Welcome to Part 1 of ‘My Personal Catches in 2025’ – a post that covers an astonishing period of bass lure fishing during the months of January, February, and March.
2024 had ended well and truly on a high when I was smashed no more than a rod length away from me by the 68cm brute (above) on a Patchinko 100 on New Year’s Eve would you believe!! You can read that story and my full 2024 Personal Catches Review here.
Jovial January
I knew it was going to be great year of bass lure fishing when the first bass I caught of the year (during a frosty but sunny morning on the 2nd January) picked up the creature bait lure as I replied to the ‘Happy New Year’ messages that had filtered through on my phone.
I’d literally stopped the ‘turn, pause, turn, pause’ retrieve for around 45 seconds, leaving the lure in the very shallow and dirty water, before commencing the full retrieval of the Megabass Sleeper Craw, only to find a 60cm bass slashing away on the other end!
Mission. Accomplished…!
Following on from the December catches within the estuaries here in south Devon, I made it my mission to concentrate solely on these environments throughout the entirety of 2025. Of course I fished the open coast as well on occasion – especially during the really short sessions. But whenever I had a whole day to myself, my Border Terrier Bertie and I would stick (quite literally) to the mud, gravel, and slippery bladder-wrack to get our fill.
Learning. That was the number one priority and main objective, with the intention of taking anything new that I/we learned (whilst out fishing with my 2nd Guide Joe as often as we could around his full time job) directly into our South Devon Bass Guide operation. Indeed, as you’ll discover from the 2025 Gallery of Client Captures (here) we most definitely succeeded, so it really was mission accomplished.
Seminal
The fish above kickstarted what was a run of seminal captures, not only because of what they mean for my bass lure fishing going forward, but also for what I suspect it meant to my readers, followers, and fellow bass lure anglers out there. Indeed, you will find all of the ‘Creature Bait Heavy’ blog posts from January, many of which contain Audio Clips containing precisely ‘How, When, and Where’ I was retrieving the Sleeper Craw below:
- Account Opened in Quite a Remarkable Fashion
- January Round-Up: More Midwinter Bass on the Creature Baits
- Largest for me ‘Thus Far’ on a Creature Bait
- Why I’m Specifically Targeting the Murkier Water with Creature Baits
January’s Personal Gallery
Below is a gallery/slideshow containing the bass that I landed and released during the month of January, which includes 3x 60cm+ fish – my thanks to Henry Gilbey for the more professional images of my gripping and grinning!
Fantasy February
As I headed out to fish one of my favourite winter venues on the first day of the new month I was very confident of catching what can be a rare beast – a February bass. Indeed, having failed to land one during the three sessions that I completed in February 2024 (the incessant wind and rain between mid-October 23 to mid-April 24 had made things exceedingly difficult and I wasn’t prepared to make myself ill over it by standing in the ice, hail, rain, and Gales) I was very happy to feel that ‘dink’ on the Megabass Sleeper Craw only 30 minutes into the session.
But if I thought that was a result, on the very next day I landed what became (briefly as it happens!) my new February PB of 62cm, beating my previous best by some 5cm. What’s more, I landed this amazing fish after deciding to underarm flick the lure into the mouth of a very narrow channel running off of an adjacent mudflat after witnessing some fry scatter.
You can read and listen to the full story of this momentous capture and the one above, via the embedded Audio Clip here: February PB Obliterated by a Capture that Ranks in my Top 3.
Better, and better still!
I was still pinching myself by the time I ventured out again looking for my 5th ’60’ of the year even though we were barely five weeks into it. But the fishing got better, and better, and well and truly off the scale, as you’ll read in the following paragraph!
But prior to what is one of the highlights of my bass lure fishing ‘career’ I did land the 5th during the very next session, in addition to the 6th ’60’ of 2025 during the next while fishing with Henry Gilbey, with another of 58cm in between!
Now, although I have caught some fantastic bass during the coldest months of the year, including a 71cm in December and 2x 66cm fish in January, plus my second largest ever at 74cm in March, all of my more significant winter and early-spring fish (those over 55cm) have been caught during darkness, on soft plastics such as the Wave Worm Bamboo Stick and Savage Gear Gravity Sticks (the Pulse and Paddle Tail).
This was developing into an extraordinary run of captures, that came even more noteworthy once I realised that I only actually fished, on average, two or three of times a week during January and February, purely because I was very busy writing The Lure of The Bass – The Revised Edition.
