Ok. I admit it. I have lost all interest in catching anything other then Bass. In recent weeks I have trying to motivate myself but it's just not happening. Though I never seem to struggle in the autumn. There are weeks that go by when I'd be out every night if I could. So I find myself asking myself why? Why am only interested in Bass fishing and nothing else? What is it about being on the beach that i love so much?
I think the first thing is that Bass are a worthy adversary. There not an easy fish to catch. That said though, they are not really that difficult either. For me, Bassing is all about being in the right place, in the right conditions, at the right time. Get those three thing's right and you can catch Bass on virtually any Cornish beach. It's putting the hard hours in find all these factors out that is the difficult bit. But then i suppose that those factorsare applicable to any type of fishing, not just Bassing.
Then there's the beach itself. It so much more pleasant being on the sand with plenty of room around you. It's easier to cast, it's quieter and it's generally darker. I'm probably talking rubbish here but I feel like I'm more 'at one' with the sea and thus the fish when I'm on the beach, purely because you spend about a third of your time in the water.
I spent the latter part of last year trying to scale all of gear back and fish light with one rod. Just wearing a waterproof bum bag with minimal gear in it and waders. It was nice to wade out, cast and then come back to standing knee deep in the water with the rod in your hand. Of course i would take a sand spike so I could have a drink of roll a fag or go for a chat but you really can't beat having the rod in your hand. For the first half of the year i fished the usual 2 rods. My problem with this is that when you are fishing at distance your looking at the best part of 20 minutes to reel in, change your bait, wade out, cast and wade back and that is just for a single rod. That's 20 minutes of a having a fresh bait out there with only a couple of glances towards your rod tip. I must have been missing fish. I just must have. Using a self hooking rig like a pulley does of course help but there's not a single Bass angler out there that can say that they haven't missed a massive bite what ever rig they are using. There's just no better feeling then getting that whack, whack, whack when the rod is in your hand.
The beach just feels different too. It just seems to heighten your senses. It might be pitch black walking to the beach but I can tell by the sound of waves if it's right or not. Maybe it's just the fact that your stood up all night and constantly moving up and down with the tide all night that makes you feel like that but I can honestly say that I feel different when I'm out on a beach.
The good news for those of you that haven't yet caught the Bass bug is that there are still plenty of fish out there to catch. For a start there are plenty of decent Dabs out there. I'm still hearing of some decent Codling caught and there are still plenty of whiting around. It's also going to be worth a bash at the flounder this weekend with the frost and building tides up and coming. Crab activity will also be at about it's lowest point of the year. Talking to the boat anglers there are still plenty of good size codling about but they seem to be just too far off shore for us shore anglers. Not too much out of range though as I've spoken to several anglers catching big fish within 400 yards of dry land.
I've half arranged a session out on the Huss this weekend so lets just see if I can muster up the motivation.
