If you're like me and lucky enough to fish boulder fields or rough grounds in which Bass love to spread out and hunt in, often as individuals, from early spring and throughout the summer and Autmn here's a suggested method to use, alongside the traditional suspending hard baits, during the early season. How about flicking out a small weightless or lightly weighted softie (as conditions allow) Texas rigged as pictured above, allowing it to sink and leaving it for a few, lets say 6 seconds. From here, after a slow draw or maybe a "Jerk" draw, let it sink whilst remaining in contact as the take will most likely happen at this point. Slow fishing is the key here as our quarry can be less inclined to chase down and attack a hard plastic shooting over their head's at warp speed due to the reduced water temps and more likely to be rooting around looking for small items of food such as Crabs, Blennies, Rockling or what ever they happen to be focused on as a food source. I can say without doubt that takes can be tentative early season and a lot of fish are dropped. For this style of fishing I would choose be using my lighter set up of the Yamaga Blanks 81/12, 2500 sized reel and 15lb braid for a nicely balanced feel.
Let's hope we get some calmer weather soon to use this and many other effective methods...
Let's hope we get some calmer weather soon to use this and many other effective methods...
