February 2024 – Hooks, Lines & Sinkers

Portugal 2024 – Day 6… The FOAL!

There was plenty of banter over dinner the previous evening about the shenanigans that happened with Nobby’s beauty of a bass he caught that day, but at the end of the evening John did call it…

“I fancy fishing that bit of coast tomorrow morning from the dark into first light”… he’s not a fishing guide for nothing.

Back at the accommodation later that night John confirmed his intention to give it a go early doors – he was on a flight home later that day so it was his last chance to fish – Nobby and myself agreed to join him, it was our last full day of fishing too… and so it came to be. Henry was staying in different accommodation to the rest of us so ended up not being directly party to what unfolded that morning which was a big, big shame.

Before I went to bed that night I had one last tinker with my kit, shoved a couple more different soft plastics into my bag as alternates to the Savage Gear Sandeel that had served us so well on that stretch of coast, tied new leaders on both the reel spools I had with me, and then very finally gave them a good old pull to check they were sound… I was good to go.

Alarms went off, we got ourselves up and fully booted, grabbed a quick coffee, in the car and we were off. Arrived in the dark and marched off along the same bit of ground that was becoming quite familiar to us now. John pressed on furthest while Nobby and myself chose to fish in pretty much the same places we had for the previous day’s chaos, again about 100 yards apart – why wouldn’t we?!

We could see that the water looked pretty decent even in the dark – probably about a half metre swell, small waves, but still bigger surges of water every now and then. The tide was the biggest of the week and was well into the ebb by the time we cast our lures out into the first light over that unforgiving bouldery, reefy ground. It really did look nice though.

I don’t recall the first lure I clipped on that morning but as the early sun turned the sky orange I do remember putting on a Heddon Super Spook surface lure and worked that for a few minutes. Nothing much was doing so I rummaged through my lure box again and chose to clip on a bigger profile 6.5” Keitech Easy Shiner soft plastic shad on a weighted weedless hook that I’d rigged up the night before. It’s a relatively heavy paddletail anyway but I figured I wanted to get it down amongst the boulders and be fishing the bottom quickly in the retrieve hence the added weight on the hook… right or wrong, that was how my mind was working at that moment.

First cast with it straight out in front of me was totally uneventful so I cast out slightly to my right second time around, no more than 30 yards out, let it sink to the bottom and then started a slow retrieve. I think I turned the handle no more than half a dozen times when the line went tight and stopped dead – my precise thoughts at that second in time were “Oh B*****ks, snagged it on a sodding rock”… but then the rock moved. My rod arched over and it moved again – this was no rock.

At this point in time I casually shouted over to Nobby “I’m in!”

He didn’t hear me at all because of the distance and the noise of the small waves hitting the boulders between us. At the same time there was a head shake – the fish had woken up and that woke me up a bit. My drag was set quite tight but now it started to sing as the fish lunged – okay, this might be alright I thought.

I shouted again but louder “Nobby I’m in!”

He heard me this time and responded casually over the radios we both carry “You need a hand?”.

By now I was trying to climb around the slippery boulders to keep an angle on the fish as it ran first right and then left – there was no way I could get to the radio tucked in my jacket to reply.

After a while I shouted, “This could be decent, get over here!”

He didn’t hear me again and radioed “Put your hand up if you need help!” – there was no way I could do that either as by now it was all I could do to keep the pressure on the fish and manage the situation. I now had an inkling I had a big fish and thoughts raced that there was a chance it was a double-figure bass. The fish continued to kite left, then right, then out, but I managed to keep the pressure on.

By now I’m probably five minutes into the fight and by chance the fish helped me out in terms of focus and a reality check – it did what I can only describe as a roll and thump on the surface as I managed to turn it once more… it was then that it first properly dawned on me the size of it.

I got excited and hollered “It’s massive!”

Nobby heard that alright and dropped everything immediately and began that perilous, slippery journey over those 100 yards or so of boulders – the same ones I’d done in reverse the previous day to get to him… except he forgot his Boga grip – yesterday’s lesson was we probably needed it, and he had to go back!

Meanwhile, I’m still dealing with massive head shakes and a drag intermittently singing as this fish lunged and ran between me attempting to gain line on it. I can’t tell you what the hell was going through my head at this point other than praying that knots held tight and trying simultaneously to think about where in this boulder strewn section of coast to land it… I just hoped playing it from the water’s edge I’d have a chance.

