Went bassing at the end of last week (on Friday) with a friend and as we were feathering some launce, caught some of the smallest joey mackerel I've ever seen.
This was one of half a dozen joeys we caught; some were even smaller than this. We also caught a dozen or so sprats, which I'd never caught here before. The joeys and sprats went into the wooden courge along with the 40 or so launce.
When we got to the bass mark and opened the courge, I was eager to try one of the joeys under my float. Annoyingly however, whilst the launce were still fighting fit, sadly the joeys and sprats had popped their clogs. I guess they're a pretty fragile and it might have been better to keep them away from the launce in a separate container.
With 5 minutes of starting, we had our first bass, shortly followed by three or four more over the next 20 minutes, before it went quiet and we had nothing for the next hour or so. We tried moving, but still couldn't find the bass, so we decided to troll some plugs to cover some ground and if we found the bass again, the plan was to resume fishing with the live launce in that area.
Needless to say 20 minutes of trolling produced nothing and when both plugs became snagged on the bottom, my patience for trolling had all but run out! Having recovered both lures (whew!), I noticed that there was a coloured area of water and we decided to give that area a fish with the launce. Almost immediately we were back into bass again, but unlike the start of the session when we were both connecting to all our bites, we started to miss no end. I guess the bites to hookups dropped by at least 50% and it didn't matter whether I used small or massive launce - the results were still the same. That day, the coloured water fished far better than the clear and we had quite a busy afternoon catching somewhere in the region of 20 odd bass, the biggest being around the 5lb mark.
I couldn't fish the next day, but my friend went back with his son to fish the same mark again. That evening, I'd just arrived back home when my wife came out to say John was on the phone - I immediately thought the jammy devil had had a bumper haul or massive bass, but no, John explained that his wheel had just fallen off his boat trailer on the way back home over the Wolds going back towards Malton and did I know of a recovery firm that could help!!!? John is meticulous with his boat and trailer maintenance and so how this happened still remains a complete mystery. Luckily there was no-one else involved at the time and the trailer doesn’t seem to be damaged.
When I enquired what they had caught the answer was - only one! Just shows how one day can vary to the next!
