5th September - Rough ground

Martyn with his first bass of the session

I am very happy to support a local angling club, the Shoreham Angling Squad, in their charity fund raising events. As such, Martyn "won" my services in a raffle at an SAS match earlier in the year, and we formulated a plan for fishing the rough ground for bass. After recent results on this patch, I must admit I was nervous to risk another session here, as not finding fish for clients is not condusive to future bookings, but things were looking up, as the weed was not nearly as bad as the last session, with poor Mike and Alex, which meant we had a sporting chance of fishing our baits effectively. Even so, it was two hours into the session, just before the top of the tide, when a shoal of fish moved through. First fish to Martyn, the 2lb+ fish pictured above.

Deformed Spikey!!

Ten minutes later, and Martyn was in again, with another 2lb+ fish, this one sporting the most unusual defect. Its head was slanted down, more like a Gilthead bream than a bass. Amazing it got the whole squid in its mouth, as it didnt have the usual bass functionality of a cavernous mawl available to it, more the tiny mouth of a bonefish!!!

That shoal of same year class fish was to be it for the night, with no further takes. But I think Martyn was happy that he had aquired techniques that he had not previously fished under his belt, and the satisfaction of seeing the techinque working in practice. And most importantly, charity coffers had been swollen that bit more.