About time I got a break...

Well, due to a bit of recovery time I missed September and some of the months amazing tides and although I was told to wait 6 weeks I just couldn't ignore the conditions yesterday. Overcast, set for the day with a good tide at 1pm, had me scuttling off to my favourite daytime mark at this time of the year.

Conditions were just about perfect, and as an added bonus there was very little weed in the water as well.  I sat back and just soaked up the atmosphere. You will read that day tides and calm seas are not a good combination for bass, but I would suggest you give it a go as you may be surprised. Mackerel was the chosen bait on a light running ledger set-up exploring close in, with the odd exploratory cast further out.

About 1.5 hours before high tide I received a screaming run that tried its best to take the large mackerel head. Down the line I could almost feel its frustration, as it tried three times before giving up and moving on. Scaling down the bait size, I was rewarded with another take about 30 minutes later resulting in a bass of about 3lb. It gave me a lovely feisty battle, but due to my frozen right shoulder I was now struggling to hold the rod against the pull of the bass. Just don't ever get old!

I reverted back to the larger baits and just over high I received a run that I had almost forgotten about. It was slow, steady and ponderous - one that you really don't want to miss, and I didn't! The rod was yanked down hard to my left, and due to my shoulder, I quickly wedged the rod butt into my belly to gain some control. The fight continued in the top third of the water column, and in the clear water I could see every twist and turn. It looked huge, and I started to worry about the hook hold and everything else we all do when we hook a decent fish.

Once landed, I could see she wasn't as large as I thought, but it was still the best bass I've landed in about two years. She measured just over 24" to the fork in the tail, so around 6lb in my opinion. It was lovely to see her go back as strongly as she came in. Lovely stuff.