Of note also, was the fact that the majority of these creature bait captures were occurring in daylight. And alongside the atypical locations in which I was hooking them, my ‘Bass Brain’ was getting utterly fried! You can read/listen to how the 63cm bass transpired within here: ‘February PB Smashed Again alongside more late-winter catches‘.
The Game Changer
Aside from my personal best bass of 83cm (one of the very few fish I have weighed in the past 12 years at 12lb 2oz incidentally) the bass in the images below ranks as my most memorable capture to date. To track down, hoodwink, hook, and land a bass of 71cm, during a period in the year when ‘they aren’t supposed to be there’ (they most definitely are!) just completely blew me away, and it still does.
Whether I can repeat this kind of standard of bass lure fishing is most probably weather and sea temperature dependent… But in tandem with some exciting developments that I will be testing over the next few months in regards to how I will operate next year, I will be giving it a serious ‘go’ over the winter of 2025/26, I can assure you of that.
The lure type was of course the inimitable Megabass Sleeper Craw, but the type of location in which I landed it was of particular interest to me, because it is a mark where I have witnessed the two biggest bass I have ever seen in my life. I discuss all of this in the blog post that I wrote and recorded here (My 71cm Bruiser. Yet Another Capture that has Blown my Mind!)
Don’t Mention March!
“I have to finish this book, so DO NOT go fishing”, was what I kept saying to myself! But with another 3x 60cm bass on the deck in February (plus the 70!), armed with the knowledge that some serious bass were out there and on the prowl I just couldn’t resist. And besides, I had to catch a March bass didn’t I, so to ensure that I achieved a full 12 months of rolling captures.
I don’t think I ever posted up the 50cm bass above on social media – one of three that I landed late into dusk and into early darkness on the 1st March 2025. But although I was very happy to break the March duck, I was actually slightly gutted that I hadn’t hooked one of the absolute monsters that I’d sighted earlier that day…
Therefore, an assault on the same venue was in order on the 2nd March. And whether I was successful or not, I’d already decided that this would be my final fishing session until I’d completed writing and editing The Lure of The Bass – The Revised Edition (which I did mange by the final week of March).
As you can read and listen to in my Blog/Audio post (‘Head Down’ After my Early-March Success) the number, and more importantly, the size of the bass (that were between 8-10lb by my estimation) that were swimming in pairs it seemed on the day prior had really whet my appetite in preparation for what had to be a short session!
And by hook and by crook, aided by the fact the water was slightly murkier and a little more ruffled during this session meant that more of the odds were in my favour. So yes, I did catch another 60cm+ bass at 62cm (my 8th of 2025), on the Sleeper Craw again, after sighting two of them as they gradually swam along the nearside edge of the mudflat I had squelched through!
In Summary
It is very easy to summarise what was a magical 10 week period, and one that I place firmly at the top of my overall erudition where bass lure fishing is concerned! I know your heart will bleed here if you live north of the south coast of England, but I really wish I could have fished more, as the weather and overall conditions within all of the estuaries I fished was superb during that time.
However, in the back of my mind every single time I made a cast, was that I had to complete the project I had set myself over the winter – to rewrite my first book of course, and one I am exceptionally proud of.
In Part 2 of ‘My Personal Catches in 2025; I will cover the months of April through to August, a chapter in the year when adapting to the conditions and placing what they want in front of them is paramount to your success.
Variety is the spice of life as they say, and with the warmer sea and air temperatures, coupled with far less time to fish myself due to my South Devon Bass Guide commitments taking priority, meant that when I wetted a line, I had to get it right – which I did more often than not to the tune of multiple 50-55cm fish, and quite a few more 60s, both by day and by night, and on various lure types and colours.
Have a great Christmas Day!
My Books
(Including my NEW RELEASE: The Lure of The Bass – The Revised Edition)
Whether you are a complete novice in regards to bass lure fishing, or indeed if you are at the stage where you are looking to up your game or gain an additional advantage over these most mercurial of creatures, there is something within all of my books that will assist you. For stock levels, purchasing options (BACS or PayPal) and for more information in regard to the contents of each of my respective publications, you can follow the links below.
The Lure of The Bass – The Revised Edition
Bass Lure Fishing – A Guide’s Perspective (Volume 1)
Bass Lure Fishing – A Guide’s Perspective (Volume 2)
Thanks for reading
Marc Cowling
Marc Cowling - Bass Lure Fishing 