GET INTO BOAT FISHING PART 15 BANKING FOR BASS
THE THAMES ESTUARY, along with the Bristol Channel, Humber and many other tidal river systems are typical of most marks where bass are a spring, summer and autumn species. Get the right mark on the right day and they can be caught in huge numbers, with monster double-figure fish always on the cards, even in just a few feet of water.
Most of these early fish are what we call school bass or ‘schoolies’. They rarely reach above 5lb, but the average size can be good, often around 3lb, depending on where you target them.
One of my favourite tactics is to anchor in front of a sandbank, often one that dries out at low water, and then fish worm or squid 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 bass congregate and wait for the tide to cover the bank in order to get up on to it and feed.
THE RIGHT TIME
Getting in position early is essential in order to capitalise on your day’s fishing. Try to creep up to your chosen bank at the very start of the flood tide, which may mean arriving an hour or two at the end of the ebb and nudging the boat on to the mud or sand as the tide goes out.
You need to anchor 20 or so yards in front of the bank, so you can cast your rig to the edge of the bank as the tide begins to flood. You may be anchored in 12ft of water, but you want your bait to be fishing in 3-4ft of water at the edge of the bank.
As the tide pushes, and the bank starts to cover, you will need to let out some anchor rope in order to keep you within casting distance of the ‘hit zone’. It’s trial and error, but the more you do it, the more you’ll get to understand how the bass behave on your particular bank. We often lift the anchor after a couple of hours of the flood and move in a bit closer to intercept the bass moving over the top of the bank – that’s a good trick to remember.
Light spinning gear is the way forward
KEEP IT LIGHT
As far as tackle goes, it’s all about using light lure rods for me. 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 even use a fourpiece 7-28g travel lure rod when it’s flat calm, and that gives excellent sport.
I tend to 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 braid, means that you can get away with using much lighter lead weights, which in turn gives you more of a sense of what’s going on at the business end when you hook a fish – it’s as simple as that.
A simple running leger and watch lead works wonders
PLAYING A FISH
Bass give two types of bite in shallow water – either you will just get a couple of nods on the rod tip, or your rod tip will simply slam over as the bass scos your bait and bolts o.
If the bass are being finicky, you will need to pick up your rod and feel for the bite to develop. Then simply wind down and strike into the fish. If it’s not there, drop it back immediately and the bass will often come back for another look. Either way you must make sure that once you have cast in, you back o the drag so that the bass can take line freely or you may well lose your rod and reel over the side.
They don’t all have to be huge to make Dave smile
Pendulum casting shares its key points with off-ground styles. The big difference is the obvious one: in pendulum styles the sinker is swinging win the air when the main action begins. Visualise the layout of an off-ground style – rod, leader and sinker positions – then mentally raise them off the beach as a single unit, lifting the sinker itself a little higher than the rod tip. The swing that controls this aerial layout’s accuracy is extremely important, for the splitsecond positioning of sinker relative to rod tip is usually what makes or breaks the rest of the casting action.
The aim is...
This might sound technical, but, with pendulum style, focusing on those three points always pay off. How far should I wind up my body when I set up the cast? Where should the rod be when I make the swing? Where should the sinker be at the end of the swing?
Solid answers to those questions set us free to experiment further to find what variation on the theme suits us best. Personal style involves blending a few key points into a system that lets us get the best from ourselves and our tackle. Copying somebody else rarely works.
STARTING POINT
The compact fishing pendulum technique is a good place to start. Even there, it’s important to experiment with the initial set-up and swing. You need to find a good spot for the sinker to hover in mid-air at the end of the inswing, in order to create the right amount of resistance for the rod tip to bend quickly and firmly when the main move starts.
This is exactly the same principle used in
Words by John Holden, image by Lloyd Rogers setting up for a ground cast, and it is the first step to master if you aim to be a good pendulum caster. Get it right, and what follows is almost sure to flow at least smoothly enough to give a nice reliable cast.
Mastering a simple swing opens the door to the powerful big-swing pendulum styles. More power and more control mean bigger distances, of course. Far more important for many of us – and one reason to favour pendulum over offground – is that the technique can be adapted to get the best from a wide range of tackle, rods in particular. Practice and experimentation tell you what the settings should be for your favourite rod and reel.
Swing control is a great tuning aid as well. A little extra body turn in the set-up, a slightly shorter drop and an inswing that brings the sinker closer to the rod all increase the initial resistance and extract better performance from a soft rod. Less body turn, increased leader drop and an inswing a shade farther away from the rod can turn a viciously quick and stiff rod into a pussycat. ■