How To Catch A PB Bass In Dirty Water
So after a few disappointing blanks, I decided to take a day off and fish the morning low. Even though there was relatively no wind the water clarity wasn’t that great. But that was the reason why I went – here’s why.
The day before my fishing buddy Steve Wood had gone first thing in the morning and had quite a result. The conditions were the same. Steve had had them off the surface the last time we fished together – I had blanked.
6 Fish In The Morning Session
After that morning session (on his own) he ended up with 6 fish all in the 50 to 60cm margin – a productive day to say the least. But what grabbed my attention was that he’d sped up his retrieve to combat the shallow water, to avoid the snags. Blow me down this worked. Another one of my theories was blown out of the water. But in my defence, I never get to fish in the daytime anyway. I’m a nighttime slow retrieve lure fisherman. After all, that’s what has worked for me in the past.
First Light Is The Way Forward
So I find myself up at the crack of dawn (I’m always up at that time anyway – to feed the cats) then out to meet Mr Wood. He was on fire at the mo so I needed to find some form to catch him up.
We headed across the vast set of rocks and water to the mark where we’d be fishing. The may rot was awful on the way out, it was far worse around the shoreline in the water. The water had a brown tinge to it, sure the bass wouldn’t be feeding in this scum.
As we started fishing it wasn’t long before Steve Wood was in. The first fish of the day – around the 50cm mark. He’d caught this fish on a made-up lure – a White Savage Gear V2 tail on a Skerries eel jig head. In that cloudy water – this was promising to say the least.
So remembering how other anglers had done well in murky water, I stuck on a Pink Weedless Savage Gear V2 Sandeel. I’d had only a couple of casts and bang! Fish on. All that I could think was ‘DON’T COME OFF’. Yes, the last time I’d fished with Steve Wood he’d caught 3 to my zero. Then, to cap it off – I’d lost one right at the last knockings. Argh!
My luck continued – this was going to be my day, I went on to catch 6 in total. This was amazing fishing. I had never had any luck using a Pink lure before. What a relief, as I mentioned earlier, I had had a run of blanks.
Then, it just seemed to go dead, the fish had gone off the boil. So I decided a change in lure’ could do the trick. I looked in my lure box for another lure then picked out the ‘Pays Bass JJ Minnow. These lures seem extremely hard to get hold of – a great sign that this is great to have in your arsenal.
The JJ Minnow Nailed The Fish
I had only caught once before on this lure before and that was in the dark of the night. This was the chart or lemon back version. I cast this 17-gram lure out, with just a few turns of the handle I was in. Wow! Off she went. I knew this was a pretty good fish immediately, but in all fairness, some of my other fish put up good accounts of themselves.
Then Steve Wood was into fish too. This was a double hook-up. Now the panic started to set in as my fish was right in front of where Steve was fishing. But luckily we didn’t cross lines and get tangled up, then by now, my fish was off to the left of me.
The violent headshakes carried on, and then I saw its mouth emerge from the water.
“FUCKIN HELL THIS IS A GOODUN” I shouted out”.
Hard Work Landing The Fish
I finally grabbed the leader to steer this fish into a rockpool ready to be measured then returned. This was going to be my new PB for lure fishing. I’d had a much bigger fish bait fishing but that was bait fishing it didn’t count for lure fishing.
What a powerhouse of a fish, bang on 70cm beating my previous PB of 67cm. This glorious bass was in immaculate condition too. Watching this beast cruise off into that murky water was amazing that memory will stay with me forever, well, until the next PB anyway.
