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21 Posts
Four friends and I spent a marvellous, although fruitless, early mornings fishing off the north Norfolk coast at Weybourne yesterday. The sea was almost like a mill pond. A gentle ripple with with waves lapping abainst the shingle. Most notably the water was gin clear.
Initially I noticed a large dorsal and tail fin cutting slowly through the water about 25m off shore. It was cruising slowly and running parallel to the beach. It was not interested in our lures.
About half an hour later we came into a series of frenzied shoals of whitebait. They appeared to move up and down the beach as if being penned in and herded by what I can only assume were either bass or mackerel.
These shoals kept us busy until we left a few hours later but no one fish was interested in anything we cast out. We cast in front of and behind the shoals, nothing. We tried all the lures we had plus feathers, nothing. Where did we go wrong?
Are bass like trout in that when they are feeding/gorging on a particular source they will look at nothing else? If this is so is there a lure that is a good representitive of a whitebait?
To cap it all, Giles found a large bass lolling in the shallows. He passed my feed shallow minnow in front of it's nose several times to no avail. It saw it but just sat there unmoving. In exasperation and thinking it might possibly have been ill he gave it a prod with his rod tip. ( Yes, it was that close) Immediately it woke up and buggered off into deeper water. Giles was not a happy bunny. We concluded it must have been having a bit of a nap after a rather large breakfast.
I imagine it can be put down to "just one of those days" but I would be interested to know if other members experiences of similar events were the same or if there are better tactics out there.
Cheers,
Andy B
Initially I noticed a large dorsal and tail fin cutting slowly through the water about 25m off shore. It was cruising slowly and running parallel to the beach. It was not interested in our lures.
About half an hour later we came into a series of frenzied shoals of whitebait. They appeared to move up and down the beach as if being penned in and herded by what I can only assume were either bass or mackerel.
These shoals kept us busy until we left a few hours later but no one fish was interested in anything we cast out. We cast in front of and behind the shoals, nothing. We tried all the lures we had plus feathers, nothing. Where did we go wrong?
Are bass like trout in that when they are feeding/gorging on a particular source they will look at nothing else? If this is so is there a lure that is a good representitive of a whitebait?
To cap it all, Giles found a large bass lolling in the shallows. He passed my feed shallow minnow in front of it's nose several times to no avail. It saw it but just sat there unmoving. In exasperation and thinking it might possibly have been ill he gave it a prod with his rod tip. ( Yes, it was that close) Immediately it woke up and buggered off into deeper water. Giles was not a happy bunny. We concluded it must have been having a bit of a nap after a rather large breakfast.
I imagine it can be put down to "just one of those days" but I would be interested to know if other members experiences of similar events were the same or if there are better tactics out there.
Cheers,
Andy B