Obviously I don’t have nearly enough experience yet to tell you whether the whole creature bait thing (crab imitation or not?) is or is not a game changer for my bass fishing, but I do know that I now have what I so badly needed - confidence in this method because I broke my duck. Confidence that it really works, confidence to pursue this technique because - to me and quite possibly not you I might add - it makes so much sense, and confidence that this is indeed another effective and different way to go about this thing we call bass fishing. With a massive thanks to Marc Cowling and also a couple of anglers I know well who have been smashing good bass on these slightly strange soft plastics for a good while now, because I caught my first three bass on the lures last week before I headed over to Guernsey……………
Which in turn means that I have now given myself a license to really keep trying with these lures because of what I believe they can do for me in situations (and perhaps times of the year?) where other approaches seem to be less effective. I’ve seen a few bass caught on creature baits now, but you know as well as I do that you simply have to do it yourself to be able to fully believe as such, and because I got lucky enough to land a few fish on them I have now gained that vital jolt of confidence. For sure I am very fortunate because some kind and very skillful anglers have helped me out, hence I believe it is only polite and respectful to give the credit here to these people. I just did the actual catching.
I now have the belief that if I am fishing these lures like I have been shown how to do by some very good anglers - with plenty of wriggle room to keep experimenting of course - then if I don’t happen to catch I am not going to immediately start doubting the fact that shuffling what could well be some sort of crab imitation along the bottom is the wrong thing to be doing. I have seen bass caught on this method, I have now caught a whopping total of three bass via this method, and because by nature I am very inquisitive with my fishing and I want to learn all the time, I happen to think that this style of bass fishing is starting to open up some very interesting avenues………………
And quite possibly at times of the year in specific types of locations I would not normally fish for bass. We don’t know what percentage of a bass’s food source is made of crabs in an estuary system especially, but at a guess it’s got to be a fair amount, and especially during winter when there don’t seem to be many shoals of baitfish around. How many big bass do you hear of coming to say flounder or cod anglers who are fishing some of these waterways in the depths of winter when many lure anglers might not be out and about in estuaries especially? Me included I might add. What is the main food source of these bass which perhaps remain in these estuaries during the colder months?
Those three bass from last week together with what I regularly talk about with a few skillful anglers throws up any number of different questions about all this. You might or might not be interested in all this, but this blog was only ever meant to be the contents of an addled fishing brain so I am going to talk about the stuff I am fascinated by. Some anglers are going to dismiss the whole creature bait/crab imitation thing as yet another “fad” in bass lure fishing and carry on doing what they already do. Some anglers will give it a go and give up because they don’t catch fish, but from what I am seeing and hearing, a number of anglers are already starting to understand the potential here. Yep, there’s plenty more to talk about as this style of lure fishing for bass is literally developing and unfolding as we speak. This is why lure fishing for bass consumes me so much. One species of fish and so many different ways to go about doing it in so many different locations. Food for the brain and the soul……….