At Long Last!

At long last reports have started to roll in of a few decent fish being nailed around the coast. The Northerly wind has flattened the sea and cleaned the water and seems a few bass are on the feed. The fine fish you see pictured was captured by Craig an enthusiastic angler from Waterford, Craig and his pals are just getting into lure fishing and I think this fish at 7.5lb is his beat to date. So hats off to you Craig that's a mighty looking fish. Before you all go nuts he had it on an xlayer 4.5" in a top secret color!!!!

I don't know bout you lot but tomorrow its on with the winter woollies and me new Musto smock, I know this is a shameless plug but it's my blog and I'm allowed! But seriously this is an awesome piece of wet gear they really are not cheap ask any half decent yachtsman and they tell you bout the price of Musto gear.

I am going to fish a bit festive tomorrow, I have had great success already on the "one up shad", it is just an awesome bait in the water. But I saw it in the colour above and couldn't resist, money says it nails fish too! It will be super mix 210 all the way tomorrow I could not be happier ith this rod, it's light, medium into fast action with loads of grunt and yet retains the finesse feel of a small rod.

On the tackle front I have one Sakura Rookie and onr Injection left so be quick and don't be sick! The picture of my festive shad was so secret it wont even show when I want it too."

Amazonia

I just got these pics in from one of the guys from th Ultimate crew who once he finished here was heading from the Amazon. There really is a whole world of fishing out there just waiting to be explored. Just look at the size of the Peacock Bass that Stephan is holding an absolute monster by all accounts. The other less colorful creature is know as a Guyane and are renowned for their fighting qualities.

Anyone who has ever watched any of this stuff on telly will know just what kind of explosive action it can be.

Before I die I will make it down to the amazon to have a go at some of these marvelous creatures.

I also just got a text from an enthusiastic young Waterford angler who has had his pb on a 4.5" Xlayer on a birdy head in west cork, proving that there are still some really good fish about. So well done Craig and ill get a picture up here in the next day or so! Great to hear of people pushing there own limits all the time.

Cant Sleep! So might as well Blog.

So as many of you know I have a new web site near completion that I hope is going to be a real Bass fishing resource for the lure nuts amongst us. Obviously there will be an e commerce section where "the lure store" will supply you with all your angling needs but I hope to develop a site that is about more than just making money.

I will definitely be including a review section where people can talk about what lures etc are working for them, when I started plugging for bass it was like a secret society where lure where guarded with your life and information was for hoarding not sharing. I really hope that things have moved on a bit since then and that we can see our sport as less competitive and co-operative.

Like no offence intended to match anglers but i always hated it, I just did not get it, I don't care how many flounders you can catch in four hours for me fishing is about being at one with the wild, getting in touch with that part of me that is pre- historic, the urge to hunt. It's there it's in me I want to catch wild animals, it just so happens that i have evolved enough to also want to put them back once I have done it. So if it's not a competition then why all the secrets? It doesn't make any sense. A good friend of mine and avid angler the one and only Cortaz makes a very interesting and valid point when it comes to the whole business of protecting marks etc. When I asked him did he not mind loads of anglers knowing where he fished and was he not worried they would take all the fish his answer was simple if there are anglers on a mark then there can not be poachers, anglers can not do the damage in a season a good poacher can do in a night!

Now as a guide I can tell you it's a fine line, but most of my trade is foreign so what of it! Food for thought though eh!

Peeler Crab

I forgot to mention lads from next week I will have the biggest juiciest peelers you have ever seen, sponge Bob would loose his spongy mind for one of these crabby patties. No order too big or too small so give me a shout.

Long Range

If you are one of the people who is waiting to get out fishing with me then things at last are looking up a small bit. Not perfect but improving and with the way the weather has been then that will do me.

There is no doubt that the fish are there and in numbers it is just a case of getting some degree of water clarity in order to present a bait to them. A plan to do a bit of live baiting has been hatched and will be carried out on Saturday. Now live baiting is not my favorite type of fishing but when you are beat you are beat, you either accept it or plug on aimlessly.However if you accept it you can diversify and hopefully hook a monster. It is hard when you know that numbers of double figure Bass are about and you are not even fishing for them, you just have to have a go at them no matter what the method. No offence intended to avid live bait fishermen, I am just a lure man at heart but when the stakes are this high the time for stubbornness is long gone. Anyway I fully intend fishing a pouting under a pike float on the bar 270 and maybe a Pollock on the super-mix, light tackle fishing at least.

Have a look at the little buck tail above, I would nearly eat that myself it looks so good, the plastic is a 4" haxedong in aruuro shad to which I have added a glass rattle. If you are interested I am doing variety packs in the buck tails, with different heads and plastics. I will post a list and some pictures of the available buck tails, the colors and the the different jig heads on which they are tied. Please god let this bit of weather hold cause I know I am not the only one going slowly nuts!

Plastics

I have just received one injection, well two actually but I have to keep one for the guiding business! It's a tough job but someones got to do it! Which means I have one for sale so if you have been trying to get your hands on one of these little beauty's then give me a shout and ill sort you out!

Pictured is the Chart glow core spindle worm from Megabass, these are just absolutely stunning soft plastic baits. They are almost like a mix of a worm and shad bait, long body with that rigged tail section and then a shad style tail. The action of these baits in the water has to be seen to be believed and if this weather ever clear I know this lure is going to account for some fine Bass over the winter. I only have it in two colors at the moment which is the one pictured and also in glow shirasu which is a speckled silver color. These can fished on a variety of heads, in a variety of weights, anything from 12g to 30g. They are basically a cast and retrieve type of bait with most of the action built into the lure itself. Be warned though these are vios plastic so be sure to store them seperatly or you will have spindle lumps.

I also just got a Bar 270 into to stock, this is where I started with the Red Rods and there will always be something special about this rod for me, when it comes to fishing from the rocks, or cast 30g jigs across the mouth of an estuary for me you just wont beat this rod. Light weight and yet incredibly powerful, summer pollock fishing was where this rod really showed what it had got, I must ask Mick (MRfish) for the video clip of it stuck into a 9lb pollock. The rod was literally bent from tip to but and stopped the fish in its tracks. I have done everything with this rod top water, jerk bait, soft palstics and even a bit of live baiting it's just a cracker of a pole.

Clips

They seem like such insignificant annoying little buggers, like who cares about clips, surely any old clip will do? Well I have to say it was Doug aka (fester) from Mrfish in Jersey who put it nicely for me when he said, "guys spend 400 on a rod, 300 on a reel, 25 on a lure then go use some rubbish cheap clip from china and loose the fish of a life time I just don't get it?" (Cheers Doug) He is dead right I don't get it either.

I learned this one the hard way too I lost an absolute cracker about 2 yrs ago on rubbish clip it just straightened and that was that, but worse than loosing the fish and I truly mean this, is I left lure in bass which really bothers me, to the point of loosing sleep bothers me.

So if you are going to spend decent money on good kit then do the wise thing and buy some good strong reliable clips to go with em! The best I have found so far are the JB's pictured above. I have literally straighted a led head in a snag and the clip did not give, now that impressed me. Granted they have their down side they can be awkward to get a led head on first time but once you get it on once it goes on handy from then on.

In fact if I'm being completely honest when I first got them off mick i thought "ye mad jersey Lula what am I meant to do with this yoke with a swivel on it and all." But as time has gone by i wont use anything else to me they are the best, the strongest, most reliable clip on the market. Like the ad says "often copied never equaled." Carlsberg don't do clips but if they did they would probably get ye pisse* and be no good for fishing at all.