
Fish of the day - 6.5lb for Tabatha
There are often patterns to my sessions that I can follow. For a while. Fish in a certain location in certain conditions for example. However, it is a fact of life that there are many things that affect bass, even somebody such as myself, who spends an awful lot of time with them, cannot predict, and often cannot understand. After some good fishing the previous evening, I took Natasha and Josh out with extreme confidence. Snag was, although there was a LOT of fish around, it was mostly bait fish and mackerel. I mean, really, so much smashing and splashing on the surface. But whereas 24 hours prior it was bass, this time there was hardly a bass to be seen. 3 hours of hard fishing, with good, experience rods fishing well, plus my own efforts, for just a single schoolie plus mackerel. Such a lovely couple as well, I felt very bad for my failure. As I explained when we said our goodbyes, "The next session will be completely different". Because the last thing I will do is attempt to repeat a failed routine on the very next session.

Which is how Tabatha, and her lad Sylvester, came to have a pretty damned good session by all accounts. Both can be considered fishing virgins, although to be fair, I got hints of some fishy shenanigans by Tabatha on family holidays as a child. But non-anglers are my favourite things. Especially when they listen, as both these soon to be quite good anglers most certainly did. And from it, bass every drift. Tabatha had a nice one, weighed at 6.5lb . Sylvester did very well indeed, with both bass and mackerel, including a couple of better bass. All in all, a quite wonderful session, and I think possibly not the one hoped for new angler from it (Sylvester) but from the sheer glee I witnessed in Tabatha's face, Im going for two new anglers into the fold.

3rd sailing continued the pace. Jon was back, and joining him were Jason and Jack, his 15 year old (I think they were trying for some student discount, he looked 25) son... Back to the same spot, and the fish were still feeding, if slightly slower paced. And again, some really nice fish all round, plus plenty of mackerel for the table. Another 6lb fish, for Jason.

4th sailing, and I pushed my luck. The mackie brothers James and Conran onboard, joined by Tim and his lad, Louis. We did find more fish out on that mark, with a nice one for James, typically doing everything different to my advice, and finding a four pound fish on a big HTO Arctic eel. But we then had to run around, and finally found some reasonable fishing, among too much smashing mackerel much closer to home. And OMG... what a sunset!!!! All in all an excellent day, although I am still sad that Josh and Tash did not enjoy the fishing, that their poor session set in motion. I hope they will come see me again, and let me make amends.

Spaces on all sailings tomorrow, and on the 0930 sailing on Sunday. 07970 112774 to get on board.




