So the decision was made that I was going to have a Christmas Day fish, regardless of weather or sea conditions. The thought of catching a bass on Christmas morning before most of the country was even awake was certainly appealing. And it just happened that all the necessary conditions combined for perfect bassy conditions. A fair onshore breeze, high tide coincided with sunrise, a nice big tide of the back of the springs and weed free water with reasonable clarity. Now, if you give me those conditions on this mark in the summer period I would be sure of seeing a few bass. But in all honesty I wasn’t overly sure of much action, being that I’m still relatively new to this game I haven’t yet built up a good repertoire of how my marks fish in the winter.

My mind was made though and I was sure to fish, I arrived on mark in the pitch black and started slinging the lures. It was hard to gauge the conditions in the dark but as the sun started to rise it revealed some lovely clear fizzed up water and it was just a pleasure to be out on my own fishing. I spent most of my time on my favourite part of real shallow reefy ground, a spot where I’ve lost 2 very big fish. I chucked everything out there with no success so I move further down to a spot which I have not necessarily had much success over but certainly looked the part today with fizzed up water over shingle bottom with broken rocky ground below. I broke out the big guns with the IMA Hound Fang 125 F in cotton candy, a lure I’ve not had loads of success on but it was perfect conditions for it. After a few casts my rod arcs over and I feel the wonderful pull of a fish. It was one of those that took me by surprise and once I had the fish landed it was only a schoolie, but that was fine with me. I must say in that highly oxygenated water the bass really punched above his weight. That was the only fish of the morning but I couldn’t have started the day any better.

This year has certainly brought me a lot of joys in the ways of fishing, I may not have done as much as had wanted to at home on my own turf, but the fishing I have done has certainly been pretty epic stuff. What with having 2 sessions down in Cornwall with Nick Mackrory from Bass Go Deeper, to visiting Ireland twice this year Totalling 6 weeks in total. I’ve been lucky enough to break all my PBs for Bass, Wrasse and Pollock In fact I’ve broke my Bass PB 3 times this year. I wouldn’t be able to pick one single moment throughout the year that was my favourite but here are a few. First off fishing on the rugged Kerry coastline for big shore Pollock, it’s like nothing I’ve ever done. This was part of the guided trip I did in August with Thatch Cottage Fishing Lodge. Between the 4 of us I can be honest in saying that we had it handed to us on a few occasions with a few of the boys getting fully beasted by some big crash diving Pollock. I am happy to say though, that I did manage to tame a 6lb beauty of a Pollock. Another highlight had to be when I was back out in Ireland in October this time on the Copper Coast fishing for bass. After periods of no fish and bad weather blowing the whole coast out I managed to nail my 3^rd PB bass of the year. It was a beautiful 7lb prime Irish bass, and what made this fish even more special was the method in catching it. It was using the famous Black Minnow 120 off shore head in Khaki fished by bumping it in the current of an estuary. It was a tactic I hadn’t used until I came to Ireland and is such a hard was to fish until you have success. It feels so wrong banging out a lure and doing nothing but holding your line tight waiting for the rod to arc over. But when it happens you certainly have a scrap on your hands especially when the fish has the current on its side.

Another would have to be my second trip when I went to Cornwall to fish with Nick Mackrory, we visited several marks in the day and it just all seemed to come good, with numerous Bass Wrasse and Pollock, no monsters but the plenty of fish to satisfy me for the day. Also with the crystal clear water that they had down in Cornwall throughout the summer it certainly made for some fun viewing, those moments you see your lure cruising back to you over that last gulley and out of nowhere wallop. A nice bar of silver doing what they do best, ambush.

Over this year I’ve been very lucky to have met some awesome and influential people within the fishing scene. People such as Nick Mackrory owner of Bass Go Deeper who is a Cornish Fishing guide, I’ve had a couple great sessions with him and already have plans to get back down there next year. John Quinlan from Thatch Cottage, an Irish fishing guide who I’ve stayed with twice and is always happy to help you out onto some fish. Henry Gilbey who was also Guiding and photographing with John over in Ireland, a very kind and genuine guy who is always happy to answer my questions I give him. Steven Neely owner of the online store Fish on Lures, and his dad John. When I arrived in Ireland on my own I agreed to meet them for the day and they were so helpful, they went way beyond the call of duty to set me on my way. Also Steven is always there to feed my lure addiction with the latest goods. And Cian O’Halloran owner of the awesome Absolute Fishing shop in Tramore Ireland. Again during my 5 week stay recently in Ireland Cian was another guy who was more than happy to help, bearing in mind I had never met the guy. He gave me some cheeky little pointers and when my rod tip snapped and waders leaked he was straight on the case getting them fixed for me, top bloke. I’m sure there are more but to everyone who has helped me this year in the world of fishing I can only thank you and can’t wait for more of the same next year.

I do have a few plans for next year that I want to get done, such as spending some time down in the Isles of Scilly chasing big shore Pollock and wrasse. Getting back down to Cornwall to fish with Nick. And the obvious which is to get back over to Ireland, preferably for as long as I can.

