CHEAT THE CHILL
Why cold weather doesn’t have to spell an end to your lure fishing success
How you can still lure fish for bass.
With the weather having been very settled due to a stubborn yet welcome high-pressure system that had been sat over the UK since the New Year period, I decided to head out for a bass lure fishing session in darkness.
It was the second week of January. Would the fish be there? That was the question I asked myself when I met my friend Steve before traipsing through the woods to my chosen mark – a wonderfully tranquil cove where the sea was so calm, you’d have thought we were about to fish a pond. It was very cold (-1°C) and every time one of us spoke the air would be filled with condensation.
Stepping into the clear water, taking care not to cause a ring of ripples to spread out in the area into which I was about to cast, I had no idea whether this would be a successful session or not. I was just happy to be out fishing and blowing away the cobwebs.
I flicked out my go-to lure in these conditions - a white, five-inch Wave Worm Bamboo Stick into an area where I knew there was a car-sized patch of weed, set among an otherwise shingle/pebbly seabed. I began to retrieve it slowly (one-and-a-half turns of the reel’s handle per second) and essentially in a straight line, after allowing it to sink for around six seconds into what was about 6ft of water.
BUMPS IN NIGHT
Around fives casts in, and after allowing the lure to touch the seabed, I felt a soft bump through my light, sensitive, yet powerful set-up. I knew that flounders had been caught here recently, so maybe one of them had attempted to grab it.
I cast out again into the same area and decided to retrieve the lure a little quicker. Bang! It was definitely a bass bite. Using my mobile phone, I called Steve, who was fishing an adjoining cove, to inform him that ‘they’ were here.
For a further 20 minutes I cast out again and again as the tide neared its peak. I heard the lure plop as it hit the flat surface and took in the slack line slowly as the lure gently plummeted to the bottom. I began to retrieve, pretty much in auto-pilot mode, and was in again. The fish splashed violently on the surface and all hell broke loose as the rod juddered and the reel’s drag buzzed.
With what I knew was a good-sized bass attached, I fumbled to switch on my headtorch with freezing fingers. When the beam did appear, I had to almost hold my breath, as every time I exhaled, the air in front of me would just be a puff of mist and moisture.
Going more by feel than sight, I manoeuvred my prize through a narrow patch of clear shingle, before moving behind her as she reached dry land to prevent any chance of this one escaping.
“You beauty,” I shouted, so that Steve could hear me. Within seconds he came running and crunching towards me. “Blimey, Marc, that’s a whopper,” he confirmed.
My tape measure was rapidly deployed, and at just over 60cm and as fat as a barrel, I estimated this bass to be in the 5lb 8oz range. I was a happy man. Further, I went on to catch another bass that night, although half the size of the first.
I couldn’t wait to head out again, and with
the weather set fine, I did catch many more bass in January, including a nice fish of 55cm (4lb), all on the white worm. Just how long would they hang around for was my obvious thought?
That 5lb 8oz fish broke my January PB, while my largest bass caught on a lure during December was a 7lb brute. That onetook a Whiplash Factory Spittin Wire (also my most consistent lure of 2019) worked during daylight in 18 inches of murky water . .
FANTASTIC FEBRUARY
The winter had been somewhat exceptional, but what would February bring? Would I accomplish my objective of catching a 3lbplus (and therefore mature) bass during a month when, historically, things go very quiet?
I was still recovering from a flu virus when I considered that the sea had settled and cleared enough for me to venture out at night in pursuit of a February bass on a lure.
I was confident of catching, though, as the weather was fantastically sunny and mild for the time of year and the sea temperature was still relatively high for the second week of February at 10.6OC.
With another friend with me this time, we embarked on a short session before the wind whipped up again. I did it! On a very similar mark to the ones where I’d achieved success in January, halfway through the session and following a few tentative plucks, the rod walloped over.
I was so excited when I saw that it was a decent bass that, as I attempted to land it, I tripped and fell backwards on to the beach, causing the dreaded slack line on a fish at the worst possible moment. Thankfully, my luck was in and a bass, just above the 3lb mark, was soon being held up by its proud (but sore) captor.
It got better. In all, I landed 18 lure-caught bass in February 2019, with another lure, the
diminutive yet deadly Daiwa Shoreline Shiner Z97F Vertice, accounting for numerous fish, from the same marks, but when the sea was choppy due to a brisk wind, again in darkness.
It was mission accomplished, I guess, and I’d well and truly ventured into new territory – but the best was yet to come.
The capture of a rather round 57cm (4lb 12oz) bass during the final week of February was and is consequential (from my perspective) for a number of reasons.
Firstly, without a shadow of a doubt this was a mature fish - very mature if it was a male, and most certainly capable of spawning if female. Either way, this was a bass that should have been hundreds of miles away breeding in the Western Approaches at that time of year.
Secondly, it was, by far (having only landed half-a-dozen bass in total during February on lures over the years) the largest I had caught this late or early in the season - whichever way you want to look at it.