Sorry so late, I meant to get this post together earlier, but work got in the way!
Having
just wound up very poor weekends bassing(18th+ August)), I felt well
and truly beat, and although I know it has been tough in west
Cornwall, I was surprised not to manage a single bass! Had one follow
and that was it! I was very grateful to be shown around on the Sunday by
Stephen Butler who was kind enough to respond to a thread I started on
the lure forum. What a thoroughly nice chap too! He took me to one of
his favourite marks, (where he had a bass the day before, so was feeling
confident!), but no joy there, so a drive to the south coast to look
round Newlyn and Penzance. Not the clearest water, but fish-able, again,
sadly no joy there either, so we decided to try around Prussia Cove. It
looked good, a little colour and a fairly large swell, the most
promising mark we tried, but sadly no joy there either. Well...Steve did
manage a small pollock,....how small....?...well, he was a great host
so I wont say!
Then on the way back to St Ives(all day
kindly chauffeured by Steve!) we couldn't resist one last attempt at a
spot in St Just, no bass there either but some fun with acrobatic
pollock, smashing surface lures! Sadly no bass, but a day spent in very
good company, shown some lovely marks I will definitely revisit in
future!
Sitting at Lands end air port feeling rather defeated, I got a text from Del to say that Jim - irreverent angler was back over for a few days, camping on Bryher Campsite. After the disappointing weekend I'd just had, I was in two minds about meeting up for a session...what
if the dry spell continued?! After
giving myself a stern talking to I got in touch with Jim, and although I
was working everyday to make up for my time away, I had a free evening,
and a decent forecast meant it was time for change!
We met up at Bryher Shop,
and made our way to Gweal Hill. On the way we caught up, and Jim filled
me in on some of the fishing and a kayaking /snorkelling /skishing (yes
a combo of all three!) session he had experienced while I was in
Cornwall. I am sure he will put a detailed report on his blog soon. We
arrived at the start of the flood tide, which seemed to take forever to
push in, and things were a bit quite....oh dear! Despite already
feeling like my fishing luck had run out, I purposely persevered with a
few lures that I hadn't tried much before. Yeah, I know, I'm a sucker
for punishment!
Luckily
as the tide picked up, so did the fishing, and both Jim and I were
finding a few fish! Remembering a tough session Del and I had on St
Marys recently, I suggested Jim try a paddle tail(wish I had brought one
along!), and he was soon getting a few more fish.
I put on a newly purchased lure that grabbed my attention the second I saw it, Berkley Gulp 4'' Baitfish Lure. A couple of casts later my efforts were rewarded with this beauty at 49cm, which scrapped like mad in the very shallow water!
The
tide had started to really push in now and the "wave" of fish seemed to
have moved past us, so we followed the tide in a little further, rock
hopping and having a few casts on the way. We both continued to get a
few smaller fish, and while releasing one of mine, I looked over to Jim,
who's rod was bent very nicely as he gave an angry wrasse the horns! It
scrapped beautifully and had him manoeuvring every which way to to keep
it from cutting him off on the boulders. I just managed to clamber over
to him in time to see him land it and get a couple pics. No scales on
us, and never measured her but around the 4 1/2lb mark at a guess,
result!
Another fat pair of rubber lips!
A
great evening with a very capable fellow lure nut! Very glad I joined him and broke my dry spell curse!
Cheers Jim, I hope to see you back out here again soon, we need to find you a real brute next time!
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