Some Needlefish Fun…

Some Needlefish Fun…

A short post, but one that highlights the contrasting behavioural traits of these magnificent fish, alongside the lure types that have worked for me personally of late…

Shrimp

Before my brief needlefish report, and to provide a great example of just how capricious these creatures can be… Over the past few weeks when, at last, the Sun has shone, and the sea has cleared, not only on the open coast, but also within all of the estuaries I frequent, the latter has proven to be a somewhat frustrating hunting ground thus far…

Shrimp, tiny 10-12mm long mini-critters, being constantly carried by the ebbing and flooding tide into the narrowest of channels, whereby the bass have had a ‘field day’ is something I have witnessed since the turbid, rain-filled creeks have become a comparative, clear-water oasis. I know the Fly Fishing fraternity will be yelling at me here, and if it were ‘my thing’ then I would have tried it and, who knows, maybe I’d have caught… Anyhow…

The ‘switch’

I wrote about something very similar on my sister website (South Devon Bass Guide Ltd) in relation to the period late into dusk, just as the stars are about to start twinkling, as possibly being the ultimate trigger point from the bass, and the bass lure anglers’ perspective. Well, going one step further is that moment in the evening when you feel, or rather sense, that it has become what I would scientifically call ‘proper dark…’

I was chatting to a lovely set of clients recently (brothers Dave, Mike and Pete) about the moment (as they had noticed it) when you’re stood on a remote beach, almost surrounded entirely by cliffs, and with only the sound of the waves to keep you company, when you ‘suddenly’ realise night has fallen.

And do you know what, very, very often, and I mean 80% of the time, especially within the early-May to late-July period when the nights are especially short, the bass that are already on the seabed will ‘come alive’, or the ones that are swimming hundreds of metres offshore will quickly traverse inshore – it’s like a switch has been flicked…

Innocuous

As you’ve probably guessed, I really do enjoy lure fishing at night with needlefish lures. Yes, they are exceedingly innocuous in the sense that they do ‘nothing’ underwater. I mean, they don’t wiggle, waggle or rattle which is, in essence, what I and many others believe is what makes them attractive to a bass over shallow water covering primarily flat expanses of reef.

Then there’s what they potentially represent… Cuttlefish, squid or fish that become practically comatose in darkness as I wrote in my first title ‘The Lure of The Bass‘. – or something else that we will never properly understand… Either way, these lures work, and work very well for bass – particularly early in the season when the cuttlefish are prevalent, and the larger, female bass are spawned out and hungry, yet remain keen to preserve their energy within a sea that hasn’t really warmed up yet.

Bumped or Thumped!

Do bass ‘take’ these offerings in a particularly way? In my experience, based on 7 years of launching these missiles out and smoothly retrieving them in over all manner of ground, yes. There’s the unbelievably gentle ‘tap’ and a then an a heavy weight (the dream!), the sharp bump (as the bass presumably attempts to stun its prey with the gill plate) and then the immediate wallop, or the equally exciting thump on the drop, courtesy of how the TC Lures/Marc Cowling Needlefish are constructed to ‘level sink’ under tension.

All of the above describes how I manged to tempt and land the bass below – one that put a smile on my face on what was a calm, if rather damp late-April evening! I’d been casting a Patchinko 125 out over the reef as the tide reached its zenith – more in hope than expectation until the gloom set in. But right on cue, as the spots of rain threatened a deluge, and the day became well and truly night, a move and a cast to a feature I’d eyeballed many moons ago resulted in the lure being ‘bludgeoned’ as it performed its party trick, and level sank at a controlled rate of 12″ per second. Precise? Would you expect anything else!

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