Andy 1965
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2020
- Messages
- 405
- Reaction score
- 3,673
- Points
- 93
- Location
- North Wales
- Favourite Fishing
- Lure
This week, my search for basszilla began at the same mark I fished last Thursday, where I hoped the bigger tides would mean bigger fish, but I didn’t really get a chance to find out. As it did last week, the session started of slowly, with very little action in daylight, but as darkness fell, the bass began to stir.
45 minutes after sunset I had the first hit of the night, at maximum range on a large Patch in Nacre, which resulted in a schoolie of 41cm
.
And when this was followed shortly after by a second, smaller schoolie on the Komomo II,
The signs were all there that I could be in for another bumper session, but just when it looked like sport was about to kick off as it had done the week before, the weather gods had other ideas
. There was no mention of it in the forecast, so I was taken completely by surprise when a stiff South Westerly breeze suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, and the water instantly started to get quite choppy. This seemed to be the signal for the fish to go completely off the feed, and for the next hour I didn’t get a touch, so I was forced to call it a night 
.
2 days later and after an early dart, I arrived at my second mark of the week an hour after low water, with a nice long session to look forward to. Last year, this particular mark had produced quite a few bass for me in daylight, but this time, just like the majority of my outings this year, the daylight hours were disappointingly quiet
.
Eventually, as the light faded I finally saw the first action of the evening, when my lure was smashed on the surface by an enthusiastic schoolie
. Unfortunately the bass missed the lure completely 
, but it was at least encouraging to see.
Over the next 20 minutes the bass went for my lure another 8 times, and either missed it completely, or made contact with the lure and somehow missed the hooks
. When a fish did finally get hooked, I really thought the blank was beaten, but it wasn’t to be and it somehow managed to throw the hook just as I was about to slide it ashore! 
I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to be my night, but at the 14th time of asking I hooked another fish. After a short but tense scrap, due to the thick weed closer to shore, I finally landed a schoolie of 40cm to get off the mark
.
I hoped that this would open the floodgates but over the next 40 minutes, as the bass splashed and slurped all around me, they hit and missed my lure several more times, and on the 2 occasions when I actually hooked something, they somehow managed to escape after a few seconds
.
Becoming more and more frustrated, I tried a variety of lures in an attempt to get the fish to commit and finally, I managed to hook a second fish securely enough to land it. After quite a scrap and a bit of tug o war in the weed, I finally landed my second fish of the night, a nicely conditioned bass of 57cm
.
After hurriedly unhooking it, and taking a couple of quick snaps, I released it back into the crystal clear water and got straight back to the fishing. Typically though, after a few more splashes in the distance, the fish went off the feed just as quickly as they had started
and the rest of the night was deathly quiet.
So with one thing and another it’s been quite a challenging week, and despite my expectations, the bigger tides have been a bit of a disappointment. On the plus side though, at least I’m still catching.
As for basszilla, I know there are big fish out there as over the last week I’ve heard of at least 2 doubles caught from the local area, so next week I’ll be back out there to try and tempt one for myself
.
45 minutes after sunset I had the first hit of the night, at maximum range on a large Patch in Nacre, which resulted in a schoolie of 41cm
.And when this was followed shortly after by a second, smaller schoolie on the Komomo II,
The signs were all there that I could be in for another bumper session, but just when it looked like sport was about to kick off as it had done the week before, the weather gods had other ideas
. There was no mention of it in the forecast, so I was taken completely by surprise when a stiff South Westerly breeze suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, and the water instantly started to get quite choppy. This seemed to be the signal for the fish to go completely off the feed, and for the next hour I didn’t get a touch, so I was forced to call it a night .2 days later and after an early dart, I arrived at my second mark of the week an hour after low water, with a nice long session to look forward to. Last year, this particular mark had produced quite a few bass for me in daylight, but this time, just like the majority of my outings this year, the daylight hours were disappointingly quiet
.Eventually, as the light faded I finally saw the first action of the evening, when my lure was smashed on the surface by an enthusiastic schoolie
. Unfortunately the bass missed the lure completely , but it was at least encouraging to see.Over the next 20 minutes the bass went for my lure another 8 times, and either missed it completely, or made contact with the lure and somehow missed the hooks
. When a fish did finally get hooked, I really thought the blank was beaten, but it wasn’t to be and it somehow managed to throw the hook just as I was about to slide it ashore! I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to be my night, but at the 14th time of asking I hooked another fish. After a short but tense scrap, due to the thick weed closer to shore, I finally landed a schoolie of 40cm to get off the mark
.I hoped that this would open the floodgates but over the next 40 minutes, as the bass splashed and slurped all around me, they hit and missed my lure several more times, and on the 2 occasions when I actually hooked something, they somehow managed to escape after a few seconds
.Becoming more and more frustrated, I tried a variety of lures in an attempt to get the fish to commit and finally, I managed to hook a second fish securely enough to land it. After quite a scrap and a bit of tug o war in the weed, I finally landed my second fish of the night, a nicely conditioned bass of 57cm
.After hurriedly unhooking it, and taking a couple of quick snaps, I released it back into the crystal clear water and got straight back to the fishing. Typically though, after a few more splashes in the distance, the fish went off the feed just as quickly as they had started
and the rest of the night was deathly quiet.So with one thing and another it’s been quite a challenging week, and despite my expectations, the bigger tides have been a bit of a disappointment. On the plus side though, at least I’m still catching.
As for basszilla, I know there are big fish out there as over the last week I’ve heard of at least 2 doubles caught from the local area, so next week I’ll be back out there to try and tempt one for myself
.
.
