MOST anglers are adventurous, there’s a bit of wanderlust in our hearts and itchy feet in our boots.
Dream trips of cod in Norway, bonefish in the Bahamas or, at least, imagining casting into the stream that’s running alongside the motorway while you’re stuck in commuter traffic.
There’s a lot of comfort in the familiar – arriving at your favourite spot and knowing what lure you’re going to use and which rock the fish are going to be hiding behind.
When you know the beat or the loch like the back of your hand then you can just get fishing right away.
But taken out of your comfort zone, everyone must have thought, “Why are THEY fishing in MY swim?”, you need to scout out a new spot.
My fishing buddies will term it “a voyage of discovery”, certainly a euphemism for “probably going to blank today” but it helps on the long drive to add a bit of hope and mystery.
None of us like fishing in a crowd so what do you look for when you land at a new mark?
A bit of reading beforehand certainly points you in the right direction, local tackle shops will have some standard recommendations and Google Maps can definitely help you find likely looking spots. The most popular places take a battering that can push fish away and there are too many people who will gladly hump their supplies in but lose the ability to carry out the much lighter rubbish. So when you land and you are looking for decent sport in a nice environment, you’re going to be doing the hard yards.
I ended up in the south-west last week looking for bass, the wind and tide wasn’t favourable for my usual beaches so I was off hunting with my lure rod.
I was looking for shallow beaches with access to scrambly uncomfortable wading over rough ground.
There are plenty of crescent moon bays along the Galloway coast that fit the bill, with rocky outcrops and water that’s full of lumps and bumps.
These break up the waves and pull of the tide, creating swirls and eddies that batter the baitfish around making them easy targets for the bass.
Rough ground can prove costly if you’re fishing prized lures. There’s no escaping the snags, so for me soft plastics, jigs and little line thru blades are the order of day, bouncing around over the debris.
Only having one hook rather than the two or three trebles that some hard lures have hasn’t affected catch rates too much, I hope, but it’s curtailed the frustration of loose feeding expensive lures to the sea.
A sheltered mark near the car might be more comfortable but you’ll catch more with the wind in your teeth after a tough walk in.
If you want a life of luxury and the familiar, you can pour a dram and sit in front of the fire – if you want to scratch the itch, you need to get out there and brave it.