Then the fish did something it hadn’t done so far – it swam towards me so now I was desperately winding to catch up until it all went tight again, thankfully it did with one of those reassuring head shakes. A minute or so later it was nearly, nearly beaten and then I saw its head properly for the first time – it was huge. I focussed on doing everything I could to keep that massive head up just praying everything would hold fast. Then, as luck would have it, one of those bigger surges of water, like the one that hit me in that gully the day before, sailed her almost to my vantage point where I was able to grab the leader and quickly lock my small plastic fish grips onto the lower lip – I could see the hook hold was good – thank God right in the scissors of it’s mouth! Gasping, I moved this huge, beautiful, almost prehistoric looking bass carefully up onto the closest biggest boulder I could find and started to shake. Nobby was still making his way over to me and in my excited, adrenaline rushed, state I screamed out…

“It’s a metre long!”

It wasn’t…. but I quickly measured it – over 90cm on the tape, fat as butter and had a girth on a bass the likes of which I have never witnessed.

While this was all happening, on his way over to me Nobby was calling John – this is how that frantic conversation roughly went…

“John, Andy’s hooked a monster!”

“Yeah, yeah course he has!”

“No, no, John, he’s really got a monster – reckons it could be a metre long!”

“You’re serious? Christ, I want to see it! Don’t let it go, I’m on my way!”

Almost immediately after this Nobby arrives on the scene to find me sat on a rock in a state of shock.

“Where is it?” he cries.

He moves closer and then sees this leviathan of a bass a few yards away from me lying on the boulder I’d just beached it on. He was speechless but looked over at me and thankfully sprang me from my shock. We quickly unhooked the Keitech Easy Shiner from this colossal bass, got the Boga grips securely on its lower lip and supported it back into the water until John could get to us. We both of us held that fish in the water in our frenzied state for what seemed like an eternity waiting for him to clamber down to us – all the while being slammed by waves on the tide line… but we didn’t care, the fish was being oxygenated and it’s tail was lapping nicely in the current.

When John arrived we lifted the bass out of the water – he simply could not believe it in the same way Nobby and I couldn’t – our mouths were still totally aghast. I was still shaking through all this and when I lifted it from the water again for a few pictures it was like someone had asked me to hold a suitcase full of lead! We did try to weigh this fish but it instantly bottomed out the scales we had beyond 16lb… this was a really fat bass, belly like a carp. Nobby called it at close on 20lb, whereas I erred on the side of caution and called it nearer 18lb but honestly, it didn’t matter one iota other than to be able to give someone an idea of how big this beautiful, giant of a bass actually was – it was truly unbelievable.

We managed to get a few more pictures and a bit of video but the priority was getting her nicely recovered and sent back from whence she had came so into the water I went with her again and eventually, as a lucky surge brought her in to me, another one took her back out submerging me in the process – a dunking was the least I deserved for having been so blessed with catching this magnificent fish. That release, seeing that huge tail move off was honestly as big a pleasure as anything to do with the capture.

Still in shock I sat there for a few minutes trying to comprehend what had just happened, to take it all in, realising the luck I had experienced in everything holding whether that was the knots, the clip, the hook hold, etc. It just all came together for that one single magical moment in time, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

In the midsts of the pictures and video being taken John had phoned Henry who was still at his apartment. His commentary to Henry was caught on the video and his reaction, as a bass guide himself, is my favourite…

“Henry… Henry… We’ve got a f*****g fish that could be 20lbs here, I’m tellin’ ya!”

Nobby’s screech of “Look at the tail on it!” being a close second.

We gathered ourselves, an excited Henry belatedly joined us, and we fished on for a while after that, me in a daze, but that was to be the only capture that session…but what a capture, what a fish.

So there you have it. Even as I type this and try to recall everything that occurred that morning it still seems too surreal to comprehend it actually happened – I just cannot believe how lucky I have been. More than anything, as I continue to reflect on things, I maintain the nicest thing about that stunning fish, and indeed the whole week, was the privilege to be able to share it with guys who share the same magnificent passion for bass lure fishing, who marvel at these majestic creatures we pursue, and who are thoroughly decent blokes to spend time with. Thank you lads, thank you Portugal – what a fantastic trip!

FISH OF A LIFETIME… The FOAL!

Final word from me on this epic tale – the gear used:

Rod: Apia Foojin’RS Lynx 93M (6 – 42g)
Reel: Van Staal VR50
Line: Sufix 131 28lb Chartreuse
Leader: Seaguar Ace Hard Fluorocarbon 35lb
Clip: Seadra Speed Clip (15mm – 25lb breaking strain)
Lure: Keitech Easy Shiner 6.5” Wagasaki (24g)
Hook: Eagle Claw Trokar TK170 EWG 7/0 (12g)

The very lure… this Keitech Easy Shiner is officially retired!

