Anglers' Net - The UK Online Fishing Magazine: Bassing on the Alde. 4th May 2008

Bassing on the Alde. 4th May 2008
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MarkCrame on 08 May, 2008 12:41:00
 
A new one on me  Id never fished the River Alde at Aldeburgh, Suffolk before
and Id never fished specifically for Bass before. Id also not had a Bass from
the yak and not fished with Billy before so quite a lot of firsts for me on this
session.
Billythebass had come over a few days before to pick up the reels I was selling
and we hatched a cunning plan to have a crack at the bass that had just started
to appear after the winter. A few schoolies had been reported and so we decided
to have a bit of sport.
I was due to meet Billy at 9am, 33 miles and an hour away and accordingly set
my alarm for 7:30, naturally waking up rather excitedly at 6:30. My wife wasnt
excited however so I had a coffee and got my gear together and loaded up the
yak.
The previous afternoon my daughters and I had taken some drop nets down to the
pier and in an hour had managed to get 22 4-inch prawns to hopefully use as
livebait. This was cracking fun and the first time Id been this year as its
been a bit rough and is still a bit early for them to be here in numbers. Kept
overnight in the fridge half a dozen were still alive when I left which was not
a good percentage having had some last for days previously. Still, bait is bait
and off I went.
Arriving by the Martello Tower I dumped the Trident and kit off and went and
parked. Billy was already there and getting set up and I got my first look at a
Hobie. He has the revolution and I had a good old nose about. I was very
impressed  apart from the excellent quality there really seems to have been a
lot of thought put into the design of this and some things, such as mesh side
pockets and round compartmentalised hatch bucket were something that I would
like to have on mine. The ease of deployment of the rudder also really
impressed me although controlling it with my hands did not appeal  but then
you need to as your feet are taken up with the pedals fitted to the drive. I
can see why people who have them swear by them.
I launched first and sat about pretty stationary as Billy got in and set off,
peddling away as I took a pic or two:
I must have been in an eddy or something as this threw me into thinking there
was very little current and so I stuck a couple of lures out and paddled out. I
drifted at an alarming rate as did my lures and I caught a moored yacht. I then
disturbed the owners breakfast and had to bugger about to unhook from the
mooring line. Still, he was fine about things and I had a notion of the current
speed here and waited until I was into a clearer area before sticking the lines
out again.
We paddled for a while  or rather I did as Billy sat back and peddled  it was
a first for him too as hed not fished from his yak yet.
Reaching our mark I tied off to a buoy while Billy tried to get the anchor to
hold but the current was ripping through and so he tied off to another buoy
further away than hed intended. A pity as we had to shout to each other rather
than just talk normally  and this was a social outing after all.
I was carrying 5 rods with me, the most Ive ever taken as I wasnt sure what
itd be like. My two coarse fishing match rods which are very fine and used for
tiddler-bashing in the river, loaded with 4lb mainline, two 12lb class for
trolling and a 7ft spinning rod with my 17 year old baitcaster. The current put
paid to the original plan of float-fishing prawns on the light rods and so I
chucked out the 12lb rods, now-dead prawn on one and ragworm on the other. I
was using muppets on one rig and attractor blades/beads on the other, size 2/0
hooks and a running ledger rig. Which is all fine of course but Billy was not
so preoccupied with such irrelevancies and was in:
And he was then in again.
And again.
So they were here then  but small. Then I got a few taps that I missed before
finally hooking my first yak-caught Bass. Another tiddler but species number 14
for the year to date.
A quick photo and then back it went.
Billy was still catching, I was missing (frequent) bites, and soon he had a
sizeable one. Then I had a third  a beautiful, shiny silver Personal Best!
Excellent stuff. I had a couple more tiddlers in the boat, a good few bites
(and some good bites too) and dropped a really heavy fish too which was a great
pity (and too damned common for me). All too soon it was time to head back up
river  I didnt have long to fish as we had plans for the evening. Of course I
had to try for one more fish and after a few minutes the rod tip went and I
struck into what felt like a better fish&
A codling! I normally paddle a couple of miles out for these and here came one
from a river. Still, it was only a pound or so and I released it to grow
fatter.
We paddled back up river. The current had slackened a fair bit but was still
against us and it took 2 or 3 times as long to head back to the launch point. I
had a cranked shaft to play with and although I found it perfectly fine to
paddle with I still got some soreness in my left wrist so its starting to
point to poor paddle technique or perhaps an adjustment in feather being
required. The WAFIs (as I heard them called) were about and so we had to pay
heed to them.
As we came back up towards the marina there was a strong smell of diesel and it
seemed that some one had managed to spill a fair bit of it that had gone in the
water. It was visible for quite a distance as it flattened the water out quite
markedly. Anyway, back to the launch point I decided to have another ten
minutes as my last cast tradition and with the tide just about at the top I
wasnt expecting much sport. And nor did I get it  a few small knocks but no
fish. I paddled in and loaded up having landed 5 Bass and a Codling (all on
ragworm) and having had a very pleasant few hours indeed.