Yes, I know it’s now 2022 and the last bass season as such started way back in 2021 (even though it was a late start around here), but down here I consider the bass season as going into January at least if the conditions are favourable. Even so, I am pretty damn sure that 24th January is the latest I have landed a bass during what I happen to think of as just about the same bass season - with a profound thank you to Marc Cowling I might add…………..
There are obviously many different things which fascinate me about this whole bass fishing thing, but the one thing I don’t see talked about much but which seems to have almost crept up on us is how much longer the “bass season” is these days. I am sure there are a various reasons for this, but primarily I look at the fact that there are a lot of anglers who don’t have a traditional background in bass fishing - like me - and they have ripped the rule book up and proven that in some parts of the UK and Ireland, the “bass season” is often a whole lot longer than what was once assumed. Rather like catching wrasse on lures in a roundabout way. Increased levels of interest and new anglers without previous tradition based hangups can surely equal different ways of thinking?
Of course every single year seems to be rather different as regards what turns out to be the bass season, but somebody like Marc Cowling of the rather excellent South Devon Bass Guide service has taken the whole night lure fishing thing and run with it into times of the year that I would suggest hardly ever saw bass caught on lures. I would urge you to read Marc’s blog because he is very open and generous with how he goes about his bass fishing, and to be able to call Marc a friend who I seriously love talking all things bass fishing with is fantastic. He kindly asked me to come up and fish with him on Monday night.
We’re not talking heroic sizes or numbers of bass here but as ever I will continue to leave the more macho side of bass fishing to the experts and Facebook heroes anyway. Nope, for me it’s always about the people, the locations, the methods and what I can learn, the fish of course, and very much the overall buzz or experience. I got to catch up with Marc and we both landed a bass each in some lovely calm and quiet conditions, indeed it was so quiet I could hear a seal breathing somewhere close to me in the pitch black.
We both landed our bass on the white Gravity Stick Paddletail rigged on the 6/0 belly-weight hooks which obviously made my day or night as it actually was. I obviously work with Savage Gear and I am getting the chance to help make the stuff I actually want to fish with - so I’m going to do so when the gear is relevant to the situation - but Marc has kinda found his way to these Gravity Sticks on his own and it makes me really proud that he uses them so much for his fishing. Hell, his frigging monster of a bass that he landed late last year came on the white Paddletail - check here - and it’s some buzz to know that.
Both bass were caught in a lovely bit of current in some very clear water because we haven’t had any meaningful rain for a while now. I have caught bass into January before and a fish I hooked and lost locally around the middle of January a few years ago still kinda niggles me, but unless my memory is fading the bass I caught on Monday night is the latest I have caught a bass in a single season if that can be the case. I blogged about my first bass of the year the other day but it’s still January and I can’t help but treat that as part of the 2021 bass fishing season because of where I live. But I keep seeing reports of bass on lures from other parts of the UK that I would seriously suggest wouldn’t have even been fished for only a few years ago.
What I did get to do when we lost the current was start testing out my new camera system for night fishing photography. If photography is remotely your thing then you might have some idea how hard it is to shoot half-decent photos in the pitch black because you tend to be juggling a headlamp in one hand and then the camera plus flashgun in the other and it’s a bloody nightmare for framing up and focusing and so on. Not anymore though. I accept that photos of fishing at night aren’t the most creative images in the world, but I need to shoot them and I am driven to keep improving. This really will mean nothing to you if you don’t know flashguns and studio lights and so on, but a flashgun with built in modelling light combined with a camera that has the most accurate and trustworthy autofocus system I have ever used is a complete game-changer for me. Big thanks to Marc again, now for a February bass?
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