Davemc

A small window of opportunity appeared today between dog-walking and dinner, so at 4.10pm I found myself at a favourite mark with two hours to catch a bass on a lure.
I decided to split the time between two marks a couple of hundred yards apart.
First cast a fish bumped the Hound Glide on lift-off, second cast a schoolie was hooked at long range and landed.
After an hour I'd had five: two on the Glide, two on a Zonk and one on a Red Gill Rascal 135mm behind a sinking bombarda (bombarda shop.com).
I moved to the second mark but didn't have a sniff, so returned to the first mark for the last 10 minutes and winkled out three more to the Zonk in short order.
These are pretty modest schoolies, but you can only catch what's in front of you, and with a strong cold wind and water temperature only 9.3C I was pleased to catch at all.
Tomorrow it's back to 'dirty bait' (crab and ragworm,) in the hope of an early gilt. PH

It's always a good idea to clean your reel after use, then put it back in your bag. It's also good practice to carry a spare reel.
Sadly, in my rush to go fishing this afternoon I failed dismally on both counts.
A desperate call home brought my wife and Doug The Dog to the slipway, where the reel in its padded case was expertly lobbed aboard by Mrs PH.
Back to the mark again, I had barely two hours left to fish but managed 10 hits, all on the Megabass Zonk 120 in Cruising Blue.
None of the other four lures I tried attracted any interest.
On a day when the schoolies seemed to be attacking the lure rather than trying to eat it, I dropped four and boated six.
The water here is still a chilly 9.6C and I don't expect more fish, bigger bass or topwater action till it warms up quite a bit.
For now, schoolies deep down will have to do! PH

Great stuff , nice to see a better bass .

It wasn't freezing cold for a change today and when work gave me the nod to bugger off at 12:00 I was a man on a mission to catch the last of the flood and hopefully a bass.
All excited I rushed from the car to the mark ignoring the usual weird looks I get from normal people not obsessed with a fish, quick thumbs up to a fellow wanker who was waist deep and I was off. The water was crystal clear and the gravity stick looked well good amongst the wrack. 15 minutes and I'm into a fish, got her up onto the beach, couple of dodgy photos, measured at 57cm and back. All over in about 5 minutes.
Fished On for a bit only to find my old mate
2 hrs done and dusted. Missus none the wiser.
Thanks for reading 

I have fished it many times and had lots  of scad and Mack's 

good effort - i'm going to chuck a lure tonight form the shore - high tide around 5.30 - ill fish the ebb out of the fleet at ferry bridge and see if there's any early bass about!
 

Well done PH , Great effort again .

Well that's what it felt like this afternoon - cold, overcast with a bitter NW wind and the sea temperature back down to 9.7C.
Still, getting out in the boat for three hours on a rising tide seemed like a good idea, so padded out in layers of thermals I motored gently upstream to a favourite mark.
I was fishing over shallow ground but I knew the bass wouldn't come to the surface or even to a shallow diver. Until the tide flooded further, deeper divers would just be dredging up weed. So as the afternoon was dark and stormy I picked out a lurid Hound Glide which hopefully would dive to just the right depth.
A strong following wind flattered my casting, and the Glide is a distance lure, so I was getting a long way, fishing across the tide.
It wasn't long before the lure was hit a good 50 yards out with a real wallop.
Like all my bass so far this year, this was a modest schoolie but still a satisfying catch.
A lot of hard work produced two more to the same lure, then I lost one which hit me close in and thrashed on the surface, throwing the barbless treble.
I tried numerous lures with no response until I moved a couple of hundred yards and lost one on the Megabass Flatbacker.
Then the tide turned and I went back to the original mark and picked up one more schoolie on the Glide.
Soon the water will be warm, baitfish will appear and four schoolies in three hours will be a  flop.
Today it felt like a result! PH
 

Fair play. Cracking effort 👍

I took the opportunity to have a night session before the forecast northerlies and sleet , I'm not a fan of gloves but always carry a pair of fingerless musto's in the car for such trips which are excellent but on this occasion unfortunately I realised they were still in the boot of the car , I really missed them as the wind turned halfway through the session and it was so cold.
It didn't seem put the Bass off albeit small ones , an excellent early season session all the same with 10 bass caught on the night at distance  .
Nice to catch most of them on a MC needle .

