Bass Drunk

The kettle bubbles over followed by a satisfying click, the crackling of the woodburner becomes apparent again alongside the whizzing of the fan atop. November howls against the thin walls of our caravan. Nested cosily in the armchair, I'm musing upon the glorious passed summer that we've enjoyed and the nostalgia of the trips that are now passing like the sycamore leaves outside. One in particular stands out, the sentiment of which is disclosed below...

It was approaching the end of September, neither Stuart nor myself had been graced with particularly respectful sized bass yet this season, and academic commitments were set to pick up over the following weeks. Driven half mad, half in awe, by the sight of a large bass breaching a foaming pool of water in the dawn light a week prior, narrowly dodging the trebles of the big patch topwater, we found ourselves travelling west in the evening light, with only one target in mind. The rear seats of the car had been removed, replaced instead with a plethora of rods, tent, lure boxes, and just enough carbs to compliment the inevitable mackerel that would intercept our otherwise intended lures. We chatted giddily, musing over marks that we had spotted on OS maps over the week, the blazing pink sunset over our head.

Arriving at our usually empty mark minutes before dark, it seems things were slightly different from previous trips here. Whilst the gravel and fragmented brick track is almost always all but empty, we struggled to find a space to squeeze the Skoda into (our home for these few days). We gathered from a couple of anglers wandering up that word had got out about quite the frenzy going off over the beach, and there was talk of each angler having had 4+ bass each, even on crude tactics, and one particularly greedy angler waddling under his load of two bulging carrier bags of ~80 mackerel. Running down to our selected mark, clutching our rods and lure boxes perhaps more precariously than we ought, we began to flick our offerings into the gently rising surf. But after perhaps three casts each, disillusionment crept into our conscious under the now dark clouded night. Where was this frenzy, we'd each been here with far more activity going on than to deserve such attention on this particular evening. After ten casts we were still coming up blank, and I wandered over to Stuart, this was not the way we anticipated beginning our weekend epic. Our empty reward for arriving late was evident; on the tide line, in amongst the usual strand of kelp, smoothed branches and less savoury items of litter there was a gleaming band of thousands of sprats, apparently pushed up onto the beach, escaping now unseen assailants. We ended up pitching the tent around the 22nd hour of the day under the sea wall of the beach, rods leaning over us. All we had to show for our efforts was a solitary mackerel for Stuart, which he was fishing the head of in the surf whilst I succumbed for the night.

The form of Stuart casting towards the unknown, silhouetted simply by moonlight.

Silver jewels washed up in the surf.

Stuart with the mackerel that saved a complete blank, incidentally we have very few photos of mackerel, perhaps it's time we looked anew at this common yet magnificent scombrid. 

The next morning started at 5am, a veritable lie-in given that we just had to slip out of the tent and grab the rod, no fears of needing to muster the concentration for an early drive. I started by blasting out a new lure for my box, a sea trout lure made by Tailwalk that had been kindly gifted by Ben of The Art of Fishing. It looked like the absolute ticket for this steep beach, casting far out into the surf and wobbling seductively through the column on the retrieve. When the steady rhythm of cast, retrieve, walk ten yards, repeat, had been carried out ten times I looked instead to paddle tail shads- perhaps this would give the pulsing of the tail was what was needed to trigger any solitary fish to take a look. It wasn't until the first glance of rising light upon the horizon some time later that things were looking in our favour. Maybe three hundred yards along the beach, there was a great wailing cry of tens of circling herring gulls and the odd black headed gull.

Shouldering my sandhopper covered pack, I ran, part waddling, as well as I could in wellies and with a long, fragile rod of carbon in hand. Placing my pack down into the sand, hopefully above the surf line. Looking down at the rising waves racing over the shingle, hundreds of small silver sprats were twitching, exposed from their watery home. Adrenaline was now coursing through my blood, reaching my giddy hands, reaching for a small 15g metal to match these baitfish. No sooner had this offering been twitched back towards the feeding shoal, than a series of rapid punches on the line were converted to a take with a sweeping rise. Unsurprisingly, the culprit was found to be boisterous mackerel, now embarrassed out of the feeding crowd.

One that went a little too far.

