First pull in and bang! Nifty was into his first bass on a sub surface lure which turned out to be the deadliest one of the day. A bass of around 2lb was landed and released, and the action continued on the subsequent casts for the first hour. I had chucked out a chug bug on my first cast and was thrilled to see a bass make a lunge for it close in to the kayak - same on the second cast - I changed to an old jointed thunderstick for the third cast, having failed to hook up two fish, and just before the lure reached the kayak there was an almighty splash and a large bass slammed down on the lure and headed for the bottom. On a light 7ft spinning rod and braid I then had a thrilling ten minute fight with the bass taking line and diving down and either side of the kayak. Happily landed my first bass off the kayak,and a pb of over 3.5lb, which was quickly despatched for the pot as had promised to take one back home.
Other smaller ones up to 2.5lb followed :
Over the next hour we both had smaller fish of up to 2.5lb with the action coming thick and fast. Nifty was well in the lead and into double figures already when things quietened down over slack water. All the other bass were safely returned to grow bigger and we paddled over to another mark as the tide turned to the flood. There wasnt any sign of bass or anything else at this mark so we trolled back to the original mark against the flooding tide. During the rest of the afternoon Nifty took his catch count up to 19 on his magic lure, whilst kept swapping between rapala j13 and j9's and back to the trusty jointed thunderstick. We had a few more and after a quiet spell I hit into another bigger one and spend another ten minutes with the rod bent over double before another 3.5lb plus bass came on board - this one was released as well to grow bigger for another day, and at the end of the afternoon we paddled back to the launch point two very happy kayakers having had an excellent days sport. Limited photos included within this report due to the large number of netters who are out at present and with respect to Nifty for showing me one of his hotspot marks (cheers!).
If I dont get out now for the rest of the year I will still be happy, having finally caught bass on the plugs from the kayak and having beaten my previous PB bass catch. Now i know why I moved down to West Wales :-)
