North Wales A tough week.

[Andy 1965]

After a decent run of 9 successful sessions since my last catching streak ended, I knew it was only a matter of time before I blanked again, but for the time being I was just enjoying catching. With small tides though, and a particularly early high tide on Tuesday evening, it promised to be a challenge this week to keep that run going. With this in mind, I decided on a change from the mark where I’ve been catching lately, and to start the week off at a mark which would give me a better chance of something bigger.

Tuesday evening found me at a mark which used to fish well on the flood, but last year the prime time seemed to have changed to the first 3 hours of the ebb, and this suited me as I arrived just 30 minutes before high water. The water clarity was great but a lack of any real flow was a concern for me, and sure enough, the session got off to a slow start. I did see a small shoal of sandeel swimming past, which gave me some encouragement, but they weren’t around in their usual numbers.

After over 2 hours of fishing, I hadn’t seen any signs of bass, but with the light finally beginning to fade, I was feeling a little more confident, and soon after this my Mishna was finally munched. It wasn’t a big fish, so with the blank at stake I didn’t mess about in reeling it in, and after 30 seconds the blank was beaten for the 10th session in a row .


With darkness rapidly falling I hoped for a couple more bass now, but sadly it wasn’t to be and so after a further bite-less 90 minutes I called it a night.



After such a close brush with a blank, I decided to play it safe on Thursday night, and to return to schoolie city . High tide was at 21:15, which suited this mark better than where I fished on Tuesday night, and I arrived with plenty of the flood to go until high. Again the tide was on the small side, but at least this meant that I wasn’t pushed back over the uneven ground too quickly.

For the next hour or so I fished a variety of top water lures over the weed and boulders, along with the Swimmish, which usually produces the goods at this spot, in various colours, but despite the good conditions, the bass weren’t at home .

Next up I moved a mile or so along the shore, where I hoped to fish the beach, but there was so much loose weed in the water that it was impossible to fish there. Even if I waded out beyond this “weed stew”, the water was still heavily stained and even the Lemon Meringue Mishna vanished out of sight within a few cm of the surface . With Plan B a no-go, I decided to move further along the coast to some rocks, where the water was much clearer.

At this new mark I would be able to fish out onto clean sand, but the downsides were the relative lack of depth due to the small tide, and the fact that the water clarity wouldn’t really encourage the bass to come in too close until after darkness. But regardless of this, I fished it hard for the next 2 hours.

Here my go-to lure was the Mishna, which I fished with a variety of jig-heads to vary the depth at which it swam, but with the shallow water in mind I also tried a few metals, including the SG Seeker, which I could ping out miles into deeper water, where I hoped the bass might be waiting for sunset. Despite all this, the bass were nowhere to be found but after checking back at the beach, only to find that the water was still unfishable, I had no choice but to keep trying where I was.

Eventually, with the light fading fast, I had the first sign of the evening that the bass were indeed around, when completely out of nowhere, my Mishna was hit. After things had been so quiet for so long, this gave me a real shock but before I could catch my breath, the fish gave a couple of violent headshakes, and was gone .

With Tuesday night still fresh in my mind, when I only had 1 hit in 4 and a half hours of fishing, I was gutted to miss what could turn out to be my only chance of the night, but I had no choice but to keep trying.

30 minutes later and the water off the rocks was getting too shallow to fish effectively, so I made my way back to the beach. The weed was still there close in, as was the coloured water beyond it, but as I waded out up to my waist, I finally found the clear water I was looking for .

For the next 90 minutes I fished like my life depended on catching something , and I actually had two more hits. Sadly though, the first one was only hooked for around 10 seconds before it made good its escape . As for the second hit, the attacker absolutely smashed the lure, and the rod tip was pulled hard over, but somehow it managed to avoid finding the hook!

If time wasn’t a factor then I felt sure that I would have caught something eventually, but with work in the morning I was finally forced to admit defeat and to call it quits at 00:45, with my first blank since June the 4th .

Strangely, now that I have blanked again it seems to have eased the pressure on me to keep catching for the sake of it , and so this week I’m tempted to try some new marks to see if I can finally find out where those biggies are hiding .

 

[tdxs133pm]

That's one hell of a report for a blank session,you deserved more of a result.