Until next time…

Portugal 2024 – Day 5… The Storm Arrives

When I referred to days 1 – 4 in Portugal in my last blog post as being calm it’s safe to say days 5 and 6 were anything but… and I don’t mean from a weather and conditions perspective – this was two days of fishing that gave us, metaphorically speaking, an emotional storm full of calamity and ecstasy. In fact, it was all in the space of little under twenty four hours when I think about it. It’s fair to say it will be two days that will live long in the memory. Personally, it was a rollercoaster, that as I type, really is still too crazy to comprehend! Anyhow, here goes with Day 5…

Buoyed by seeing more plentiful signs of life on the south coast on day four, Nobby and I decided to start there on day five… flogging the west and it’s challenging conditions as we had for a majority of the time on previous days was bearing little fruit. You can’t ignore the signs, and that coupled with the lures spending more time working properly in the south coast waters it seemed a more logical approach. We returned to a similar area of the coast I’d picked up a nice 5lb fish the previous day and by the time we got there the tide had just about turned with the first of the flood. We began fishing a bit earlier in the coastline compared to where we had started the previous day and steadily worked ourselves along the water. It was rougher than the previous day but eminently fishable… I was fishing a small boulder ridden bay and about 100 yards away Nobby had perched himself up on a higher rock in an elevated position above the water surface.

We hadn’t been fishing long when the morning erupted…It started with a shout from Nobby saying “I’ve got one!”, and looking across the small bouldery bay I could see his rod with a nice flex in it but there was nothing in his voice at this point to suggest anything more than he was in control… but his next holler across the bay took things up a notch.

“I’m gonna need help, quick!” he cried.

I dropped everything and went. Now, you’ll recall I’m fishing in the bouldery bay about 100 yards away and these were those nasty, greened up slippery ones – ankle breakers – so there was no way of rushing over as quickly as I would love to have done – it seemed to take an age by the time I’d navigated the boulder field and then climbed up the first bit of higher rock to drop down the other side. I need to set the scene at this point, Nobby was, you remember, perched at an elevated position probably 2 metres or so above the water surface, and at this point, my good self. What I was greeted with was a huge bass partially beached on a rock below in a ‘L’ shaped gully that went back out to sea but which was constantly being washed through with some decent surges of water and waves. To make matters worse I could see the Savage Gear Sandeel Nobby had just clipped on for that cast was barely hooked in the fish and he had no room for manoeuvring his line as this lovely bass had gone almost underneath where he was standing. I had to try and time this right and get in there to retrieve the fish if I could without being engulfed by waves and surges of water. Adrenaline was pumping for both of us at this point and your mind is racing but in I went directly below Nobby, was able to grab the leader and grab the bass by the tail…. This was the point I really got to see how big this fish was for the first time and it was a beauty – dark and bronze, close on 80cm and my instinct said around the 12lb mark – this ratcheted the adrenaline levels up to another level but I managed to get my hand inside it’s huge mouth, grab the bottom lip and move it up a level in the gully onto a slightly higher level.

Nobby was shouting down to “Get your grips in it!”

However, at that moment I was hit by a big surge of water and accompanying wave, with those slippery boulders underfoot and before I could steady myself disaster struck – the hook popped out of the fish’s mouth into my finger briefly before in the next moment I was hit by another goffer of a wave which promptly removed the hook from said finger… excruciatingly, with the power of that water I just couldn’t hold on to that stunner of a bass and she slipped into a lower part of the gully towards the open sea. There was a lull in the waves and I made a last desperate, but ultimately fruitless attempt to grab her tail.

Nobby hollered “Dive on it!”

I wish I could have but I just couldn’t get there and so slowly and agonisingly she slipped back out to sea while I continued to be hit by waves of water – there was nothing I could do. My instant reaction on climbing out of that gully beyond the immediate cursing was to feel sick to the core, I felt I had let my mate down with a fish the size of which neither of us had caught before. I sat on a rock, battered, drenched to the bone, head in hands, pretty much unable to move or speak – Nobby was pretty much the same. I wanted him to have the moment I had a few years before in Ireland with a lovely fish that we were able to measure, picture and joyfully release but it just wasn’t to be – an unfortunate, error strewn largely on my part, and somewhat calamitous, set of events denied us that opportunity… if only the hook had held, if only we’d been more calm and measured in our actions we might have got a better result but we’ll simply never know now.

