Big bass for the boys............

Just a quickie of some of the fantastic bass the lads have had of late....

This first one is well over 13lb & was taken off the top late October (hero Mark!)

 



Next up a pair of double plus fish from Richard (two 11+ lbers in under 3 hours to be precise.......shore bassing doesn't get better than this!). Very well done Richrd - you are the man!!

 

 

 





Not only have the lads been doing some great shore work but have shown they can produce on the boat too - check these cracking fish.....(Joe with a beautiful boat bass).

 

 

Respect lads - top fishing!!! (oh and thanks for the pics lol).

 



A quick release..............

A Dorset Quickie.

Just back in from a night down in Dorset where the conditions have been difficult of late (although there seems to be a good stamp of fish down that way with several biggies being caught.

The fishing was tough (no wind, weed etc.) but we managed 11 fish. I suspect if the conditions had been slightly different (note different & not necessarily better) we would have bagged up.

Nice haircut lad!

 

Late night schoolie.

Not much else to report (but I hope to get out & land another fish or two later this week).

Be good & tight lines!

Fishing in Pembrokeshire gin............

Just back from a week in Pembrokeshire, where the weather was great for a family holiday (not fantastic for bassing but you cant have it all...). The tides were small and as you can see in the pictures below, the water was very very clear, coupled with a lack of wind & water movement I knew I was up to a challenge.

Could almost be the Caribbean.

There`s water if you look closely - honest!

I have to admit that I struggled the first couple of days, but when I did manage to locate them I did reasonably well with up to 13 fish in a session (up to 55cm so no real monsters). The fish I was catching seemed to be good little fighters & I even had some trebles and split rings trashed by the fish.

The fish were a fighting this year.

Bright shiny lures did the trick.

One of 10 fish landed for 12 casts.

I managed to catch up with Ricky & Rhod while I was there (always fun), but to the end of the week the wind turned East & the fishing seemed to drop off.

Ricky on a rock.

Despite only having fished a few short sessions (trying to avoid that pesky sun) we had a fantastic family holiday to boot & fun was had by all.

Fantastic scenery.

Beautiful sunsets (thanks to Mitch for the pic).

Another Pembs bass.

I ended up just short of 30 fish (& took a Swiss bloke called Rico out, who managed to land 5 bass off the top on his first bass lure session ever - his face was priceless).

Anyway its good to be back catching bass (thanks for your patience to those who actually follow this blog).

Next weeks dilemma is going to be the choice of fishing Dorset or perhaps Pembrokeshire again - time for me to take a quick look at the weather & surf sites to try and make some sensible decision (which of course would be a first for me lol)......

Catch you all soon - tight lines.

Bits n pieces

Over on TLF, I entered the annual team bass competition, and to my amazement our team is up there in second place at the moment. The competition is run each year & random teams of four are created with each person being able to enter their best fish (with photographic evidence against the TLF ruler).

 

 

Our team "2012 A Bass Odyssey" have submitted four fish for a current total of 263cm (giving an average of just under 66cms!), the leading team still has 11cm over us, so I'm guessing we will finish second unless someone below us takes a lunker or two).

 

Anyways I have been asked, if I will do another December giveaway as I did last year, so keep an eye on the blog in December (just in case - who knows you might get lucky).

Apart from that not too much to report (my fishing's done for this season), but I thought I would just post up the silly video below for your amusement.

 

 Thats all folks..................

 

Sausage fingers, half a seal & Joes leg.......

Just back home from the usual poor fishing weather in the UK (what I had hoped would be 10 days of great Autumn bassing turned out to only be two whole days of tough fishing!)

I took a trip to Dorset where an East wind killed any real chance of bagging up big style but there were a few fish to be had but we really really had to work hard to catch. We did have a few as you can see below, (sorry about my poor editing to conceal the spot a bit) but certainly not as many as we would have liked.

Mr Sausage fingers.

 

This next pictures a testimony to Joe's Simms G4 waders - despite getting this nice graze on his shin the G4 waders were only slightly scuffed on the top layer (Ive ruined cheaper waders in the past with way less barnacle scrape than that)......well done Simms!

Nice pins Joe!

I also had a wander to West Wales, got up at 03:30, did a 2 hour drive ------- and found dirty water where I had been expecting water like gin. After giving it a couple of hours I headed home & found this half a seal on the beach on the way back.

Half a seal....

Anyways a bit disappointing despite having caught a half way decent fish (the boys headed over to Ireland & managed to pretty much blank there too but that's another story).

