Couldn't wish for much more!

The bass fishing has been a little slow for me in the last couple of months, so I have been focusing on mostly the gilthead bream and wrasse. Although this has been great fun, I had hoped I would be able to find a bass or two before leaving the UK for Tasmania for a year. 

My penultimate day failed to produce anything other than a few large mackerel, so I decided to try somewhere totally new for the final session. This spot is somewhere I noticed whilst walking the South West coast path a few weeks ago and made a note to check it out properly in the future. Arriving at the spot I couldn’t yet reach the rock I wanted to stand on, so passed the time searching for a wrasse whilst waiting for the tide to drop some more. About an hour later it was just about possible to get to “my spot”, and once there I eagerly cast out over new water. Having little knowledge of the terrain I was fishing over, I tried a few different lures. I had a couple of nips from wrasse, and a little bump on a metal, but nothing hooked up. With time pressing on I thought I would have one last cast and call it a day.

A couple of “last casts” later I packed up and turned back, but couldn’t bear the thought of ending my Cornish fishing on a low. I thought I would at least explore a little more, so carried on a little further. I soon came to a spot that looked very promising, I could see the kelp bed was not too deep down beneath the water’s surface, and a small gully cut through it running perpendicular to the tide- a perfect ambush spot. With my rod still rigged up I thought I may as well have a cast or two. Lure choice was easy- although many would have been suitable, I was drawn to my battered yellow Xorus Frosty.

I cast out and started working the lure, but once it settled into a wonderful side to side rhythm my eyes drifted away. I suddenly snapped back to the lure as the retrieve had been interrupted by what I can only assume a wonderful take! A good fish was thrashing the surface about 20 yards out, I was completely shocked. After a nice fight, I lifted the fish ashore and removed the frosty from its mouth. There was nowhere flat to lay a ruler so I decided to just release the fish 5 meters away from where I was fishing as there I could easily hold the fish in the water as it recovered. Soon enough, the fish regained strength and swam off strongly. I then returned to my rock to pick up my bag and rod, now totally happy that I could end on a high. You may wonder why I would even start to think about leaving after just landing a decent fish, but I was already well past “last cast”. However, what I saw next was more than enough to convince me to stay another 5 minutes…

As I approached my rock, I saw a large shoal of slow moving grey fish of various sizes in the water below. Mullet? Bass? I was crouching down at this point, behind a rock. They were not doing the mullet’s characteristic side flash, could they be bass? Only one way to find out, so I clipped on a Wagasaki xlayer and flicked it to where I had seen the shoal. 2 twitches later and bang, fish on. A schoolie was quickly brought in and released. Catching this fish had sadly spooked the large shoal of about 30 (visible) fish, there may have been more that I couldn’t see farther out. I cast a bit further this time, but nothing took. I took another cast even further, hoping to intercept the shoal again. This time I had a couple of bumps and then a fish took properly, resulting in another bass landed. By now I really had to leave, so called it a day and felt totally blessed. Bright sunshine, new spot, 3 lovely bass. A perfect end to my Cornish fishing for this year.