Nice work Dave! You're bloody dedicated I have to say. It was snowing briefly in Berkshire this morning!
Nice results for your efforts too!

I took the opportunity to have a night session before the forecast northerlies and sleet , I'm not a fan of gloves but always carry a pair of fingerless musto's in the car for such trips which are excellent but on this occasion unfortunately I realised they were still in the boot of the car , I really missed them as the wind turned halfway through the session and it was so cold.
It didn't seem put the Bass off albeit small ones , an excellent early season session all the same with 10 bass caught on the night at distance  .
Nice to catch most of them on a MC needle .

Despite cold water and biting easterly wind I ventured out with the lure rod yesterday.
I wasn't very optimistic, but was encouraged when my Megabass Flatbacker was hit third cast.
The bass didn't stick, but the next two takes did, on a Hound Glide.
I then experimented with a new vibration bait, a Bassday ORC 70mm, and nailed another schoolie with a gentle sink-and-draw action.
After trying numerous sub-surface lures I had managed to add only a juvenile herring gull to the score. After a lot of 'kite flying' I got it to the side of the boat and unhooked it with long-nosed pliers. Fortunately  it was hooked in the tip of the beak on one prong of the Maruto barbless treble, so it was easy to release unharmed.
Finally I reverted to the Flatbacker, which yielded one missed take, one dropped fish and three more schoolies landed.
Not bad for the beginning of April! 
 

Desperate to catch a March Bass I managed to get a day out on the 31st , The water was still very cold whilst wading out on a bar , I cycled through the lures and finally had a hit from a bass .
The highlight of the day was that some concerned citizen had reported " Someone in the water" so I had a visit from the rescue services !! 😲

Kept shouting am I ok !?! 
I know I can be a stuck in the mud sometimes but not on this occasion ! 😂

Kept shouting am I ok !?! 
I know I can be a stuck in the mud sometimes but not on this occasion ! 😂

Good work Dave. A March bass is something to be proud of for sure. Well dangled 👍

So what did they say when they rocked up and saw you in your waders merrily casting away? They must have been relieved that they didn't have to recover a corpse I guess.

Desperate to catch a March Bass I managed to get a day out on the 31st , The water was still very cold whilst wading out on a bar , I cycled through the lures and finally had a hit from a bass .
The highlight of the day was that some concerned citizen had reported " Someone in the water" so I had a visit from the rescue services !! 😲

The place seemed lifeless to be honest , had a couple of follows  a week ago the megabass dark sleeper crawling along the bottom.

Desperate to catch a March Bass I managed to get a day out on the 31st , The water was still very cold whilst wading out on a bar , I cycled through the lures and finally had a hit from a bass .
The highlight of the day was that some concerned citizen had reported " Someone in the water" so I had a visit from the rescue services !! 😲

hahaha. Surely you can do a pompey accent by now. See many crabs out of curiosity?

I thought here we go plods going to ask me where I've driven from !! 🙄

Desperate to catch a March Bass I managed to get a day out on the 31st , The water was still very cold whilst wading out on a bar , I cycled through the lures and finally had a hit from a bass .
The highlight of the day was that some concerned citizen had reported " Someone in the water" so I had a visit from the rescue services !! 😲

Not a whopper but my first fish of the season to get me going. In from work and straight out again, more to enjoy the weather than do any serious fishing and then an hour and half in....BANG! I could barely believe it. Chuffed. 1 week and 1 day earlier than last year on the savage gear gravity stick.
Cheers for reading