Put me on a few specific marks over in Ireland at the right state of tide with some decent conditions and I feel about as confident of catching or at least seeing a mate catch bass as is possible in fishing. By no means am I any kind of experienced angler at chucking lures at night, but I feel that I have just about done enough of it in Ireland now to warrant those levels of confidence. I have a heap to learn, but because I have caught a bunch, I feel confident. The fact is though that I have simply not done enough night based lure fishing around where I live to have a similar level of confidence yet, but it’s getting there - hence my nearly falling off a rock the other night when a not very big 2lb bass impaled itself on my lure………
I am no different to any of you here - catching fish breeds confidence, end of. I read around fishing and communicate with all manner of different anglers all around the world, and I guess by reading this blog you are kinda reading around your fishing as well. We can read and learn by various means until our heads are fit to burst with information, but it counts for little unless you actually go out and catch some fish because you’ve used that information.
I can’t pretend that I want to fish as much at night as I do in the daytime, and this is primarily down to my creative urges as a photographer and how the dead of night and not really wanting to chuck a load of bright flash around for various fishing and creative reasons don’t exactly combine to creatively stir me. But I am as much an angler as I am a photographer, and yes, sometimes it’s just bloody good to catch fish regardless of the light - or lack of it of course. In no way have I sussed out as such my local bass fishing at night on lures, but nothing beats getting out there and giving it a bit of a go.
So there I was on Friday night, standing on a particular rock that I like at a particular state of tide (see here) and I’ve gone through a few different lures and techniques I suppose, but not a sniff. It’s flat calm, plenty dark enough, and in the last couple of days the May bloom has just cleared up around us. What freaks me out slightly here is that I had used the “usual” white senkos etc. but hadn’t had a sniff, so I change lures and hook that epic 2lb bass on the first chuck with the new lure. OK, so my confidence levels have gone up a very important notch, but my brain can’t help but slightly wonder if it was the lure change that did for the bass, or was it a simple case of whatever lure suddenly being in the right place at the right time because that shark like bass was suddenly where I cast and on the hunt?
As I said, I read around the fishing that interests me as much as I can, and a lot of what I read about night fishing with lures almost anywhere in the world revolves around black lures being your go-to colour as such when there is no daylight around, and wind them in dead slow of course. Over in Ireland I am most confident with a white senko clipped on the end of my leader when we are night fishing though - and not wound dead slow at all - and as per the screenshot above, that’s the exact colour of lure I clipped on last Friday and hooked that whale on the first chuck with it (not fished dead slow either) - it’s an IMA iBORN 98F Shallow, a lure that I couldn’t help but love the look of the first time I saw it when some clients of ours bought some off Absolute Fishing in Tramore on their way down to us in Kerry last October. Anyway, whatever it may have been as regards lure, place and timing, of most importance to me was catching a bass at night not far from my house. A shot of confidence to do lots more of it in the future, and I can’t ask for more than that really.