Bassing Adrian Stylie.......

Well not much time before christmas for the Bass fishing to still come up trumps! with the colder weather heading in rapidly! but as usuall my good mate Adrian certainly made me want to dust off the Sea gear again after fishing Ireland...... heres a short report of what you could call a "GOOD" session :-)

Friday afternoon......leave work early.........go home, grab gear.........arrive at local Dorset mark.......conditions good (what wind there was was offshore, good tide flow, clear water, about 2ft swell and no chop, cloudy/sunny spells).......1st cast, thought I saw a swirl near where my lure landed, no takes....2nd cast, 2lb bass on......3rd cast, 1-1/2lb bass on........4th cast, no takes........5th cast 3lb14oz bass on

and so it continued. After 21 casts I'd landed 10 bass and 1 pollack. Then it went quiet as the tide slowed, the wind swung round to sideshore, chop started to build. Stopped counting casts, but ended up with 16 bass, 4 pollack and 3 gars. what an afternoon! Adrian tells me that most Bass were taken on the great IMA K2 in blood orange i believe, theses lures are the nuts and simply work where most other lures just dont get a sniff. I have 4-5 K2's and they really do catch fish, doesnt matter if your chasing Bass or chucking this lure in the fresh stuff it tracks well and can be fished in a variety of ways check them out along with the rest of the IMA range at http://www.basslures.co.uk/

I'd say that concludes a impressive Bass session by anyones means! im hoping to get out Bassin this coming weekend so keep ya eyes peeled. Cheers Adrian for forwarding me some stuff keep at it :-)

Danny

Channel Critters

Well this isnt lure fishing by any means but still i get offered the chance to wrestle Ugly, Smelly, violent and evil creatures and i dont mean the Girls around pubs on a fri nite, Conger Eels....... me and my Bro headed up to north somerset last nite in search of Congers and Cod. we arrived at the various possible venues bang on high tide planning to fish it down and couple hours back up after low water. all the venues were packed by noddies and local anglers! iv never seen a North coast venue soooooo packed with anglers, they even had a burger van :-)

once we had stocked up on Fridge raiders and cola we headed to the spot we knew had the fish running close enough to be able to cover them with our casts, the fish at this venue are always between 75 and a 100yards off the beach. as you can see from the photo above you really have to pile on the pressure here as the fish try and pile into the big stones that litter this coastline and they WILL snap you off if the get in the rough stuff. it didnt take long before i had my first bite! literally 5mins aftwer my first cast my rod nodded over and smashed over and after a quick spirited fight the first Conger was landed! a fish of about 6lb not a monster but a handfull of angry Biting Eel.......
after a few dropper runs and shy bites the tide really started to crack on and our Fav time of the tide was starting to creep up on us..... i had another steamer of a bite which ended up on me being bitten off by yet another Eel, then as you can see abouve my Bro managed to nail a small Codling at super long range where we knew they would be shoaling at low water. its always good to see the cod showing again after a rough period for the species around UK shores. we managed to nail another big Flubber while trying for the Cod and i lost another decent fish while reeling it in over rough ground. we stuck it out for a couple hours more and decided to call it a day. Always good to try different types of fishing, shore fishing like this isnt really my cuppa tea but all in all a great night out with some nice fish thrown in the mix.

"oohhhh we do love to be beside the seaside"

Just returned from my second trip to Ireland this year, me and Martin headed out a couple weekends ago for two weeks of smashing Pollack, Coalfish, Maks and Wrasse with some PB's thrown in for good measure! we fished a different part of Ireland than when me and Adrian fished the Beara earlier in the summer. this was a totally different back drop to the wild southwest coast but all together beautifull suroundings to chuck some lures around! we even had the weather on our side with only two days deciding to piss it down on us!

we nailed Pollack on every session didnt blank at all! there was'nt the numbers of large Pollack like the beara but we did 20-30 fish a session on numerous sessions with Pollack between 4 and 6lb coming out most days with the odd larger one screaming line off the reels every now and then. we fished mostly wild rock ledges and reefs all stuffed with fish of all sizes, all willing to smash ya lures from soft plastics to surface lures the pollack loved it! on the first session we even smashed the hard fighting Coalfish. no real biggies but had them to around pound and a half, great fun on our light lure gear!

This Pollack which just bumped over the 6lb mark did the usuall dirty Pollack style take and fight! took right under the rod tip and steamed off 20ft of braid easy! its crazy how tough these fish are, pike this size dont even come close to the exsplosion off anger and charge these fish have when they have the kelp! i had 9 Pollack from this mark all between 4 and 6lb as well as my PB Wrasse which was caught on a soft plastic from Lunker City. all the Pollack took MegaBass Xlayers jigged in the deep holes close to the near rock ledges which are tackle grave yards you really have to bang the pressure on these hard fighting fish! check out the beast of a wrasse

We nailed lots of Wrasse on this trip on lures proving that it can be done, if you find the right swims and the right lures they really do abuse ya on light gear! we had most of our wrasse on jigs using 4-5inch grubs or as you can see a 7inch lunker city Fin-s fish!! i even had a wrasse on a surface lure while fishing one of the shallow reefs to the north of our holiday flat! iv never taken wrasse on surface lures just shows how aggressive these Ballans can get! check out the photo of this wrasse Martin nailed on a storm rattle grub on 5inch.

Nailed or what!!!

we found endless coves and points where you can chuck the lures in the right conditions and even the shallow little nooks and crannys produced some monsters! Martin nailed some clonking Pollack in one venue to a cracking 8lb! again on grubs fished tight to the reefs tackle loss was high but worth the risk when nailing fish like these, the storm grub winning again while i nailed fish to 5lb on the xlayers

Xlayers being my best catcher, in various sizes this lure rigged right just murders most fish that swim our seas and even the not so obvious colours doing the business

It wasnt all wild fishing we had some of our best catch's from the multiple small Harbours dotted around the place with fish 4-6lb cropping up nearly everywhere! the best bit is these places are totally neglected by all the anglers over here! anyone willing to put the tim in and venture off the beated tracks will be amazed at what can be had! both me and Henry Gilbey have said before its just plain crazy why its not more popular!

we also fished a fair bit in the hours of darkness which again is still unheard of over here we got some funny looks from the locals walking out to the spots armed with lure gear in the pitch black! but remember that this is such a dangerous coastline even in the day, the most experienced anglers can get into trouble here! so this sort of fishing is best left to guys who know there stuff! we fished mostly rough seas where we knew the pollack will be in close and smashing the baitfish which are shoaled up hiding from the mental seas i managed Pollack to 7lb in the pitch black truly heart stopping stuff when you cant see anything around you!

check out the scenery we were lucky enough to fish you cant beat sun sets like this in these beautiful suroundings! heres Martin gearing up for another night session which is always great when the conditions come good! this is proof that people should really be seeing this with there own eyes!
All in all a brill two weeks away fishing some amazing venues in the most amazing scenery you really cant beat this! cant wait to get back over there next year with Adrian again to put the Pollack back on the rocks bring it on!!