“Two surfers hung in the middle distance, bobbing like a pair of seals…My interest was different from theirs. That clean water would hold bass in the peak of condition”
Country Sights and Sounds
John Shelley
AT ITS peak, the tide was quite rumbustious, the breakers full of the youthful energy given to them by the spring equinox, heaping themselves on the shore as big, lumpy waves, the sort that deposit sand to create summer beaches rather than carry it away in the manner of their winter counterparts.
Two surfers hung in the middle distance, bobbing like a pair of seals. They were waiting for the Big One, the giant wave that this sort of wind and tide should produce. I watched them for a while and wondered at the kind of fortitude that would keep a person up to his neck in the briny, just waiting to be washed back inshore. They are quite mad, of course.
My interest in the surf was different from theirs. That clean, well-oxygenated water would hold bass, and bass in the peak of condition at that. We often see bass on the fishmonger’s slab, but they are invariably small, herring-sized fish, farmed in the tepid, barely moving waters of the Mediterranean, hardly worthy of the noble name that they bear.
Much better are these wild fish that must battle the elements and forage for their food, hunting sandeel and sprat among pounding waves in rocky coves or in the white water of the surfers’ domain. These fish are fit and firm-fleshed, solid in the flank and broad across the shoulder. More, they are tasty, and so much so that we might be forgiven for thinking them a different species from the cellophane-wrapped offerings of the supermarket shelf.
The best of Irish bass fishing is found in the southwest of the country, along the Atlantic storm beaches of Kerry and Clare, with the occasional Galway beach profitable from time to time. But Mayo? For many years the odd bass that was caught this far north was taken by anglers in search of other kinds of fish, and was viewed more as a curiosity than as a legitimate target species. Consequently, the number of anglers making dedicated bass fishing trips has remained low. An air of secrecy prevails among those who have found the fish, with information on catches and successful locations difficult to find.
Yet the fish are present in reasonable numbers and are certainly worth pursuing. I am not about to reveal my own hotspots; it took me a long time to discover that bass appear in specific locations along the Mayo coast (there are other places they seem never to visit). A clue: Find the baitfish and you have a good chance of finding the bass.
Other than that, bass fishing is not very much different to any other kind of shore fishing. Some small adaptations might be made to the terminal tackle, such as swapping the short booms of the flatfish rig for a longer-flowing trace, and using a high-quality, chemically sharpened hook with a wide gape in place of the heavy-forged, long-shanked hook that catches an angler’s pocket rather than his eye: We spend more than we would like our wives to know about on rods and reels, not to mention the associated paraphernalia, and happily dig for more than an hour to get enough fresh bait, only to undo all our efforts by using hooks of inferior quality.
It was many years ago that I bought my first packet of chemically sharpened hooks at the behest of a more-experienced angler. They didn’t look much different; same size, same shape, even the same colour. But they were infinitely sharper. My catch rate more than doubled as the pulls and tugs that had kept my rod tip rattling turned into fish. One New Year’s Day at Keem Bay one of these fish was a sea bass. I was hooked.
So there I was, watching the waves with half a mile of empty beach either side of me. The wind dropped part way into the ebb and the tide slackened almost into stillness. The surfers left. Behind a tired fizzle of spray a dark shape arrowed through the water. Another followed, and a fin appeared, followed by a broad, silver-scaled back, with the tip of a tail half a yard behind.
Mullet. And that was all I saw that day. But I hope to soon be back on that wild shore, facing into the sunset and waiting for the Big One, the kind of fish this beach should produce. Quite mad, of course.
