North Wales So much for that theory!

[Andy 1965]

Though my bass numbers are increasingly steadily so far this year, the average size has been on the small side with only 2 fish over the 2lb mark, the biggest being around 3.5lb. With this in mind, I hoped that this week’s bigger tides would encourage the big girls to feed, so I planned another 2 sessions. The first was on Tuesday evening, when in a change from the mark where I’ve been catching lately, and which is starting to get very busy , I decided to fish another stretch of coast instead which has provided me with a few nice fish over the years. The tide was 32.3ft at Liverpool and with high water at around 11 O’clock, I was feeling confident.

I arrived to find a fresh breeze blowing along the shore and though it was certainly fishable, the wind caused a large bow in the line on the cast and made fishing rather awkward. I persevered and about 30 minutes after sunset, as darkness proper descended and the wind also eased, I caught my first bass of the night. Though the blank was beaten it wasn’t the beast I hoped for, in fact it was probably my smallest bass of the year so far , but at least I was off the mark .


With my confidence boosted, I fished it hard but it wasn’t to be my night and for the last 2 and a half hours of the session, I saw no more action. Finally, with the wind speed increasing by the minute and the first spots of rain in the air, I called it quits at midnight. Not a moment too soon either, as I had barely set off on the drive home when the heavens opened.


Next up was Thursday evening and again I had a choice to make. While I had struggled on Tuesday, I had heard reports that the other mark had continued to produce decent catches, the downside was that it had been very busy with almost 10 anglers squeezed into a relatively short stretch of coast . After lots of soul searching I just couldn’t bring myself to take part in any “combat fishing”, so I decided on a return to Tuesday’s mark for another go instead.

This time the weather was forecast to improve as the session went on, with the wind dropping away to nothing by 10pm and at 31.7ft, the tide was slightly smaller than it had been on my first outing. On the downside, high tide at 00:30 was at the far end of my planned fishing time, which would more than likely mean a late night.

Once more the evening started off on a breezy note, but the wind soon dropped off and by the time the sun set, there was barely a draft. This meant conditions were perfect and exactly on time I heard the first “slurp” of the evening, as a bass enjoyed a bite of supper out in the dark, mirror calm water. For the next 4 and a half hours I threw everything I had at them, but despite trying all the lures with which I’ve previously caught there, I couldn’t tempt anything into a take . I knew that the bass were still there, as I could hear the occasional splosh out in the darkness, but they were proving to be very hard to entice.

As well as a selection of top water and diving hard plastics, I tried several of the SPs which usually slay the bass, plus a couple of small metals. I even tried a small Redgill fished behind a Bombarda float, in case they were preoccupied on small prey fish, but they just didn’t want anything I had to offer.

I fished it hard up to high water before reluctantly admitting defeat but desperate to avoid the blank, I just couldn’t resist a few more casts on the way back to the car. Alas this last throw of the dice proved to be futile and still bite-less, I eventually packed up just after 1:15.

So my theory of bigger tides meaning bigger bass had proved to be way off the mark, and over 11 hours of fishing this week had resulted in just a solitary half pound schoolie .

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve since heard that the other mark fished well again on Thursday and in a complete change from Tuesday it hadn’t even been busy .

 

[Viaductbaggies]

Does the other place involve the gee gees ? ?‍