Finally I’ve managed to get out and have a chuck, for anyone who does enjoy reading this blog I can only apologise for taking so long to update it. Apparently when you have 5 weeks off work to go gallivanting around Ireland doing nothing but fishing you have to return and there is no choice but to work, A LOT. Anyway to the fishing, for weeks now my mate Steven Neely from Fish on Lures has been banging on about these Molix soft plastic lures. Telling me and showing me that he is slaying wrasse on them and the odd big rock Pollock. So being that I love fishing for wrasse myself I’ve been dying to get my hands on some of them for a while now. Last week I got the message from Steve to say that they were now in stock so that night I was straight onto the site to order some. I think I pretty much ordered one of each type. Well I would say it’s the best way to find out what you like and feel comfortable with. Buy them all and whittle it down to the few that you find work best for yourself. I can imagine these lures will turn themselves to most tasks presented as well. There are a few smaller lures like the Freaky Rock 2” and the RA Shad 3” which I would imagine will work well for the LRF side of things. Then the RA Shad 4.5” and the Sligone 5.5” would work well rigged weedless or with a belly weight fished over shallow reefy ground for the bass. So whatever it is you fish for id say it’s worth having a few packs of the Molix soft plastics in the bag.

It’s the first time I have been out in about a month and there was certainly freshness to the breeze, but this was the least of my worries. For starters with such a long time away from the coast I didn’t know what the clarity was going to be like or if it was weedy and most of all if the wrasse were still playing ball. I decided to visit a mark that I haven’t really fished an awful lot, this not being the lack of fish there but the ridiculous price of £7.50 for parking in the summer. So I make the walk down to the rocks and start chucking, I was fishing the last couple hours of the ebb hoping for a bit of sport before slack tide. The idea was to get stuck in and try and use all the new lures I had and try my best to catch on them all and see which I favoured. I had also got myself some 10g bomb weights and split rings for the purpose of fishing the lure on a jika rig, again this was advised to me by Steven and was keen to see how it stood up to my usual Texas rig. It started slow which wasn’t filling me with hope; I worked my way down to the next gully with the Molix Sligozzo 4” where I was welcomed by the unmissable bite of a wrasse. I didn’t hook up but that one little knock is what you need to put a grin on the face and confidence in the cast. The Sligozzo is a strange looking lure with a big thick rugby ball body with a big beaver tail on the end, and it’s all ribbed so it will be sending out plenty of vibrations and movement in the water. A few casts later and I hit into my first of the session, it’s such a good feeling having a fish on the line after so long without fishing, even with it being not so big, that wasn’t a problem; the fish had some awesome colouring on it as well, worthy of a picture.

I carried on fishing and was loving it, they weren’t throwing themselves on the line and I certainly had to work a bit harder for the fish but they kept coming slowly but surely. After a couple more better sized fish it started to approach slack water and the bites dried up a bit, so the plan was to head over to another mark further down the coast. The sun was out and the fish were biting so I intended to fish until dark when the wrasse would obviously cease hitting the lures. This mark I headed to is some serious looking ground with big deep holes and gulley’s filled with kelp and big ledges dropping off into the water, it just screams wrasse at you. First chuck with the Sligone bouncing it back along the bottom and bang, no warning, straight into a diving wrasse. Certainly a better fight and resulted in a better fish, all these wrasse were wicked looking fish with different colours and patterns. I kept hitting this same gulley and I kept pulling fish out all around the same size and all punching above their weight when it came to fighting. They were all dead set on hitting their hole. Unfortunately for them they were banging into a solid reel with no drag allowed, no chance I was getting taken to ground. As it was my first session out for a while I wanted to try and get some cool pics and I also took my go pro to get some footage. I’ve put together a little video of the session with some underwater footage of the wrasse, nothing professional but personally I love watching people in the UK fishing and enjoying themselves so here’s me having a blast.

As far as the Molix soft plastics go there is no doubt in my mind that the wrasse nail them, I caught on all of them but for me the 2 I liked fishing the most were the Sligozzo and the Sligone. That’s just personal preference but I just liked the way they looked and they caught me fish. Another thing, if you fish for wrasse you’re going to fully aware that they trash soft plastics for a past time, but these Molix lures actually seemed to stand up better than others. I can’t lie they aren’t indestructible. But throughout the day I don’t remember having to change the lure due to damage which in my books is a success. I think I’d be happy to go out wrassing with a couple different Molix lures and a Packet of Z-Man Punch Crawz and be very confident in catching wrasse!

I mentioned I tried using the Jika rig for the first time in this session, it certainly worked and to be fair I almost forgot it was anything different while fishing. It still had the great sensitivity I want when wrassing. It worked as well as the Texas rig for me and I think that it would be good for using if there is a bit more swell running and you need to hammer that lure on the bottom during the retrieve. Also when using the Texas rig because it has the running cone weight sometimes it can rub a bit on the end of the flouro making it weaker, this is something you would not get from the Jika Rig. At the moment I don’t think I can make a solid conclusion as to which is better as I said I think they might both have their advantages. So I will keep using them side by side to try and find where they best apply. I think that’s about everything I wanted to get of the brain; I hope everyone else’s fishing is going well. Please comment below if there are any questions on the gear or technique’s I use and I would love to try and help. Even better let me know how you’re all getting on, either in the comment box or on my FB group. I will post the video on my videos page. Tight Lines