well, what a week I've just had.

The fishing overall has been very, very poor. Boat reports, excursions underwater and my own trips have been very mixed. Yea, sure, the night-time skishes have been mega successful but shore fishing has largely been awful.

There are a few things to discuss on this post, one of which is people who are currently undertaking or planning to undertake guided trips out with jerseybassguides should now contact myfish@jerseybassguides.com or use the contact form from this blog as I will no longer be using the forums for posting or contact. It is a shame it has come to this but for reasons best left off my blog this decision has been difficult not to make. I will be transferring the wrasse comp to jerseybassguides but, sadly, can no longer tell you if the prizes offered by the sponsors will be available ? I'm guessing not. Any fish caught should be submitted to me under the rules (which I will re-iterate here later) and the fish and leaderboard will be updated accordingly.

Anyway, water under the bridge. Their loss.

Back to the post.

I did a few trips out with clients as I do every week and we did one trip to the extreme North East.

(All photo's courtesy of Mr X)

Fantastic ground up here.

Me (left) and Gareth working a headland race. Small Pollack, Mackerel and Garfish present but VERY tough to catch. Mr X is up the cliffside taking the pic.

I was using a load of stuff Monster Tackle have recently sent me (Sluggo El Salto, Weights, Hooks, etc) and was using the Lucky Craft ESGII that I have on long term test when a good fish came knocking at the door.

What a lump. A really good Wrasse put the ESGII through it's paces and I must say, it was brilliant. I've had good Bass and now a decent Rockfish on the rod, took it skishing and it has performed admirably.

I'll be showing you how all these Lunker City bits fit together in a later article.

I met up with Chris Isaacs to do a long range rim wade mission the other night in the forecast F6. We met up along the East coast and waded miles and miles out through the extended network of gullies on the ESE side on the gutter system. We found some runs and constrictions to die for but, only managed 1 bite each in a round 5 mile trip ? This just shows you that regardless of planning and effort, things can come and smack you across the face. That's fishing and we accept it as such. We found some gems that we'll be doing again though.

Chris and I were discussing a theory for hours the other night after the weekends dive. He was telling me about what he thinks happens with pressure waves. Smelt or Grasdos as they known locally or Roselet (Guernsey) (so check your local names for these fish) just ride or sit either in or on the current or slack water in the dark. In daylight they school with a lead fish but at night they shoal loosely.

Remember, schooling and shoaling are different, do a google search to enhance your knowledge.

Anyway, by day, you can't get anywhere near these fish unless you are very quiet. However, at night, IF you are quiet enough and stealthy enough you can actually reach out and touch them.

Chris predicts that the Bass know this. In fact, he predicts that not only Smelt react like this. We hacked out the theory that these baitfish can be approached at night by the Bass and, the darker the better. (Our fishing results support this). We also decided that this may be the reason that static or very, very slowly fished plugs or soft lures are so readily taken by the Bass under cover of darkness.

If you move an object quickly toward a baitfish even from 6", they dart away. However, move ever so slowly and the object can be within millimeters of said object. Bass suck food in using a negative vortex and this again supports the slow approach and why you should wait longer and work slower at night with slow sinking, drifting or suspending lures.

This would also explain why Bass are more active in faster or noisier water as it would mask the approach. Like I've said, all our fishing results in the dark support this and I think the plan is to try to film this as we approach a smelt underwater in the darkness.

Anyway, until next time....

Thanks for reading.