Bass on the Fly

**vaughan** · 15-08-2006, 12:38

Met with Shopper off these forums on Friday. We left on the boat at 4am and headed off to a south coast cornish estuary in the search for some bass to catch on the fly as neither of us have had a bass on the fly rods before.

As dawn came we began to see lots of life in the estuary, including sandeels, some mackerel, mullet and some bass. It was great using the polarised glasses really helped in spotting the fish and deciding on where to start our drifts.

As it was getting light, Shopper hooked into the first fish of the morning only a schoolie about 1+1/2lb, but we were chuffed our search had payed off. It was very fat for its size and gave a good fight before being carefully being lifted into the boat. I then changed fly to a Minnow similar to Shoppers and not long after this I hooked into my first bass on the fly, only small but on 6lb leader gave an enjoyable fight. All went quiet at the spot we were in so changed locations a few times and about an hour later Shopper hooked into his second bass of the morning, slightly bigger than his first one but not as fat, but again gave a good fight.

All went quiet after this so we headed up river in search of the mullet. Loads of them feeding on the leaves etc blown from the trees that were flowing down stream, but after thrashing our fly rods for an hour we gave up as we could not find a fly they would go for. Amazingly we could not seem to spook them even when we landed the fly line on top of the feeding group!

As the tide dropped we headed out for the open water in the search of live bait, but didnt find any launce only Mackerel and no joeys so took a few home for the bbq.

It was a cracking days fishing and now looking forward to the next saltwater fly session. All bass were returned in good health.

**stevenhaggerty** · 15-08-2006, 12:45

Well done chaps, looks like you had a great days fishing. It's always good to catch a fish using a new technique, if gives you confidence when it actually works!

Steve.

**Bungle** · 16-08-2006, 16:05

ye well done id love 2 catch a bass on the fly

**vaughan** · 16-08-2006, 16:20

Thx chaps, I think we will be spending quite a lot of time around the cornish estuarys in the next couple of months, it was very addictive. Just dissapointed we didn't add another first which would have been a mullet on the fly too.