After that initial disappointment of us not getting to do the proper measure and pictures and so on, we had a stern word with ourselves… we’d grabbed the leader, we literally had the fish in our hands, and out of the water albeit all too briefly… that counts as a catch in most people’s book! We realised there was no reason to be too disappointed and should really be celebrating catching such an amazing fish – she was beaten and she really was an absolute beauty that I am very confident was around that 12lb mark given subsequent events. She swam off perfectly well which was something very positive to reflect on. Above all we had yet another cracking bass fishing story to tell and have a whole lot of banter about – mostly at my expense but I’ll willingly take that on the chin just to be a part of this calamitous fishy tale!

Lessons learned? You bet…

The big one for me was try and have a clear head on what needs to be done without getting over excited around big bass.
Having decent fish grips close to hand are a must when you’re dealing with big fish at the shore with waves and surges of water.
You have to really think about where you’re fishing to give yourself the very best chance of landing a big one.

Bass fishing in Portugal… good grips are sensible – lesson learned

As the saying goes, “you live and learn” and we managed to dust ourselves down after all that chaos, regain composure and began throwing the lures out again. I’m pleased to say Nobby did then catch three much smaller fish soon after and I picked up one much the same – all on Savage Gear Sandeels. What a day it had been, a proper storm of emotions, and importantly those lessons learned… we’re laughing about it now and I’m taking my medicine as “old butter-fingers” and there are words like “sabotage” being thrown around readily in jest but there will always be a bit of me that feels sick about it for my mate.

Little did we know what was to come on day 6, our very last day’s fishing in Portugal.

Until next time…

Portugal 2024 – Days 1 – 4… The Calm Before The Storm

Where do I start? First off, in the last couple of years I’ve been rather tardy with updating the blog but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been out chasing those bars of silver both here in the UK and further afield. Let’s just say I’ve been galvanised… all will become clear in my blog posts to follow, I promise!

Obviously, I’ve fished at relatively local marks during this time combined with multiple trips to Cornwall and Ireland again, plus last year south-west Portugal for the first time. Fair to say a mixed bag of results in terms of numbers of bass caught and the average size… a couple of 60cm fish was probably my best across these past two years and all caught local-ish to me.

More on Portugal….It’s fairly well documented that big bass can be caught there so the inaugural trip there in 2023 was eagerly awaited but we found it to be an unseasonably cold one and the group of us who went all struggled for fish of any size at all – best between us all week going to around 7lb. Think I managed a paltry two fish – it wasn’t easy! However, it wetted our appetite enough with the stunning ground and conditions on offer that some of us signed up once again for a return trip in January 2024.

So, here’s the first part of how events unfolded this year. Friends Henry and John had already been out there for over a week by the time my old mate Nobby and myself rocked up. Luckily we got out on our flight just in the nick of time before Storm Isha hit the UK shores. Sadly, the same storm put pay to our other pal Henry being able to join us – the weather Gods were really not smiling on him at all – he had very little choice but to cut his losses. A real shame all round.

What was cheering when we arrived was the conditions being noticeably warmer than the previous year, plus Henry and John already having had some nice fish including a lovely double figure bass for John. Things appeared encouraging.

But guess what?…It then got tough. The west coast where we were hoping to fish blew up and was tricky even when you could find semi-fishable conditions… the surges of water are way beyond anything I think you get in the UK, coupled with huge waves and surf it is extremely hard to fish even with the heavier lures in the 50-70g bracket. You have to be sensible and know when to walk away – anything over a 2 metre swell makes things extremely tough on that west coast.

However, that said we still picked up the odd fish here and there, just nothing significant for all our considerable efforts climbing and scrambling down cliff passes and gullies. It’s not for the faint-hearted that’s for sure with the step count and floors climbed by the end of the week looking pretty impressive!

With the west coast blown out for a majority of the time we had to adapt our plans to keep ourselves fishing and so attentions turned to options on the south coast – yes it was less challenging conditions we were faced with but there was a lot of weed inshore so you had to pick your spots carefully to fish smartly. The big difference was there were more recognisable signs of life with plenty of bait in the water, crabs on the shore and birds working the inshore waters. The other big plus was our lures were definitely spending more fishable time in the water rather than tumbling through surf as we’d found out west. That ultimately changed our fortunes with more fish showing albeit no monsters…. This one was about 5lb taken on a Savage Gear Sandeel – lovely dark and bronze fish.

And that was pretty much the story of the first four days Nobby and myself had after joining John and Henry, and it’s there I’ll leave it for now – it had all be relatively calm – the storm awaits, trust me.

Until next time….