RETRIEVE STYLES

With my simple jighead rig I can present the lure to the fish with multiple types of retrieve, but I’ll detail the four I use most...

DEAD STICKING:

■ this is simply the act of letting a lure fall to the seabed under tension and allowing it to sit on the deck while the angler just keeps a tight line.

I incorporate dead sticking in a lot of techniques I use, including dropshot and jighead. It is surprising how often a fish will take a lure when it is just stationary on the seabed. In reality, the fish can see and sense the lure’s entry, descent and subsequent resting on the seabed. Being curious it will come over to inspect the lure.

With a finesse dead stick approach, the lure is affected by the current and even the fish’s approach, and will be moving subtly on the seabed. the fish sees it as an easy meal and is able to just open its mouth and suck in the lure. Because this is something that bigger fish really like to do, incorporating long pauses in your retrieve can be a great technique.

BOTTOM BOUNCING:

■ With most of my bass techniques focused on the top two-thirds of the water, I do also bounce a lure across the seabed, particularly when the tide floods the shallow reef. the power of the swell helps to waft the lure across the rocky ground.

my approach is to hold the rod tip up and retrieve slowly, gently keeping pace with the lure during a wave surge and slowly retrieving so the jighead-rigged lure rattles along the bottom. It is really effective because lots of blennies inhabit the reef and the bass can start to hunt them when the tide floods.

Working a slug-type lure along the seabed is a great way of imitating a panicking blenny, something that the bass find hard to resist. on very bright, calm days the bass are more confident in hunting deeper, so working along the bottom at shallow venues works well.

SINK AND DRAW:

■ a simple sink-and-draw jigging technique tends to be what I use to fish the upper areas of water. as I am using jigheads with a maximum weight of 7g, the fall rate of my Hto Schlugg is quite slow, especially when fishing in current.

most of my bass takes are when the lure is falling slowly through the water column. therefore, the lighter the jighead, the slower the lure will fall.

my favourite technique is to cast slightly uptide and then to keep pace with the lure by reeling as it falls with the current. I let it sink through the water column until it is halfway down before giving a couple of upward twitches with the rod before letting it fall again.

the great thing about using LrF gear to fish slugs in this way is that you can feel the most subtle of bites. an added bonus is that the fish feel very little resistance from the tackle so easily suck in the lot.

DARTING:

■ a darting fast retrieve is great when the fish are really active. get it right and you can get the lure to do a sub-surface walk-the-dog action. there are specialised jigheads, generally bullet shaped, that aid this type of retrieve. the trick is to work it like you would a surface lure, so short flicks of the rod tip (either rod up or down) should see the lure dart left and right with each jerk of the rod. It really works well with stick-type lures, and you can get them to imitate a panicking sandeel that has lost its shoal.