Metal Rocks!

Yesterday, after a night of being shouted at by my nine month old daughter Eva, I found myself in the car at 7am clutching a mug of tea with one thought on my mind, bass! After scraping the ice off the windscreen I had another thought on my mind, gloves, or rather my inability to locate a pair when I needed them. Heaters on full I headed down the A1 blasting myself awake with some nice, loud Fishbone and by the time I arrived at the mark my tiredness had been overtaken by the anxious excitement I always feel before I fish. I loaded my self up with my bass gear and my LRF gear and forgoing an extra jacket headed down to the mark.

It was cold but calm with a slight offshore wind and I went straight for my go to lure, a Lunker City Ribster in Arkansas Shiner mounted on a 10.5g #2/0 Football jighead. I began working the lure around the reef, bouncing  it along the sea bed as well as jigging and twitching it through open water. After about 45 minutes I swapped over to my LRF kit and rigged up a Lunker City Swimmin' Ribster on a 3g #2/0 jighead, to see if the added vibration of the paddle tail would illicit a response. I spent about half an hour working the lure through the current, allowing it to sink nose down waggling its tail before jigging it back up again to repeat the process, I had a couple of tentative bumps but nothing I could actually strike into. I then decided to try at range with a 30g Bombarda with an eight foot trace, rigged with a tiny pearl redgill. This was launched out a considerable distance then really slowly retrieved allowing the little weightless eel to flutter provocatively in the tide. I worked this set up for a while before I switched over to a silver Toby to see if some flash would work on the bass. Sure enough as I worked the lure back in the surface layers with a medium retrieve a bass hit the lure hard and everything went solid. The fish fought well for its size and kited about a bit as well as doing the usual bass surface splashing before it was landed! I was pleased with this bass as it had been frankly quite hard work to catch, especially as all my usual methods weren't doing the job.

Old school lures still rock!

A quick picture and I slipped the 41cm of silver back to the sea. I noticed that when it was landed it coughed up a tiny sandeeel of about 1" which would be perfectly matched by a Gulp! 1" Minnow.  I quickly reached into the rod holdall to grab the LRF gear in order to cash in on the feeding bass. It was at this point that disaster struck, in my haste to get the rod I had forgotten that it still had a lure attached and as I lifted it quickly out the hook found a juice box in the bag. I watched in a sort of dumb horror as the tip folded double then with a sad little crack parted company with the rest of the rod.

Bugger!

After 5 minutes of mourning I packed up and headed back as I was keen to order another tip section from Ben at Art of Fishing, which I hope will arrive soon as I am keen to get back to some LRF bass!

Tight lines, Schogsky.

Back to bass.

Last Friday I decided to go and have some fun hunting for bass down in East Lothian. The plan was to try dropshotting along the reef in the hope of maybe picking up bonus species as well as the local bass. I arrived at the mark at slack water just as it was beginning to flood and the conditions were quite calm although the sea was still very grey and cloudy.

I rigged up my LRF gear with a dropshot rig. This consisted of a three foot length of fluorocarbon leader, half way up I attached a #6 decoy mini offset hook via a palomar knot. This leaves a tag end of about 1.5' to which I attached a 7g dropshot lead. I rigged it with a whole medium pink Isome and began to cast around the reef, little jigs on the rod would have the lure hopping across the sea bed. This was interspersed with pauses whilst shaking the rod tip causing the Isome to wriggle and writhe in the current. I carried on fishing in this manner for at least a couple of hours but it was very quiet indeed! I began to fish rather mechanically and when I had a sudden single bite I wasn't ready for it and the culprit ripped the Isome of the hook and made off with it. I quickly re-baited and began to search the area, my senses much keener after some fish activity. A couple of casts later again the same thing happened, a very sharp quick bite resulting in the Isome being stolen. This happened a couple more times and try as I might I could not connect with the culprit, I have a feeling it could have been bream as the bites were so sharp and they really didn't feel like bass or wrasse. With the fishing so slow I decided to amuse myself in amongst the huge boulders by catching blennys, a dozen of the little blighters later I was ready to get back to searching for bass.

I decided to change tactics and rigged up my 9'6" Major Craft Crostage 15-42g rod with a Lunker City Ribster in Arkansas Shiner, mounted on a 10.5g #2/0 AGM football jighead. By now the tide had covered the reef so I began bouncing and twitching the lure back across the freshly submerged rock. It was about half an hour before I got a couple of bites but again I had fallen into the mechanical stupor again and missed it. I cast back to the same spot and again there was a couple of bumps on the lure before the fish grabbed it proper and this time I could set the hooks! It felt good to have a fish on at last and after a couple of little runs as the fish tried to make for deeper water it was quickly landed. It was a good fish about 43cm and I quickly released it. I then realised I had forgotten to take a picture, which was pretty annoying as it taken so long to catch. Oh well it was good to get off the mark and with that I carried on fishing the same area where the bass had come from. About ten minutes later another bass engulfed the lure and I had that happy feeling of a fish on the line. Another nice bass this one going to 42cm on The Lure Forum ruler.

The Lunker City Ribster claims yet another fish.

That fish signalled the end of the session and it was great to get back into some bass after a break away from them. Although there were no fish landed whilst dropshotting, the strange bites I was receiving have really got me thinking and I hope to discover what the culprits were soon!

Tight lines, Schogsky.