SHALLOW BASSING
Enjoy some light-tackle sport.
The Thames is typical of most marks where bass are a seasonal species. Throughout the spring, summer and autumn, they can be caught in huge numbers, and to good sizes as well – there are plenty of double-figure fish caught every year.
Granted, there are still the occasional one or two big fish caught throughout the winter cod fishing season, but as soon as the water temperatures begin to rise, around the end of March, the bass begin to move into the famous estuary.
Most of these early fish are what we call school bass; they rarely reach above 5lb in weight, but the average size can be good, often around 3lb, depending on where you target them.
One of my favourite tactics is to anchor up in front of a sandbank, often one that dries out at low water, and then fish worm baits back towards it. It’s here that the bass patrol as the tide begins to flood, and in some cases, where the sandbank is a big one, the predators congregate and wait for the tide to cover the bank in order to get up on to it and feed.
HIT IT RIGHT
If you’ve got all day, then I would suggest trying to creep up to your chosen bank at the very start of the flood tide. You need to anchor maybe 20-30 yards in front of it, so you can actually cast your rig to the edge of the bank.
You may be anchored in a depth of 12ft, but you want your bait to be fishing in 2-4ft of water at the edge of the bank. As the tide pushes in, and the bank starts to cover, you will probably need to let off some anchor warp in order to keep you within casting distance of the hit zone. It’s often trial and error, but as far as keeping your baits in the right place go, there are a few things you can do to hit the right spot every time.
LIGHT TACKLE
I love light-tackle fishing, and there’s no species that’s more challenging or rewarding to catch on sporting tackle than bass. They put up a great account of themselves on balanced gear.
As far as tackle goes, for me, it’s all about using lure rods. More recently I’ve been using my own DB4 10-40g lure rod for bait fishing, but anything in the 8-10ft length range with a cast rating of between 10-60g will be spot-on.
I usually go for 20lb braid for mainline, with a suitably long 20lb fluorocarbon leader to absorb the powerful lunges from the hooked fish and to prevent any ‘scare’ issues with the braid if the water is clear (not very common in the Thames).
Using light tackle, especially braided line, means that you can get away with using much lighter lead weights, which, in turn, gives you more of a sense what’s going on at the business end when you hook a fish – it’s as simple as that.
SIMPLE RIG
The most common rig for bass in any depth of water is a running leger. The easiest way to set this up is to thread a lead link on to the mainline, followed by a bead, a swivel, to which 3ft of 20lb fluorocarbon hooklength is tied (pictured below right), finishing off with a size 2/0 fine-wire Sakuma Manta hook.
If you prefer to use a boom to attach your lead weight, it’s worth considering your shockleader knot. Make sure the internal diameter of the boom is large enough to slide over your leader knot.
This is for two reasons – the last thing you want is for the boom to get jammed on the leader knot while you’re playing a big bass, which will make playing and landing the bass all the more difficult. The other reason is for the safety of the fish. If, for some reason, you get snapped up, then the leader can pass through the boom easily so that the bass isn’t trailing a lead weight around with it.
My ‘go to’ sinker in this situation is a flat watch lead (pictured below left). The reason for this is that it is more workable and will keep your bait in the right spot every time.
TACTICS
Once you have cast out, lift your rod tip and let out a bit more line as the flat lead weight gets picked up by the tide and travels further away from you towards the edge of the bank. Keep doing this and you will reach a point where the sinker doesn’t move anymore.
It has something to do with the strength of the tide versus the depth of water, but there is definitely a cut-off point, and it just so happens (more by luck than judgement) that this point is often the right depth where the bass are feeding up against the bank.
If the fishing is slow, then I’ll use a rolling bomb and cast that out, again lifting the rod tip and letting out line to bounce the lead weight back towards the edge of the bank. However, when I reach the ‘stop’ point, I’ll let off a bit more slack line and allow the tide to roll the sinker around, searching out any depressions or tiny gullies. This often brings a bonus bass or two when the fishing is slow.
I always carry a selection of watch leads from 2oz up to 6oz for this style of fishing, and it’s important to use the smallest lead weight possible to fish this method correctly. Your first cast will tell you whether you need to use more or less lead.
BAIT CHOICE
Early-season fish have a tendency to take worm baits. You can catch bass on squid, but you’ll catch far more on either fresh blow lug or king ragworms. It’s only as we move into the summer that peeler crabs take over for bait and give you the edge. Therefore, for the most part, it’s relatively simple fishing because both lug and rag are freely available from most tackle shops.
I prefer using king because I only need to use a single worm for each bait and it gives great presentation. The bass obviously love them too, because they tend to inhale them.
PLAYING A FISH
You get two types of bite from a bass in shallow water. Either the fish will be finicky and you will get a couple of nods on the rod tip, or your rod tip will simply slam over as the bass scoffs your bait and bolts off.
If the bass are being finicky, you will need to pick up your rod and feel for the bite to develop. Then you simply wind down into the fish.
Either way, you must make sure that once you have cast in, you back off the drag so that the bass can take line freely or you may well lose your rod and reel over the side. Having said that, there needs to be enough pressure there to set the hook and keep it in place before you get to the rod.
Be prepared for a heart-stopping run once the bass realises that it is hooked. Nine times out of ten the bass will be travelling at speed by the time you get to the rod. The sensation is electrifying trying to prize a compressed rod with a screaming reel from out of a rod holder. This is what fishing with light tackle is all about for me.
Let the fish do its thing and allow the rod to do the work for you. Make sure that your drag isn’t too tight - a big bass can strip plenty of line in one run, but ensure that there is enough resistance for the rod to be compressed and help tire the fish out or turn it.
You will find that a lot of the time the fish will either run left or right because you’re backed up against a sandbank. One or two go straight up on top of the bank, which is an amazing sight. Can you imagine a 5lb bass with its back out of the water thrashing its tail in order to make its getaway?
All bass are fairly predictable once hooked. They will tear line from your reel as they run across the tide, but they will always stop, then turn around and swim back uptide. Sometimes they come up to the surface quickly, while other times they stay deep, but always turn and swim back uptide towards you at some point.
This is one of the reasons why you can get away with using ultra-light rods, because the bass will always swim back to the boat…and sometimes beyond it.
It’s merely a matter of allowing the fish to run, keeping the tension on and winding like mad as the fish returns towards you, then hanging on as it makes another bid for freedom. Eventually, though, the fish will tire and you will be able to get it to the boat for netting.