This was soon followed by another, and another, a fish a cast, the lure barely time to sink to the bottom. Switched to the Frosty topwater, more mackerel. The tailwalk, you guessed it: yet more mackerel. In the desperate bid to find bass in amongst this feeding fray I tried clipping a 25cm slug intended for Norwegian cod, funnily enough this was left well alone by everything. Meanwhile, further down the beach Stuart had his brain well engaged to what was going on under the surface. With all the frenzied behavior of the mackerel near beaching themselves in the waves in pursuit of the sprats any economically minded bass would be picking off the larger distracted mackerel rather than bothering with smaller sprats. So out he sent a livebait mackerel back into the tussle, circle hook perched between its jaws. He was rewarded for his thinking here with a veritable barrel of a bass, a real fat individual, stuffed with so much baitfish a pin might have burst it like a balloon, the tail 10 inch livebait poking out of its gob like the cigar of a certain overweight historical British Prime Minister. 

One very plump bass and one very happy angler!

I mimicked this move, but soon after, as the morning sun began to rise higher, the feeding balls were drifting further from the shore and disbanding for another day, the prior chaos only distinguished from a wild fantasy by the litter line of many thousands of sprats along the beach. Not wanting to follow suite in the greed of certain anglers the night before we decided to settle for four fine mackerel, two for breakfast and two for the coolbox. We also made good use of all the hard work put in by these mackerel, gathering perhaps a hundred or so sprats fresh from the sand for dinner later, before allowing the wheeling gulls to perform their tidying role. A simple breakfast of mackerel and sea beet boiled in seawater went down most pleasantly, before we packed the tent, rods and packs, and set to head further west.

An obligatory trip was made to Penzance Morrisons, and we skulked through the shelves of food like an excited pair of misbehaving schoolboys, knowing how we stuck out from the usual shoppers in our already bedraggled state. Essentials of doughnuts, flour, bread, and oil were soon packed into the car as we set out to a stretch of coastline that we had fancied during a scan over OS maps. Sliding the car into a layby, we made our march towards the coast. Soon a trickle of sweat was making its way steadily down my back, as we stepped out from the fence of blackthorn that had guided our way, into a plateau of heathers, gorse and grasses. Out before us appeared the representations of the map in actuality, a steep shoulder of granite tumbling towards the sea with a playground of rocky pinnacles dispersed about it. We made our way over amongst a company of fell runners, overtaking some along the uphill in our eagerness to flick a lure into the sea, and once at the head of the cliff began the technical descent. Digging heels into hooks of the granite, passing the rods between us for more risky pitches and no small dose of bledding shins from brambles woven into the gorse eventually gave way to a gloriously tumbled stretch of coastline. We each took our positions, hopping atop boulders to reach the water ahead.

Stuart sight fishes a soft plastic for wrasse through a gully.

With a steady flow of current pushing around from the right and a cutting wind from the left, casting the lure into the pockets of boulders was no easy feat and seemed to me more akin to fishing the powerful flow of a river than the usually open expanse of sea. Plop, the lure lands behind one pinnacle of rock directly ahead, perhaps two feet from the dragging fronds of attached kelp. The steady rhythm of the sea washes up the rock, causing these fronds to dance in submission, as I steadily twitch the lure backwards towards me. The Frosty topwater lure is retrieved with steady taps over the reaching grasp of kelp forests below, hiding a multitude of crevices and gullies, mind racing at great silver predators waiting in ambush below for any baitfish unfortunate enough to get disorientated in the washing machine of water. Bringing the topwater right up to my feet, my mind is still stuck on the beast of a fish that caught me off guard a week earlier right under the rod tip, dodging the poised hooks. This cycle is repeated, to this pinnacle and that, until a splash signals interest less than a foot from the lure. A couple of small taps are given to stimulate another attack, while holding the lure in the danger zone. Bang, fish on! Steadily playing back my first bass of the weekend, I’m delighted to see even this small individual slip into my reach. Stuart has just rounded the 4 metre boulder to check on my progress as the fish had been unhooked, taking the obligatory photos before slipping it back unharmed to the marine forest below. 

The first fish from a new mark is always special, regardless of size. Incidentally this ragged shirt is perhaps my favourite for all the stick that it has gardened from a perpetually more shabby state, pushing the boundaries on what constitutes 'worn'. I'm sure it'll still be in use next season. 

