Red Eye Sessions

Last week saw a few of us take on a challenge......... road trip and fish devon and cornwall! Myself, James, John Barribal and the north devon bass fishing bandit Joel Squires had a fun couple days lined up. on the thursday Me and Jimbo headed up to north devon to have a days banter and fishing with North Devons Finest Bass Guide Joel Squires http://www.joelsoul.co.uk/ he's a fully insured bass guide with over 6years guiding under his belt up on that beautiful part of the world. we would be crambling around on the secret squirrel club rocks hoping to nail one of two spikey buggers.

as you can see the north devon coast is a demanding bit of coastline and i would highly recommend help from locals or a guide Joel. this fishing is about as fun as it gets as you can be a kid again scrambling in and around rocks casting in and around these stunning rocks and gullys which every inch just screams BASS! the ground here is fairly shallow so surface lures and shallow divers like Popkeys from IMA and X120's and X140's from Megabass are just what the doctor orders..... i started with the Popkey as this lure can be worked to chug just under the surface and in this choppy water i stuck on a Limited edition Candy flashing plate version which had a good amount of flash and bright colours to stand out in the white water crashing in and around the rocks. Joel sticking with his long range minnow type lures which certainly did the trick! i managed to rise a nice fish which tail slapped my lure right off the surface but i couldnt get the bloody thing to hit again...... in steps Joel :-(

flukey sh&t i swear i warmed that fish up ha ha ha good on you mate. after a spirited fight which i would of put money on the fish snapping Joel up on some rather frisky looking rocks right in from if us...... talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! after some quick photos this plumb 4lber was returned to fight another day, you cant beat seeing these fish swim off :-) the tide was pushing now and was time to head off to the next spot where after 10mins of me thrashing the water to a foam with my IMA Sazuke 140 up pops a face i didnt want to see...... and no i didnt mean the Ex Mrs it was a couple hundred pound seal...... :-( so that nailed that on the head! off to the next spot we go

now talk about out of this world fishing....... clambering along this rocks like a bunch of mountain goats it surely couldnt get any more remote and bass fishing bliss, i honestly couldnt care if we caught or not i just love being on places like this, and thats what i love about being one of the truly luck ones who does this on a regular basis i have some amazing memorys of being to places like this with like minded guys and above all friends! what more can you ask for? i actually managed pretty well to get every bass within 20miles to stay clear of my lures (doing my bit for the conservation of bass ;-) ha ha ha) after a couple hours playing around the weather decided it was time for us to stop our north devon adventure as the swell and wind had other ideas. still a fantastic days fishing with a top guy, thanks Joel your a star and look forward to joining you again soon either bassin or on my turf for the pike! please look this guy up a truly great guide and a true gent well worth hooking up with for a days guided bassin! http://www.joelsoul.co.uk/

so after a long drive home from North devon all the way to Ivybridge where me and James would grab some grub and a couple glasses of red before another early push friday morning down to meet with John Barribal owner of the Lure Heaven lure shop and of coarse his own online shop http://www.lureheaven.co.uk/ which stock pretty much all you could ever want for you modern lure angling! we had a quick poke around the shop looking at the lures he imports himself as well as the giants like Megabass, IMA, Savagear, Graphite leader and many more it was time to head off to some rock marks James and I had spoken about over the last few weeks it was finally time to get out and have a chuck! as you can see above it isnt the type of fishing you can just turn up and flick you lure out! you really do need to have your comman sense about you when venturing out like this to these marks....... pretty much most of this climb was shuffling around on your ass and all fours! not for the weak hearted thats for sure! remember fish arent worth your life be safe all three of us are experienced fisherman with many many years of this kind of stuff under our belts!

it wasnt long before we had fish nailing the lures.... on 3-4 occasions i had fish nail me on the drop fishing off a point where there was lots of busy water and they werent tiddler pollack thats for sure! after a few changes of lure from Megabass Flutta'bait the Savage sandeel and then i stuck to my guns and wacked on the trusty Owner SledHead weedless jig and a Megabass Giant Xlayer in smoke and glitter and i didnt have to wait for the fish to react well to this change! on the very first drop in to a good 30-40ft hole just off the rocks the rod slams over and iv got some good head shake and a charge but off it comes....... the very next cast i retrive slightly shallower hoping to hit a good Pollack or Bass rather than risk tackle loss with the monster rock pigs here, BANG im in!
heres a plump little 2lber which scrapped like a beast under the rod tip. awesome fun on my Sakura Mazerra 742ml to 21g and Shimano Stradic FG4000 loaded with sunline super PE 24lb a pure pleasure to use :-) you should of seen the colours on this whipper snapper while it was scrapping in the water..... an electric blue running through the fins and dark as night on its back a truly differnt fish when there yanked from the seas by us anglers! after some quick snaps it was returned for another day and behind me i could hear John into a fish too a small Pollack had nailed his Bait Breath lure on the Owner 3/16 OZ Sledhead too. it the day was flying by and we wanted to up anchor and head to the north coast of cornwall to get some gawjus sun set scenes over the wild storm beaches and hopefully a bass or two......
but as again you can see here good old mother nature had other ideas........ the winds had ment to of swung due south but plainly had stuck at southwesterlys which gave us some interesting coastal conditions....... now im a lure junky and to be honest there is much i wont fish within reasons but i must say im proud to admit when nature has beaten me! Me Jimbob and John scrambled down some ledges in search of some rocks to attack the seas but from up here it looks rough as a tivvy rave caves lass's undercrackers but trust me when your stood on the ledges with wind, swell and choppy seas its a different ball game, you canb usually fish two of these conditions but all three work against you to a point its hopeless. we pissed around in hope but then pops up a pair of seals and then a pod of dolphins GAME OVER.we moved off to this stunning beach which had gullys and deep holes dotted all over it just as the light was dropping, while Jimbo and John shot some product shots i did what i do best and scrambled across the muscle beds in search of Bass but it just didnt happen, i think if we had been here a hour before so the water wasnt so low it would of been a different story! all in all a brilliant days fishing here in sunny cornwall and by this point the looks on mine and James face said it all we had just about ran out of energy after this two day long fishing marathon covering Devon and Cornwall with some of the most back breaking cliff stomps and the most beautiful surroundings you could ask for! if you want a adventure head down our way for some awesome fishing in the salty stuff!