Bass Time Again!!

It’s funny, for a month you try to avoid catching Bass and they jump on your line, then the season opens and it all goes quite. A high pressure system over Ireland created ideal conditions for east coast lure bassing, calm seas and clear water. With a four meter tide full in around eleven pm hopes were high.

Early morning lure caught bass, September 2008

The tide was making two hours when Gerry and I commenced fishing. A perfect balmy evening, we thought that the world and its wife would be out, but low and behold we had the beach to ourselves. Fishing surface lures over rocky kelp covered ground washed by a strong tide, not a take was had for the evening.

Surface lure fishing.

The lack of bass did not spoil the session as the sea was full of life. Shoals of mullet broke the surface giving us false hope, and seatrout leaped skywards waiting for the first flush of rain to draw them into the rivers. By eleven o’clock we called it a night. Lure fishing for bass in June along the south Wicklow/north Wexford coastline can be a bit hit and miss, things don’t normally pick up until mid July, with August/September the months to really put the time in.

Seatrout weighing 5.lb 2.oz, caught on a 32 gram silver kilty lure

Not giving up, a plan to fish an old mark the next morning had me rising early to meet the tide. Once the best bass venue on the east coast it has taken a hammering in recent years, unfortunately from ignorant anglers, we are not all holier than though. There was a time when other than those in the know you would not see a sinner on the mark and the bass fishing was superlative for fish averaging 5-6 lbs. One memorable evening a large seatrout led me a merry dance, weighing 5.lb 2.oz it graced a dinner party for nine friends the following evening.

Bass tackle

Again the fish were marked absent but no matter, my double haul technique is improving and the fly was fairly whistling out. Fishing flies, surface lures, and old fashioned kiltys the venue while looking fabulous didn’t deliver. Still its early days, my best fishing here has always been later in the summer, and a return on the next suitable tides is definitely on the cards.

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