single lug worm was threaded on and banged back out, a couple of minutes passed and Bang. Another bite. But i missed that one and had popped out the gripper so it had to be brought back in and re loaded with another lug. The bites came fast and furious and in the first half an hour or so I'd landed 3 Bass up to a couple of pounds, dropped a bigger one on the lift and missed several bites but unbelievably, Woody, sat right next to me, casting into the same area with a similar rig and the same bait hadn't even had a touch. After a few more minutes of talking about the "light showers" he was into them too, landing another fish around minimum size, but again, that was carefully released to grow a bit bigger.
Moving between the lower ledge and upper ledge was becoming tiresome so we settled on the lower ledge to save a bit of messing around. At this point i was beginning to lose count of just how many i had caught. It was literately a bite a cast, every cast for me. Woody kept up, missing a few bites and hitting into several more. The only issue with staying on the lower ledge was that as the tide dropped the rock that sends spray up became exposed and several times we were both hit square on with a jet of spray you would swear had come from a fireman's hose. Not that it really matter as the "light showers had seen us both dripping wet anyway. But it's amazing how you forget about the "light showers" when your catching fish.
I was just in the process of casting another bait out when Woody hit into something much bigger. His HSM was bent double. I gave him a minute or so to get to grips with the fish and then unleashed the full 350 lumens of my Petzl ultra headlamp to try and pick the fish out and to light up the reef that had by now appeared in front of us, to give Woody the best chance of timing his retrieve as a bigger swell washed over the reef. I spotted the fish from around 30 yards out. It was clearly a big Bass. Just how big was impossible to tell. It disappeared again as it saw the light. I picked it up again at about 20 yards out and this time had a much better view of the fish. Again, it's hard to guess a size from 30' up and 20 yards out but this was a minimum of 7 or 8 pounds. As the fish hit the brightest spot of the lamp it turned, dropped its head and with a couple of flicks of it's massive tail, it disappeared back into the depth's, nearly pulling the rod out of Woody's hand as it did so. I made a dash for my my seat box to grab my rigging gloves to make an attempt at hand balling the fish up as it was going to be rather difficult to winch. But by the time i had put my rod down, loosened the clutch, made my way back up over the slippy rock's, fished my gloves out of my box and made my way back down he had already started lifting it. And yes you guessed it. The lead got stuck, the fish gave a shake and off he came. Gutted.
Despite this the bites just kept on coming and carried on doing so until we ran out of bait. A whole pound of lug worm gone within about 2 hours. Between us we must have landed 15 - 20 Bass with the best being around 3lb, a couple of 2's and several just short of 2. Woody also landed a small codling and a shore rockling.
I'd have dearly loved to take a few pictures of a few fish on the night but it was honestly impossible. Taking any electrical device out in that rain would have resulted in certain death for it. But pictures or no, it certainly was a superb night's fishing. I'm going to go again tonight and with similar conditions i would hope for a few more, but tonight i don't think we should get away without any "light showers"
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