This cycle is repeated a few more times, until with a groan and sigh, the inevitable struck. Pulling in hope, the lure clip knot proved itself the weakest member of the team, Frosty still visibly hooked into a tail of kelp on a far exposed rock. Not willing to forfeit the Frosty with much of the weekend yet to go, eyes were fixed upon the rock as I stripped down for the rescue mission. In truth I’m an avid sea swimmer, and this was just a good excuse for a bit of gentle adventure, as the cool water sent adrenaline rushing through my veins and heightened my senses. Pushing through the dense kelp, it was easy enough to find my precious Frosty and the offending strand of kelp. Planting both feet firmly upon the rock to steady myself from being raked against limpets and barnacles, the holdfast eventually gave way. Disentangling myself from the groping knots of kelp, I swam victoriously back towards shore, kelp grasped in my jaws like a well-behaved canine returning a stick to its owner. All this was used as a good excuse for a spot of lunch, as I dried in the gentle warmth of the Cornish autumnal sunshine.

 

Success!

Although we wandered a little further along the tumbled stretch, no more bass were hooked before the next mark beckoned us. We both agreed that a little more water, perhaps an hour or so later with the rising tide, would surely bring this spot to life. Even so, the location had been proven with one small bass, and we make note for a return visit. The car, now quite the state of disarray ,was trundled a little further along the coast, slung into a quiet layby that has the very definite smell of urea, perhaps a favourite benighting location for cheap campervan inhabitants? In the dipping light of autumnal early evening we made our way down steep grassy slopes, planting our feet in holes of soil as steps that we pray will hold. Hold they do, and before us the slope reveals a steep rocky platform, with great tongues of waves pushing up the sides even in this low swell. Wind had now dropped to a meagre 3-6mph north easterly, with the cliff offering us perfect shelter even from this.

The mighty Pudwell soon hooks into his first bass, giving a nod of assurance over this mark that he had previously scouted. He soon has another, and then yet another. Taking note of the 15g 4 inch shad doing the business, I switch over to copy this as closely as I may. Stuart lands another bass, my retrieve returns empty. By the time Stuart has had his 5^th bass casting into the very same water as myself, I can’t decide what I’m feeling: half delighted by this ridiculous state or half mad that I can’t seem to buy my way into the action, but certainly not feeling any bites. After a few words from Stuart on the theory on the ‘sink and draw retrieve’, something I had thought that I’d been practicing in my fishing to this point, it was time to think hard, really visualize how the lure is moving through the column, the movement imparted by each maneuver of the rod. Studying the motions of Stuart’s Nasci, I keyed into the steady pressure and feeling of the lure, keeping in touch with the fast downwind before a steady sweep of the rod. 

Jammy sod and a great angling mind.

Tap. Finally, a sign of some action. Cast again, tap tap, bang. Fish on and worked back towards the rocky shelf, a little teamwork is employed between the two of us to see it in. I have few times been so happy to see a fish in the net, and of course after a photo it is slipped back to the cauldron below. This fish is soon followed by a few others in quick succession, now that I have keyed in on the critical technique. Stuart, now on his 10^th bass here and eager to punch through to some bigger fish, has deployed a live bait once again, hoping to repeat the morning’s proceedings. Meanwhile I’m keen to crack the hard tailwalk bullet, knowing that there were fish in front that would surely respond positively once I worked out the most seductive retrieve. A straight retrieve, much like that favoured for a metal over a sandy beach mark, brought consistent bites from mackerel. Meanwhile, jigging it deep over unseen gullies of rock brought several snatches from pollock, far too many of which were lost before reaching our casting position. Examining the treble attached to the rear and placing its dimensions within the strike of a theoretical predatory attack, it seems that this hook is rather undersized for the lure, and a larger single plugging hook would not only more likely give a decent hookup but would also make leverage off once hooked more difficult. Switching to this arrangement with a 3/0 decoy plugging single, the bullet is let fly towards the horizon. A definite switch occurs, with the percentage of registered bites converted to takes and number of fish successfully banked shooting upwards. Alongside some half decent pollock, our usual friends, the mackerel, manage to nail themselves on the single hook. 

