I used to get decent bass here (he says nostalgically).
That was over 10 years ago, though. There were far fewer immature fish back then and fish to 61/2lb were not that unusual.
The topic of Bass Nursery Areas has been debated for some time now by locals. Basically the place is regulated strictly and policed too, with two key rules:
1) No boat fishing for bass
2) No boat fishing using sandeel baits
i.e. deliberately target bass afloat by any method and you're in trouble! Gill-netting is also banned.
Some locals feel that this has led to a proliferation of little schoolies that mop up much of the food, so that the larger fish tend to avoid the area, or possibly are there but simply fail to get to your bait first.
Whether true or not would be interesting to debate, but one thing is certain: mature bass are becoming increasingly rare along this coastline, while immature ones are becoming increasingly common. I suspect that if the mature stocks hadn't been hammered so much by the pair trawlers down SW, these immature fish would grow to a decent size and we would be seeing a return to the good old days. Would be interested to hear views on this because some kind of pattern in terms of shore catches is definately emerging.
Cheers - John