“The moon is trying to come out and that might just make a difference“.
About 5 minutes before the Savage Gear lure rod I was using folded over, my guide Marc Cowling had commented on the lunar activity.
Then as the clouds broke just long enough for the moon to light up the world around us, fish on. And oh what a fish she was. I felt was a tap on the tip of the rod, and then the vibration of the line stripping from the reel as the fish took off like a silver bullet.
On Friday night after months and months of correspondence I finally met up with Marc Cowling, ‘The South Devon Bass Guide’.
Coming from South Devon myself, and having a recent (over last 2 years) obsession with lure fishing, Marc’s activities and blog posts are right up my street. I have been searching out information to improve my catch rate for a while, and as I had discussed with Marc was struggling to find anything with substantial information until his blog came along.
The detail Marc gives out is almost criminal! 🙂
So here I was sat in a pub in a remote South Devon village drinking a Coca-Cola waiting to go lure fishing.
From the minute Marc jumped out of his car and shook my hand, he was rolling into anecdotes of recent client catches and was genuinely excited to tell me all about how the night fishing and night guiding sessions were going. I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much of course but the thought of catching a decent fish on a lure at night really was doing it for me.
We wandered to the ‘mark’ that he had picked for the session. A fantastic stretch of mixed shingle and sandy beach where the tide had covered reef, gulleys and many rock-pools.
Marc showed me his recent client’s catches and pictures of the marks geography at low tide in daylight so I would understand the ground I would be fishing over in detail.
He was consistently upbeat about my chances of catching and this gave me great confidence in the lures, the marks and the method. Almost promised me I would beat my personal best lure fish, didn’t actually say it of course, but hinted close enough to it.
The lure choice for the night was simple, white Senko’s and handmade white Needlefish plugs. We set up before dark so I could learn the retrieve rate and methods before wandering down the stretch of beach to where we would be fishing for the night.
Chopping and changing between the 2 lures and a few spots on the beach we were trying to locate the fish and induce a take.
I had a couple knocks on the Senko but I am guessing they were small fish ‘nipping the tail of the lure’. We discussed later the possibility of adding a treble to the tail end of that lure to try and catch some of these smaller fish.
Marc consistently fed me with valuable information throughout the session including how to find my own marks for different species such as wrass, Pollock and Bass of course. We talked about many different lures and when they are best suited.
At around midnight, we also discussed a theory from Henry Gilbey’s blog https://www.henry-gilbey.com/blog/the-moon-and-bass-on-lures-at-night-whats-the-story?rq=night%20fishing%5C about the effect of the moon on Bass fishing at night but were undecided.
And then strangely enough the moon decided it was going to try and make an appearance whilst I was fishing the Needlefish lure over a gulley Marc had showed me earlier on his phone.
The moon came out from behind the clouds for less than a minute (could have been dead on midnight and the end of the official UK Bass ban) and then…………………. Fish on!
I had been waiting expectantly all night for a sudden take that Marc had described would really surprise me. I didn’t get that take but instead the fish inhaled the whole lure and run with it much like I would expect from bait fishing.
This was my first experience of fighting a fish that was seriously taking line in anger. The first run seemed like it wouldn’t end. I tried to lift into it and see if I could turn it around and then the line went slack. I was certain it was still on so reeled in quickly until I could feel the weight of the fish again. Remembering Marc’s blog over the last few weeks had me worried about fish coming off these needlefish lures, but I was confident that if I kept good contact throughout the fight it would stay on and I would be able to land the fish.
It ran 3 times and each time turned and came back towards me before thrashing around to try and run again. Very nervous moments! I couldn’t tell you how long this went on for (maybe Marc can remember) but it felt like the longest I can remember fighting a fish for, and this wasn’t helped by how much line it took on the first run.
Once I thought it was a few feet from the beach Marc switched on the head torch and waded in slightly to help land the fish.
When I first saw it, be it the dark or just distance to me I was shocked at how small I thought it was as at the beginning of the fight I told Marc it felt like a big fish.
But Marc replied that is was a decent fish and when he got it clear of the water and held it up, I knew it was a special fish by my standards at least.
I posed for a couple of photographs with the Bass once it was unhooked & measured in at 70cm and then waded into the sea in my walking boots and trousers to release the fish myself. Typically for a very calm night, there had to be a couple of rogue waves at these moments and I got soaked. The fish took a minute or so get going but swam away unharmed.
To some a 70cm Bass might not be such an achievement, but for me I felt like I had finally caught ‘The Monster’ me and my buddy Adam had been talking about for a while now.
If you want to find out more about catching UK fish on lures, I strongly recommend you try this great book here which provides info on everything you might want to know about lure fishing in the UK and how to catch a huge variety of species
How To Trick A Fish 