A Late Trip Report.

Better late than never - a quick report from my last trip.

As Adrian and Graham have both done reports on the weekend (they can be found here & here) - I will keep it brief.

In February I managed to squeeze a quick trip in to Northern Spain with the guys (Adrian , Graham, Mark & Stuart) in the hope of an early bass - our destination was Asturias which we found to be impressive to say the least.

The rugged Asturian coast

On arrival the first thing to strike us (apart from Joe not being able to drive or navigate lol) was the sheer size of the cliffs there, and after some initial exploring just how difficult it can be to reach the water. The first afternoon was spent checking out a few marks for the next day)

The first day was spent on a fantastic mark not far from where we were staying & Adrian managed to bag a decent fish followed by a schoolie which Mark landed.

The rough stuff!

A wet Adrian (just lost his Maui Jims to a dodgy wave - grrrrr)

Fortunately the next day we were able to meet up with a couple of great local guys (Manel & Dario) who are both very accomplished bass anglers and were kind enough to take us out on their home ground. You can find Manels blog here. Oh and Manels report in Spanish can be found here.

Our first cliff descent with the guys was (luckily for us) in the dark, & turned out to be down a few hundred feet of almost vertical rock face taking us to some spectacular rough ground. It didn’t take long for us to realise that the bass fishing in Asturias is quite different to how we usually fish and that perhaps we were "a bit under gunned". Swell was up (waves to 20 feet outside the reefs) and to be honest I was shocked when I heard Dario mention to Manel that it was looking a bit calm but was worth a go!

Perfect conditions!

The Spanish guys were using long rods & large lures - really banging the bait way out and fishing it back shallow with the rod high (this takes some doing as there are lots of shallow reefs and the swell to contend with), the fish didn’t show but we had a fantastic time with Manel & Dario (a great exchange of tips and tactics took place & I think we all learnt something from each other).

The next day was also without fish, but we managed to cover a lot of ground & got to see some spectacular marks.

The following video should give some idea of the surf we were up against (the last few seconds of this video give you some idea of the wave size).

A bit too much of the good stuff

So how on earth do you fish conditions like this? Well the locals love the surf & fizz, and will use "Chibos" (spelling?).

A 75g. goat hair Chibo.

Now the Chibo may be low-tech but its perfect for the big surf conditions as it’s a great caster (this will get you out in the big rollers) and has the weight to "get down there" while being inexpensive.

Tired pluggers

Dunno whats wrong with them after the cliff climb!

Amway - a message of thanks to the very friendly people of Asturias & especially to Manel & Dario for all the laughs and the time they gave us (we really hope to be able to return the favour!).

We will be back!  Gracias Asturias y Amigos!