Tight lines one & all

A big girl for Mark.....

Mark just texted - a nice fish of 75cm...........looks a stonker!

Well done Mark!

Now why don't I catch fish like that? lol.

Rob did the job!

Just back in from a Dorset trip with Rob Staigis which turned out to be a blast despite the usual weather issues (this time we were blessed with the tail end of a hurricane & a months worth of rain in a day!).

On arrival conditions were actually pretty good & we sat off to Chesil where Rob managed to bag a schoolie on his second cast in England. Despite the other boys all catching a fist full of fish, I managed a spectacular blank.

 

 

 

Next day we headed off to some rock marks early where we had a few fish and a lot of fun (Rob was straight into the fish again - a very happy chappy), followed by an evening session which produced another second cast fish for Rob & Joe.

As we had caught there the previous day we headed to some rocks again & Joe managed 6 fish in a row on arrival but the fishing seemed to die off as the wind swung East.

Last day found us on Chesil with pure East wind (gusts to a savage 50+ mph with enough rain to drown a town). We did manage a couple of fish but the going was extremely tough!

 

 

All in all it was a big fun trip, although the average size could have been better (we caught probably around 60 fish between us despite the conditions) and it was fantastic to swap tips & tactics with Rob who introduced us to a couple of lures which worked very well in Dorset (perhaps not the patterns we would usually use but proved to be fish catchers for Rob).

Rob will I'm sure do a report on his blog & I will post a link when its done (Robs website can be found at www.wolfsbarsh.com)

Tight lines you bassers…………..

Dorset Silver.......

Here are just a few pics from a recent Dorset run - the conditions were borderline with strong winds making casting any distance very difficult (20 - 30 yards if you were lucky) but the water was clear so we were pretty confident..................

We started off well & the fishing kept pretty steady for an afternoon session through till dusk when we decided it was time to call it a day......

Next day turned out even better with us all taking a few fish (DFR man Richard even popped over to join us and had 4 or 5 fish in as many casts as soon as he got there).

All in all some fun fishing & am really looking forward to visiting again in September, when I will be dragging Rob Staigis from Wolfsbarsch.com over for for a few days to meet up with the guys.

Tight Lines People!

Tough going but a few fish...........

Just back from a week in Pembrokeshire where the fishing turned out to be about as tough as the weather (which has been awful over here for the last two weeks).
We started out with some rough Southerly weather which turned the Havens waters into pea soup (of course the West marks were dead calm & pretty dead as far as the fishing was concerned).

Start of the week proved very difficult & although I caught a few schoolies, things were just not right (even the clearer water West was devoid of life & any real water movement).

Being a tad frustrated with the conditions it was a real boost when the wind swung West (if only for a day) & it looked like things were on the up as the fish started to get that little bit bigger although not easier to catch.....

Not long after taking a fish of 48cms I was standing on a rock talking to Ricky (I had finished a retreive a while ago & was just holding my rod in one hand), when suddenly the water below me exploded and the rod was nearly ripped from my hand. I looked down to see the rod arching to the water & a flash of orange - arrgghhh pesky wrasse has popped up I thought until I managed to turn the fish from the boulders it was trying to dive under - yeeeessssssss Bassssssssssss...........
After a short but mental fight I landed a cracking orange / copper coloured bass of 60cms (really the wildest take I have ever had - the lure just lying on the water at my feet & not even a turn of the handle lol).
I will never know for sure, but I suspect the fish had followed the previous cast, which was probably 30 seconds gone - madness!

The next and last days fishing I managed a couple off the top (schoolies again), it was great to see fish feeding on top again (its been a really wierd summer so far - way less fish than last year & most to diving lures wheras last year almost all came off top!)

Anyway - enough for now, Iwill also try to some pictures of my new custom rod from DFR - its a beaut!

Tight Lines..............

Not much to report...........

I must admit that I have been lazy about doing a report on my last trip to Dorset a few weeks ago (in my defence - the conditions were terrible & the fishing worse, so theres not too much to say)

All we caught were a few schoolies (also few & far between) despite fishing four days & walking a hell of alot of miles trying to find the fish!

A couple of pics................

A foot of swell would have been perfect

A night schoolie

 Getting smaller!

A first lighter (from the dirtiest water ever)

 I will be off for a spot of plugging again in a couple of weeks & really hope to actually catch something a bit bigger!


Tight lines guys n gals!