'I think this'll be the last cast, it just seems to be a mackerel and pollock catcher... Stuart, good fish on!'. A larger fish has dead slammed the tailwalk as I retrieve with a jerky sink-draw and is now holding its own, taking the fight over to the left, pealing the odd couple of yards of line from the spool. Not wanting to get excited before the fish is fully landed, great exclamation of relief was given as Stuart kindly grabbed the leader for me and swung the fish up to more stable ground. While still by no means a monster, this fish of 49cm was a stamp above the other fish we’d caught that evening. All the more, the single hook was lodged with a bomber hook hold square in the upper engulfing jaw of the bass. As the light dipped deeper down, the pollock came out to play with Stuart christening a Fiiish Crazy Sandeel with a few nice fish. Even here though the action began to dim with the fading sun and breaking through of the night’s first twinkling stars. Bubbling in discussion of the success of the evening, we stop only to admire the bumbling form of a badger roaming though the low heathland vegetation, passing just before us.

At last! The oxygen rich foaming water seemed to give all the bass we hooked into an extra level of strength, we were both guilty of over-estimating the size of fish before they were landed. 

We make camp for the evening in the lee of a small village church, crunching endless freshly deep fried whitebait with great hunks of bread as plates. Though essentially nothing more than homeless, we are never more truly at home, enjoying one another’s company all the while drinking in the rich wine of the glorious nature that has challenged and welcomed us. A couple of hours prior, any walker on the coastal path would have simply passed over us, unaware of the splendor of marine life we were enjoying, and now would just pass us off as a pair of purposeless vagabonds. Perhaps they’re right, I suspect not. 

The final morning came with no less anticipation than those before, we were to try another mark on route east and were trundling down narrow empty country lanes. Despite washing down a strong brew of coffee, we still found ourselves reversing long sections to rectify missed turnings in the dark. It’s a blessing that there are no other users on the road at this hour, you’d be forgiven for pulling us over as those having been turned out after last call, except for the apparent lack of pubs or indeed other buildings nearby. Happily, we found ourselves parked in yet another layby (a blogpost reviewing the laybys of Cornwall is perhaps well overdue) and away to the coastpath in mere minutes, our routine now very well-rehearsed. Perhaps fifteen minutes into walking and the signal is given for our headtorches to be turned off, we approach the mark with a level of serious subtlety. Other senses now heightened, the damp rich humous releases an intoxicating aroma of the fruit of summer, while browned bracken crackles delightfully as we jump from cold stone walls blocking our vector of travel. Taking up positions on a spit of rock, Stuart opts to fish the point with soft plastic shads while I take to the marginal water, casting the faithful and now redeemed frosty towards the murky shadows of rocks. Twitching this backwards, the glistening moonlight reveals slacker water of current, shrouded in the ethereal mystery of pre-dawn fishing.

Overhead the silhouettes of gulls soon appear in the first cool glow of morning light, leaving their overnight roosts. For any who haven’t journeyed at this time of day, or at least for some time, I urge you to immerse yourself in this otherworldly land, preferably alone or in quiet company, and drink in the riches that nature has for you to offer. To ignore such a time is to pass up a free treasure, easily there for the taking. 

The morning came like many others, and quite predictably the first light of dawn woke up the bass, Stuart again taking the first fish. That session saw Stuart land another six bass and a few for myself, alongside a smattering of good pollock hanging around this same ground. As the light was beginning to gain strength I opted once again for launching the tailwalk towards the horizon in pursuit of the drifting feeding activity. A couple of sudden taps were swiftly followed by a hard slam, as I landed a bass of 47cm on the tailwalk, our best for the morning’s efforts, and again with a bomber hookhold in the top lip. 

A brilliant brisling predator and my last of the trip.

By 08:30 we were back on the road, heading back east; tired, dehydrated and delighted. The car now resembled a mixture between a tackleshop and a particularly messy boy’s bedroom den, and the looks received at the petrol station to fill my enamel mug with coffee were a reassurance that we looked (and perhaps smelt) in such a state ourselves, unwashed and sleep deprived. As the name of this blog suggests, the opportunity to solely focus on angling for a day or more is a rare treat and I’m ever so grateful for this one. A defined lack of large mature bass is still a worrying sign of the crippling effect of commercial bass fisheries and locations remain undisclosed in our hope of holding off unscrupulous inshore netters for one more day. Get out there and enjoy the full living experience of Cornwall’s quintessential marine predator, don’t just be familiar with some washed out fried fillet.