But first sailing was flood to the top of the tide. With me regulars Max, Loz, Liam and David. And with the tide moving at pace and a light N wind to just creep us across the tide a little, the prospects seemed good. Confirmed by a procession of fishes to the boat. Plenty of smaller ones although we quickly had the six required for dining obligations in the fish box.
As the tide eased back though, the wind increased a little, and we had much more cross tide happening. At this point I suggested if anyone wanted a squid it was a good time to try. Loz and Liam both had a go. They managed five between them before returning to shads for bass, and those five took a little while. Later, that changed a lot.
Dolphins were also a part of this session, but happily were transiting at speed and went past and away without feeding.
Final tally was 29 bass landed. Plus those five squid. Plus Max had managed a wee coddie. Nice fishing even if no beasts. Perhaps they would show on the following sailing. it was time to welcome back Mark and his lad Ethan, and friends Sam and Ed. Out we went again, with a now ebbing tide.
I was quietly confident that as recent ebbs had been great, this would be straight forward. If only bass fishing were that predictable my life would be easier. Yet, everyone would be able to drop onto them and a specialist bass operation such as mine would not be needed. Nope. May they long be fickle and unpredictable. It makes catching them with consistency far more challenging, and as such, far more rewarding when it goes well. In short, they were not there.
Off on the hunt. Squid were immediately apparent and extremely aggressive. Quite possibly the reason the bass were scarce. They simply do not enjoy competition for food. And everywhere we went, we found squid. Even in shallow water. Indeed, we had to go sub 8 feet to begin finding bass.
We did also have a spot quite far out that happily bumped up the numbers, with double figures being boated. Just two of those were for the table though. Squid, well, Mark and I spent a very short time on them and put 11 big (they are all big now) Squid into the fish box. And Mark managed something he has wanted to do since he began fishing with me. He nailed his first BIF1 coddie.
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