Webb tells the story of his 12lb bass.
The story of my bass of a lifetime
Andy
Seeing a bar of silver with its deep red colouring behind the gills as it fights hard through the surf is a perfect sight for any bass angler, and is what makes them a favourite species with many. In my younger years I went through a phase where I chased after them at every chance I could get, visiting beaches in the South West armed with buckets of lugworms and peeler crabs.
My first bass catch was at Ladye Bay in the Bristol Channel, when a 3lb 8oz fish took a mackerel fillet. The memory still sticks with me to this day.
Sadly, once I started catching rays, my direction of angling drifted away from bars of silver. Since then I have put in a few sessions to target a double-figure bass, but my personal best got stuck on 7lb 11oz. I needed to get my quest for a double back on track.
TWIN TASK
Just before Christmas, my plan was to head down to a local venue, the River Yealm, on the outskirts of Plymouth, with two aims in mind. The main task was to try for a flounder or two because the Sea Angling Adventures Facebook group was holding its Christmas flounder event, but I’d try for a bass too.
October and November are usually good months to target monster bass as the spawning females make their way up the creeks, but with the temperature remaining mild for the time of year, I knew the bass would still be about.
Joining me for the session was SAA’s Nick Panther, along with Paul Lynch. With high tide at 10.30pm, we headed towards Yealmpton and took the road down to the river, arriving at 6pm.
I took a pair of Anyfish Anywhere Four & Bait rods paired with the Nomura Aichi SW 4500fd fixed-spool reels loaded with 15lb Asso Bulletproof mainline.
I fished one rod for flounders and the other for a big bass. I added a running leger made with a Cox & Rawle power swivel, 3ft of Asso Super Fluorocarbon for the trace and a Cox & Rawle 5/0 Chinu hook. I would then fish a large, fresh, peeler crab bait, purchased from Tackle Trader in Newton Abbott.
Darkness had set in and the stars twinkled in the sky as we walked through the wood to the river, where we found the water was flat calm.
Everything seemed in our favour,
with the tide making its way up the main channel and starting to cover the mudbanks. The channel would be my main focus because the local area is noted for its big bass moving up and down through the main channels seeking food.
FIND THE SPOT
After five minutes or so we started to apply crab and rag to our hooks. Nick spotted me with a crab in hand and noticed the size of my 5/0 Chinu.“Bit big for the flounder, Mr Webb?” I looked up and smiled. Nick is a bass fanatic and will target this species at every opportunity and has caught them to 12lb 8oz. He knew my plan. “We’re supposed to be targeting flounders,” he added. “I’ll stick to the flounders because you’re not going to win the flounder comp with a bass”.
I didn’t care. My focus was on both species. My chosen channel was around 60-70 yards out and, as we were fishing in darkness, I needed to know that the bait would be exactly where I wanted it to be.
Knowing your surroundings is a skill all anglers should have. Putting a bait out into the unknown is a big gamble, so I want to push the odds in my favour.
Sure of the distance required, I put out the bait around 80-90 yards, which was overcasting the channel and on to the opposite side of the creek’s mudbank.
By using a 4oz breakout weight, which I knew would stick straight into the mud, I started to reel in the slack line and then pull back the lead weight. I could feel the sinker slowly moving over the mud, until I felt the tension loosen when it met the main channel. By using a 3ft trace and knowing the channel was 6ft wide, with a firm bottom, I slowly retrieved until I started to feel the sinker reach my side of the channel’s mudbank. Here I set the lead weight and left my bait where I wanted it, ready and waiting for a bass.
SLOW PULL
My first cast didn’t go to plan, and after 30 minutes it was time to repeat the drill once again. The flounder fishing was also not looking good either, until Nick’s rod started to give a few familiar flounder taps. After waiting for a few minutes, Nick decided to reel in, but there was no fish on the hook.
As I sat chatting to Nick and Paul, the tip of my bass rod started to pull over very slowly. At first I thought it looked like a ray bite as it started to lift back up. I lifted the rod and felt a small pull-down on the rod tip. I knew it was a fish and my first thought was that it could be a thornback ray, which do make their way far up the river at times.
At that point I lifted back into the fish to set the hook. Before I had chance to start reeling, the fish took off using all its power in attempt to rid itself of the hook. I knew it wasn’t a ray and heard it break the surface of the water with a loud splash and then start to swim off up channel.
My rod was buckled over, and confirmed that I had something special attached to my hook. Adjusting the drag on my reel, I got the fish over the mudbanks.
By now all our headlights were trained over the creek in an effort to catch sight of that silver bar. As it saw the lights, it started to breach the surface and use its power to escape.
Paul shouted:
“It’s a monster mate, it’s
double.” One wrong move now could be the difference between landing and losing the fish.
MASSIVE FISH
We were fishing in a very tight spot, which meant I would need to guide the fish around rocks and weed to get it to the shoreline.
Wearing only boots, I either got wet feet or had to use the rod and take control of the fish. After getting it around the rocks, the next challenge was the weedbanks. I was aware that if the fish went under the weed it could damage the hooklength and escape. I managed to turn the fish and coax it through a small channel leading to the shoreline. By now it was only a few feet away, but again it used its power in a bid for freedom. Paul went to grab the trace. I shouted: “Don’t pull the trace!” It was only 20lb. After one last attempt to free itself, the bass was pulled on to shoreline.
I laid down the rod and lifted the fish off the ground. The fish was massive. We now had to weigh it as fast as we could and take a quick photograph before releasing it. Taking this fish to eat never entered my mind.
I was speechless. This was a fish of my dreams and, as any bass angler will tell you, any bass weighing more than 10lb is a real accomplishment.
The certified scales rested at dead on 12lb and that confirmed a new personal best for me. I quickly got the fish back into the water. After a lot of effort from myself and the team, we watched it swim back off downtide.
The flounder fishing proved fruitless, but I had another small bass and Nick chipped in with a codling around the 3lb mark.
Fishing can be a funny sport at times because many sessions will leave you walking away feeling broken, but if you put in the effort then there will be rewards.
It was another magical moment in sea angling that I will never forget.