Check out some great stories, advice and tips from our team of experts
For many, April signals the start of bass fishing. ‘Leakyboots’ recalls four seasonal sessions…
Early April, but it felt like January in Siberia. My ears were stinging by the time I arrived in my little cove. The tide was high, 2ft of water over the biggest of the rocks and weed patches. I knew my hands would be like frozen fish fingers, so I already had my lure clipped on, a soft plastic in Ayu, a gungy lugworm colour.
Not much wave, so I made my first cast 10ft back from the edge, then I stuffed my left hand in my pocket to warm it up a bit. Bang, a fish on, about 2lb. Back it went, I checked the lure, and out with another cast. Hand restored to the pocket as the softie sank through the water, then a twitch and half a pace backwards – the Motown back-up singer shuffle…without the hand claps. Another twitch, another step. Then a second take, a three-pounder, ideal for lunch.
After my third fish I faced the truth: my feet were numb, my eyes were streaming, and my right hand was aching with cold. Enough fun for one day, I could hear the siren song of the car heater.
EYES IN THE DARK
It was one of those nights when nobody with any sense would go bass fishing. Early April, a small tide, a bright half-moon, and just a whisper of a wave.
On the other hand, I was wide awake at three in the morning. I took some lugworms from the fridge and a bag of squid from the deep freezer. Even in rotten conditions, you never know, and the idea of running out of bait is too hideous to contemplate.
I headed down to my nearest beach. Walking to the water I used my torch in case the tide might have exposed any new snags. Experience has taught me that I can be relied on to find obstacles on the sand, usually by landing on my skinny backside.
There were no unexpected rocks, but what I saw was a pair of gleaming eyes, then another pair. The beach was jumping with foxes. I often see foxes on the rocks fishing for crabs in the pools, but here was a dozen or so just faffing about on the high-water line.
I took a look at the sand at my feet: some weed, the usual depressing load of plastic waste, odds and ends of commercial netting gear, and a load of squid and rotting mackerel. A fishing boat must have been spring cleaning its holds, dumping all the rubbish on to my beach and providing the local foxes with a rather smelly all-you-can-eat buffet.
I thawed my squid, hooked a juicy one and caught a fish within minutes. Sitting on my backpack-stool in the moonlight, I caught nine bass in two hours. Every time I turned on my torch to release a fish I saw the flashing eyes of four or five foxes 20-odd yards behind me, watching intently. I tried tossing them a mangled squid, but there was no interest. I reckon they were completely full and fancied no more than a bit of light entertainment while their feast digested. So, I sat there, a smiling fisher with his posse of smiling foxes.
SHALLOW SURPRISE
It was late April and I was on a soft sand beach that can work the oracle around low tide. It’s a spot that crunches to the sound of razor clam shells, and it produces gilthead bream as well as bass, especially in late spring.
I arrived two hours before first light, which was about the same time as low tide. I can’t help myself, but when I know I’m off to fish a different spot, I always wake up too early.
Now, this beach changes a good deal, like a supermarket where they keep moving the stuff you want into another aisle, but, typically, there are a few sandbars with gullies between them.
Not knowing where the gullies might be, I put on a big razor bait and slung it out about 50 yards. It was dead as a dodo drumstick, so I wound in 10 yards and waited five minutes. Another 10 yards, waited again. Then again. By now, with the dropping tide, I was thinking I must be fishing almost on dry land. Then a solid thump and a yard of slack. A 2lb schoolie, released. I added a new bait and a made a lob of 20 yards. A three-pounder, released. With the first gleam in the sky, a 3lb gilthead, dinner. Then a small schoolie.
Once it was fully light, I made another lob of 20 yards and watched for the splash of the sinker. I had been fishing in a tiny scour on top of a sandbank, in nine inches of water.
GLAM ROCK MISTAKE
The end of April is usually my time to get a bit serious about lure fishing. The water was up to 12 or 13°C and there was a gentle onshore breeze. I woke up too early, but you can only
waste so much time on a cup of coffee, so I took
myself down to a rocky point in Mount’s Bay. It was pitch dark and I didn’t want to scare away the fish with my torch, so I clambered to the mark as the four-legged man (two feet, one hand, one bottom). My lure was clipped on already, a weedless and weightless soft plastic stickbait in a dingy brown lugworm colour. For this one, you flick it out, then don’t do a thing, not a sausage, just let it sink.
It can’t have been deeper than a couple of feet when it was clobbered by a school bass. In half-an-hour I caught three small bass and missed three other pulls. Then I noticed that the lure wasn’t casting too well and felt a bit light. I ran my fingers over it and found the tail end had been chewed off.
Without using my torch, I dug out a replacement and managed to clip it on. I cast it out, let it sink and twitched it in. Twenty minutes of this routine, but not so much as a nibble. As the first light came up I gave my lure a quick once-over. This one wasn’t dingy brown, it was a wild electric blue, like a platform-shod glam-rocker’s flared trousers. I swapped it for another brown one and I was back into the fish.