Things
have been really hotting up on the saltwater front and with that in mind it was
time to make the journey to one of our favourite kelpy marks to try and hunt
down the first of the decent wrasse with the possibility of a nice bass or two.
The afternoon tides were looking perfect and conditions
on arrival couldn’t have been better. Water clarity was pretty decent, sun was scorching
and without the slight breeze you could have been mistaken for thinking it was a
summer’s day. We took a brief hike to our mark and after stashing our pockets
with a few packets of softies we got about wading out towards a nice drop off
and a jungle of kelp. Things had really settled down and at this point I could
still see the bottom, I set about casting my texas rigged worm in hope of
drawing out a wrasse but after a few chucks I had a double take when I saw a huge
bar of silver pacing up behind my lure. Only about 10 feet away it had a quick
nip and then came to a lazy halt, it was at this point I realised
the girth of the fish and was in no doubt that it was indeed a very large
resident bass. Within seconds I had recovered my lure and recast a few feet
behind the fish and as I twitched it slowly past his eye I watched in awe as he
casually turned his head and hoovered in my offering. That serene moment of
concentration was instantly broken as I set my hook home and the fish turned to
make its first run. Not having dealt with a bass of that size before I was instantly
taken by the immense, methodical runs such a fish can make. It was a frantic
few minutes and 50 yards or so off shore with water up to my thighs I think it
took me a moment to get things under control and then turn to my friend and
signal that I had a serious fish on. Whilst working my way backwards to a dry
ledge I went through a series of surges with the fish and each time I managed
to recover some line it instantly responded by stripping it straight back. I
finally made it back into a couple of feet of water and at this point the fish
was looking as if it was just about ready to tire. My friend James had now
joined me and offered to help out and with the fish at rest it was then that it
all went a bit wrong. I won’t go into details as I can’t lose any more sleep
over it but let’s just say it was the quickest catch and release in the history
of fishing. As the hook was plucked free I managed to cradle the fish for a second
as we gazed on in awe and saw for a moment the true girth of the beast. It was
indeed a cracker and as much as a photo would have been a great memento it was in
fact given the upmost respect it had deserved. A quick flick of the tail and it
was all over, ‘proper fish that’... said James...
After losing
another smaller fish shortly after and having a couple more takes I decided to
turn my attention to old faithful. Good old Mr wrasse! It didn’t take long
before I had a lovely ballan for a quick consolation photo.
Having
convinced myself it was bad luck to return today I opted for a local LRF therapy
session instead to help the wounds to heal. I was healthily rewarded with some
lovely corkwing wrasse (one of which was a definite pb) followed by an hour of ‘fish
a chuck’ pollocking up until sunset. I’ll leave you with a few photos, thanks for reading as always!
