So how does a boat angler fulfil that lifetimes ambition to catch a “double”

What is it about a fish that will take a free swimming live bait, plugs, fly, spinners, float fished baits or a substantial fish, crab or squid bait legered hard on the bottom. Could it be that the Bass is a fish which allows you to fish however you want to, or is it the almost enigmatic quality of late nights and early mornings in wild and lonely surroundings which make the pursuit of a double figure Bass a lifetime crusade for so many anglers.The Bass is a vigorous predator and will shoal up with dozens of other fish to chase and harry huge schools of sandeels and mackerel against a lee shore or they will surround baitfish in the open sea causing a mayhem witnessed by a noisy cloud of gulls which joyously feed on the floating debris and in so doing give away the shoals position to anglers waiting patiently to present a bait or lure to the marauding Bass. So how does a boat angler fulfil that lifetimes ambition to catch a “double” ?Like all forms of fishing it is a matter of putting yourself in the right place, at the right time and present the right bait and this is not always the easiest thing to do. Talk to charter boat skippers along the South Coast from Cornwall right up through the English and Bristol Channels, you will be surprised how many of them will say that they have a run of Bass at certain times of the year. Then it becomes a little bit of a lottery to get yourself on a good boat, on a good tide, because most of them will already be booked by those anglers in the know, but talk to the skippers, perseverance will often pay off. Fishing live baits for Bass over inshore reefs and estuarial sandbars is a game best played slowly, with forethought, much deliberation and a lot of joy! Questions such as, where am I going to fish? when am I going to fish? and how am I going to present this lively baitfish so that the predatory instinct of the Bass is deceived into thinking that this succulent little sandeel or mackerel is just a poor little orphan that has become separated from the rest of the gang!Oh Yes! a whole mackerel of about 12 ounces might be something which we in this country might be shy of using. But believe me, this is the bait the big fish want! If you want that double figure fish, persevere with the mackerel bait. You might not catch as many fish as your companions, but at the annual club presentation evening when you pick up the trophy for the best Bass of the season, that‚s when you can afford to smile. If you go prepared for big fish using 18lb monofilament or better still 20lb breaking strain superbraid and your fish of a lifetime happens along, then you will land it, provided your knots are well tied and you play the fish with respect and care.This weight of tackle and the methods used to present these baits will be very similar whether you are fishing a wreck, an inshore sandbank or a reef, because the Bass caught from deeper water often do not fight nearly so well as the fish from shallow water until the deep water fish see the light from the surface, then they begin to wake up. But a fish caught in shallow water will run off at high speed, stripping line from your reel so quickly that the scream of the clutch giving line becomes a siren song, often signalling a lifetimes addiction to the experience.”Big baits catch big fish” is a saying which is not always true, but is more often right than wrong. The Greater Launce are whopping great sandeels which can be a foot long and over an inch in diameter and without doubt are the best bait ever for big Bass, an 8 to 12 ounce mackerel often referred to as a “joey” is a very close second best bait. The ordinary small sandeel catches a lot of fish, it will even catch the occasional big fish, but mostly they catch smaller school fish. Still a serious bait but not as good as the big lance or the joey mackerel for the heavyweight specimen fish. Hooking and presenting these bigger baits is not difficult. For the mackerel use a lightweight short shank hook 5/0 to 7/0 and simply pass the hook through the upper part of the jaw so that most of the hook is exposed.For Sandeel, use a 4/0 or 5/0 aberdeen hook, pass the point of the hook through the bottom jaw and nick the point of the hook just through the body behind the gills. If you have a half inch of the hook protruding in front of the jaw that‚s OK. If you hook the eel further back, the body of the eel will fold up along the shank of the hook causing it to spin and you can do without that hassle.In water deeper than say 20 metres, it is a good idea to rig up using a boom to help prevent the eel from tangling back around your main line. The new 300mm swivel booms from Knotless Tackle are excellent for fishing longer than normal traces which are sometimes necessary when the fish are spooky. If you are fishing a longer than normal trace, say over 15 feet, then great care must be taken when lowering the baitfish into the fishy zone. Even with a long boom, if you drop away too quickly the speed of the drop will close the gap between the leader and the main line, which can easily result in the eel swimming around the main line and causing a tangle which might require a pair of snips to sort out.When dropping away, flip the eel over the side and let the leader extend to its full length in the tide(watch out for the seagulls!!), then drop away with your thumb regulating the speed of the spool, so that the leader stays extended in the tide. This advice also applies to inshore fishing, where instead of a boom, the rig is greatly simplified. Just a pierced ball or barrel weight is slid onto the line then stopped by a plastic bead and swivel, to which it tied the trace length.Bass, sometimes large bass, can be found in very shallow water. Sinkers can vary from just a quarter ounce up to two or three ounces depending on the where and when of the situation.Fishing these rigs and baits is simple, tap the bottom with your sinker, reel up four or five turns and wait for the bite. Take care to watch the bottom profile on the echo sounder so that if the bottom starts to rise then tap the bottom again and reel up you four or five turns to keep your bait in the “strike zone”.When the bite occurs, do not strike, because with these big baits the Bass (or Pollack) will often hit the fish hard to kill it then a few moments later take the bait headfirst so that any spiky fins do not erect themselves as the prey is swallowed. So if using a big bait wait for the second tap or weight of the fish to be felt before tightening up.

Fishing big baits is an act of faith, but once you have caught a big fish using these baits nothing else is ever the same again!