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Have not posted for a while but feel I need to share this one with you. Have over the last month or so been studying the movements of Bass around my favorite area. And this culiminated in landing my new personal best last sunday. Through understanding where the bass are moving I have been able to intercept passing shoals en-route to an area they stay in for the second half of the pushing tide. This has been great as you can stand in one spot and just keep doing what youre doing until they pass and inevitably like clockwork they pass. From this location have had some great sport with fish up to 5lb, nearly all falling to the giant xlayer on decoy violence weedless jig heads. This has been my mainstay for weeks now but I recently wondered where the fish were heading to. After hitting the spot at low and fishing it up to 2hrs after low I decided to move 1/2 mile along the coast to a completely different shore set up. I felt this would be the place the bass were heading as there is a natural corral point for bait fish that the bass are hounding. The corral feature are lines of boulders going out into the sea from a sandy beach. I have been working the patchinko2 yellow (the mutts nuts) along the lines of boulders just as the tide has been covering them over and have been almost instantly into fish or have had numerous bumps and violent swirls. Last sunday got to the boulders at about half tide and hopped out along the boulders until I got to where the water was just submerging them. 2nd cast and fish on 2lb but smacked the lure like a freight train. Over the next 15mins had several hits and bumps, often two fish having a crack at the lure at the same time! But no hook ups. All the while I was being pushed back along the boulders by the tide. I made a cast out over the opposite line of boulders and retrieved in my usual violent manner but was distracted by something on the beach behind me and turned and looked over my shoulder. By doing this I left the patchinko motionless on the surface about 15 m in front of me. As I looked back to my lure I just caught sight of the flank of a large bass that had just plucked my lure off the top. Not a violent take but just reminded me of a carp taking bread off the surface. I wound down into it and as soon as he felt me he went bezerk. I instantly realised this was the biggie and after a good 5 mins of fight and bowing to him I felt I had cracked the back of him and as I was now stood on a boulder knee deep in water realised I had to walk him back to a dry rock or the beach. I just managed to hop the submerged rocks back to the last dry one and finally got a grip on him and lifted him out. Needles to say I was shaking like a leaf and whooping for joy at the sight of him in my hand and landed! 74 cms and 8 1/4 lb smashing my previous best of 5.5lb. Funny thing was that afternoon picked up a copy of sea angler and read Mr Gilbeys article all about leaving top waters when the bass are not hooking up on worked top waters. My usual recently when I land a PB fish is that I chuck my phone in the sea after taking pics of them but the gods were on my side this day and hopefully bad karma has turned a blind eye!! Heres the pics (crap nokia phone).
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