Bass Safari...

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 Just back from a trip away which saw the day game out fish the night for a change. Michael and I started    our trip at a boulder field in the stunning West of Ireland and both landed fish in the first 10 mins from  quite badly weeded water as the tide pushed in. Michael went on to find fish in the surf on shallow      running hard plastics, including this beautiful olive coloured specimen, which I repeated the following  day. We hit two locations hard under darkness at the start of the flood for a single hit and one fish landed  from an estuary mouth as the spring tide started to push. We are accelerating our learning curves by  sharing ideas and crossing over our differing styles of fishing and knowledge so these are interesting  times with lots of new techniques to try...
 Having now fished in all of our main Bass counties from Wexford round to Galway this season, both alone  and with others it seems to me that the picture is pretty much the same with low numbers the norm  despite conditions that appear perfect at times, with the occasional “hot spots” fishing well. At least    we’re catching (And releasing) a few JJJ 

Backing off...

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Having pushed it hard since the closed season I feel its time for a short break. The level of effort required to locate and land fish, even at night, has been beyond  anything I've known and we thought the last couple of years were difficult! When it went southerly a few weeks back with the water warmed by the heatwave our hopes were high but it seems it's never that simple in Bass fishing - which is probably a good thing. So the plan is to sit out the start of the springs that have just begun, sort out my gear, regroup and hit it hard next weekend when I plan to travel for a change of scenery and hopefully some improved fishing...
Update, Conditions looked too good to back off so went out and..had some pretty good fishing, ah relief !!

Irish Angler - August Bass Special...

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(  Contains a little article on Night Fishing by yours truly ;-)  )