Home | Blogs and Opinion | Mike's Diary Archive 2005 | Bass LED lights and boat dab fishing

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Bass LED lights and boat dab fishing

Mike Thrussell 26 April, 2005 04:25:00

BASS LED HEADLIGHTS
Its all well and good having a huge great headlamp with a 50-metre beam for winter fishing when you need all the power and illumination you can get to highlight fish in the surf and to work with. Use that headlamp while you're bass fishing this summer and you're going to cost yourself fish!

I've found bass to be very light sensitive, much like sea trout are. They quickly get used to a backdrop of harbour lights or streetlights and will feed quite happily in such surroundings. They are a different proposition though, when working an isolated rough ground beach at very close quarters in shallow water searching for crabs. If you continually keep switching on a powerful headlamp and sweeping it across the water, then you'll spook the fish away from your immediate patch and you'll be fishing barren ground.

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Light LED's for bass fishing
I went over to using one of the new LED headlamps a couple of seasons ago. I have the choice of using just three LED's lit for general work up having one big LED for spotting. The advantage is that three LED's give me enough light to tie knots and re rig, but it does not cast a beam away from me any distance to scare nearby fish. If I need more light to land a fish I can change to full power using main spotting LED, but even then the light is subtle and not a direct penetrative beam, its more of an all round pool light.

There is another major advantage to using LED illumination for bassing. The light from an LED is a pure white light and has no real effect on your night vision. This is not so with standard bulbs, which will destroy your natural night vision for a minute or so when you switch off until your eyes readjust. If you're stood in the surf that minutes blindness while your eyes readjust could be costly if you miss seeing a bigger than average wave coming at you, or fail to see the tide as it suddenly fills a gully that is your only access off the mark.

Bass specialists are rightly secretive about their marks. The LED is such a subtle light that it is hard to spot on low power just a couple of hundred yards away. It's an advantage worth having if you fish areas not yet popular with other anglers.

Add to this the reliability of LED's to withstand massive impact, plus their extremely low use of battery power, some offering over 50 hours of light on a single set of batteries, plus their very light weight and you have the perfect bass light.

TIPS AND TRICKS
When using fish or squid strip it can be a pain using bait elastic to secure it every time you need to renew the bait. Here's a dodge used by boat match anglers that makes baiting up quicker.

Take the plastic covering off a 3-inch length of telephone wire. Pass one end through the eye of the hook and wrap it around itself a couple of times to lock it in place. Put the fillet of fish on to the hook and push it up the hook shank until it reaches the eye. Now coil the wire lightly around the end of the fish strip to hold it in place. You can shorten the length of the wire according to the size of bait you ll be using.

BOAT DAB TACTICS

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Good size dab from a boat
They are found over clean sand and shingle banks, but the biggest dabs often live on small sand patches amongst reef ground. They live on the inclines of sand and shingle banks switching sides to keep the tide deflected over them.

Dabs feed on any size of tide, but the state of the tide can be important. They feed best just as the tide is picking up after the slack water period. On neap tides this feeding spell can last right through the whole flood and ebb tide, but on faster spring tides expect a lull in bites during the peak flow period. On the banks, just as they move sides and swim over the top of the bank is the best spell with bites every drop.

A two-hook flowing trace rig using 36-inches of 15lb line off a short boom, and with size 2 Mustad 3261BLN Aberdeen hooks works best. Using a short length of luminous green tubing just above the hooks will increase the bite ratio. In a light tide run use a freshwater spinning rod, 8lb line and 1oz of lead for some real fun.

The best baits are frozen black lugworm left to go a little sticky. Bigger dabs like a tippet of sprat flesh, a mackerel or herring strip, even a short section of sandeel. The smaller fish take worm baits.

Dab bites are fast rattles. Leave them to rattle on the rod tip a couple of times, then just retrieve line until the line comes fully tight and sets the hook. Don t strike! By tightening the line, if you miss the bite, the bait stays right on the seabed and the fish will bite again. If you lift to strike the bait rises in the water and the fish moves on and is lost forever.