NEVER STOP LEARNING
Always be willing to try something a bit different, even when you’re fishing over familiar ground
Iknow it’s a bit of a cliché but, despite the many years I’ve been fishing, every session is still a chance to learn something new. It’s astonishing that I may have been fishing a particular place for decades and suddenly discover that I’ve been missing out on potential captures.
On many occasions I’ve been heard to say, ‘If only I’d realised what the fish were doing, the catches could have been so much better’. This was brought home to me when I returned from holiday. After a couple of weeks of being ‘spoiled’ by catching tarpon and jacks in the Caribbean sunshine, I was keen to get back into fishing the Dorset coast.
WINDLESS AND FLAT CALM
A new pal, Peter, who has lived locally for some years, wanted to know a bit more about sea angling. So where should we go, I thought, to give us a chance of a fish?
I looked at my tide tables and pondered the weather, and one spot stood out. For a couple of days, it would be possible to fish a powerful tide race mark. The only problem was that when the tide ebbs fast, it can be an extremely dangerous place to reach.
We arranged to meet at first light the following morning. Conditions could hardly have been better – windless and flat calm with the race in full flow. Peter didn’t have his gear with him, so he borrowed one of my rods. As it turned out there was nothing doing, and we only managed one tiny school bass between us, but at least he had seen a fish.
I was slightly disappointed so, the following day, I went back on my own. Again, it was a beautiful morning. I stood waiting for the tide to fall until it was safe for me to wade to the best fishing spot. I hate just standing about, so I was casting to various other areas which, as usual, were more or less fishless, with only the occasional furtive pluck from a tiny pollack.
My chosen lure was a big, unweighted, weedless, soft plastic lure (one of my home-made ‘Slandras’) because there is lots of kelp and some big rocks close to the surface. I fanned the casts out over acres of water, apparently, devoid of bass, keeping a close eye on the race to see if the tide had dropped far enough for me to risk wading to the mark.
In order to access the best vantage point, I had to cross a narrow gap between two long ledges that funnel the ebb tide, causing a torrent of water to race through. The gap, at its narrowest, is only a couple of metres wide, with an uneven bottom littered with big boulders and streamers of weed – it’s exactly like the rapids in an upland river, just the sort of place where you might go white-water rafting.
In a moment of stupidity, I flicked the lure upstream into the raging torrent, just to see if it was fishable. I watched the soft plastic fly out, and at the very instant that it splashed down, there was a boil on the surface as a fish tried to seize it. I was astonished that, firstly, there were any fish present in the fierce flow and, secondly, that anything was able to feed effectively in the rushing water.
Now, I’m well aware that bass like a bit of water movement, but this was something else. I know that many species of fish are capable of holding station in strong currents but, as a rule, they simply don’t like being buffeted by flows that constantly chop and change.
Anyway, I was encouraged by having had an attack on the lure, so I cast to the same place again. This time I had a pull, which I missed. Over the next few casts there were several more bites that failed to contact the hook – usually a sign that the fish are too small to deal with the lure.
CRITICAL POINT
Keen to establish what was showing interest in my lure, I went back to the bag, removed the big Slandra and clipped on a smaller version. Bingo! Almost at once I hooked a bass.
It was only a bit bigger than the tiddler I had caught from the main race on the previous day, so no monster, but at least it was a fish, and it confirmed my suspicions.
Back to the bag, I fiddled about with the camera, took a couple of pictures,
unhooked the fish and returned it to the sea. In the minute or two that it took me to do this, the water level had fallen below the critical point, the flow had almost ceased and my new fishing spot had disappeared – just like that!
Needless to say, the following morning I was there again, this time armed with both a spinning rod and a fly-rod (my idea was to try and get some fun out of the small bass that I expected).
Typically, fate dictated the conditions were totally different. Sure enough, the saltwater ‘river’ was even more torrential, but now there was a vicious crosswind, so there would be no fly-fishing. Even casting an unweighted lure into the narrow gap between the ledges had its problems. I was using a weedless Red Gill Evo-Stix this time – a good tempter for bass, but not too big to be engulfed by enthusiastic schoolies.
It was very tricky fishing. In the gloom with the howling wind and the rough water, it was difficult to avoid the braided line billowing out and catching on rocks, and I never knew exactly where the lure would touch down. However, a missed pull on the first chuck was encouraging.
VERSATILE FISH
Sadly, it proved to be a slightly false indication of the prospects, and the expected bonanza didn’t happen, but in the hour or so that I fished, I did manage to land bass of 54cm and 55cm (roughly fourpounders), which both fought like tigers in the strong current.
The pleasing thing is that the ‘new’ spot will be fishable on many occasions without me having to risk life and limb. Of course, the fish won’t always be present, and, no doubt, it will take some time before I understand the best times, tides, weather and, above all, tactics for fishing there.
Without doubt, it’s going to be a handy place to fish in the future, so I shall add it to the list of possible spots.
I suppose the lessons to be learned are that bass are versatile fish that never miss an opportunity to feed and, most importantly, it’s always worth trying something different, even when you’re fishing over old familiar ground.
Of course, you should never ignore an unexpected bite, and by giving it a little thought, it may open the door to some excellent fishing in the future.