Go small or go home.

Just before the Cornish Lure Festival I had a call from a mate who was coming up from Sunderland to do some bass fishing, so I managed to get down to meet him for a fish. The tide was just starting to flood when we started fishing and I went with my tried and trusted 4.5" Arkansas Shiner Slug-Go mounted on a 10g #2/0 jighead. I fished the lure with various retrieves, bouncing across the bottom, darted mid water, slow sink and draw, but there were no takers. I swapped over to a Ribster in the same colours but despite working both lures for over an hour I still had no bites. I then put on a Swimmin Ribster and about ten minutes later I finally manged to hook and land a small bass of about 35cm, which was quickly photographed before being released.

Lunker City Swimmin Ribster strikes again.

I went straight back to the same spot and began working the lure again but I could only get a couple of small bumps and no hook ups, the bass just didn't want to commit to taking the lure. This was very similar to the last time I fished this mark and it would seem that the bass were only interested in taking the tiny sandeels which were shoaling in numbers.

This gave me the excuse I needed to grab my LRF gear and rig up a 5g Mini Jackson Mameta casting jig. I already had a dropshot rig on so I just tied the jig on in place of a dropshot weight and rigged a small teaser on the hook above the lure. It only took a couple of casts before the rod was nearly wrenched out of my hand as a good bass seized the lure and tore off in the current. I began to play the fish back towards me letting the rod do the work when I noticed my mate cast over my line. To my horror he snagged my line then became convinced he had hooked a bass too. He only seemed to become aware of what was happening when he caught sight of my fish with his lure attached to the teaser hook. I tried to shout at him to wait and take it easy so we could land the fish, however he didn't hear and tried to dead lift the fish ( which was about 3lb), without the help of a wave, and the inevitable happened snapping my 8lb leader on the razor sharp barnacle encrusted rocks and the bass was gone. Rather annoyed I rigged up another leader and tied on a 7g IMA Gun casting jig and began to work it back in the top couple of feet of water. After about five minutes a bass grabbed the lure and made a hell of a run before I manged to play it back. After a nice fight a smaller bass of 41cm was landed.

A swap to a 7g IMA Gun soon fooled this nice Bass

I quickly got back to fishing and the very next cast I hooked another fish and this one tried to bore down deep with a powerful dive. If it was a bass it was a good one but because he kept trying to dive I didn't think it was one. As I played the fish up it became apparent that it was a rather chunky coalfish, something which is pretty rare from this mark. A quick measure put it at 39cm, my biggest coalie this year, great fun on my ultra light tackle.

This 39cm Coalie also couldn't resist!

I released the fish and caught another couple of coalies before landing another couple of small bass. It was approaching my kids teatime so I had to call it a day, something that was very hard to do with the bass on the feed. Still it was great to get into some fish I was glad I worked out it was only small lures that they were interested in.

Tight lines, Schogsky.