Seeker Sportfishing

15/11/2024

One of the main reasons I don’t post on here…I’m honestly too passionate to write a simple post.
It goes on to become some incredibly in depth monster that I can’t quite word, until suddenly it’s bedtime and I just click delete and sadly accept I can’t post anything today as I never got it all out of my brain how I wanted to.
What should’ve been a simple caption often quickly becomes the size of small blog post that almost needs a title 😂
However, instead of not posting over 90% of the content I have, I’m going to just begin doing so and I’m going to just let the driffle come out with a few typos at times. I think some of it’s actually really useful stuff! Like today’s quick instagram story caption below that’s now become a bit too long to read in 5 secs.
…
Slowly retrieved crab(ish) coloured softies were the go-to all day. Fishing muddy areas over the thick sea lettuce patches where the crabs were peeling saw fish fully tailing hard and very visually.
On the flood it was as if they moved on to them very silently, found close-in on the shoreline as the tide pushed fast. On the ebb it turned in to some of the coolest action you could hope to see out there, with tails sticking out like carrots 3-4 at time over a castable zone, popping up like a game of ‘whack-a-mole’, and just begging for a fast and accurate cast that often converted if they didn’t already have a massive mouthful of peeler. This action was short lived, maybe 45mins max as they’re hunting patches were left dry in next to no time.

Although on crabs, a craw style bait would’ve weeded up in these quite specifically weedy areas and the bites on small paddletails retrieved cleanly off the bottom (setup weedless on 2gm chebs) were awesome. Super visual stuff as they bow waved and in and smoked it hard and then peeled off in inches of water. 🚀

Fish baits are (pretty much) all but dried up in the Harbour here and the crabs will now be their main focus for months unless they move outside and start hoovering up squid and whiting - my biggest fear recently if the NE and stifling near 1030hPa didn’t cease. Thankfully that beautiful calm weather lasted so long they just fed as normal in the lingering high. Mild temps were actually kind of going against us there for a little bit.

Now, just as the pressure is about to finally drop, the temps go too and the peelers go for it on this big tide. Perfect 👌 hopefully lots of harbour fish gorge up on this opportunity as it could well bring some big moments to capitalise on and score big.

Just 2 more days of Bass guiding for 2024 and then plenty of personal fishing 😁

02/11/2024

Seriously good fishing and an opportunity to get in on some November action…

25/10/2024

Bookings, cancellations and weekend fishing…

12/10/2024

Lots of new products and well worth a look through the 2025 Fishus Lures catalogue.

The brand new FISHUS catalogue for 2025 is now available for download on our website: https://www.fishuslures.com/en/fishus-catalog

Showcasing new rods from the prestigious SW and FW ranges, novelties in the STARLING collection with new models for Tenya and Slow Jigging fishing, and the new FISHUS SIAM, affordable rods with high quality components.
In terms of lures, we also bring new products from Fishus by Lurenzo for both fresh and saltwater: the revolutionary lobster imitation THE LOBSTER, the new ASSAULT CRANK crankbaits, the ESPETIT BLITZ or a new size of the CERBERUS swimbait.

On its 104 pages you will find the complete FISHUS products for the new 2025 fishing season. 🧐

04/10/2024

A stunning topwater fish for my client, Martin, today.

Careful watercraft and spotting good fish prior in the area, then positioning ourselves to capitalise on the tide draining their zone completely, all meant this one was the cherry on top of a very successful day. A day filled with variation in marks visited and lessons/knowledge imparted.

The pop and pause technique in a fast, and very shallow minor tidal race, was what provoked this fish to attack. It gave Martin a chance to christen his new rod and watch the bend of it on a decent one that used the flow to his every advantage.
…
Back at tomorrow and I love being able to try slightly tightening up my timings if I notice something. There’s one particularly good resident one that I’m hoping will go back in the same grass gully on these big tides🤞🏻 let’s see what tomorrow brings.

19/09/2024

It’s the thought of these ones eating that keeps both myself and my clients pushing hard. The rewards are worth it.

17/09/2024

I can’t really say enough about this little weapon, silky smooth, silent and totally hassle free exceptional line lay. Mega light and compact, and looks absolutely stunning. 🤩
ticks all the boxes and some.

I’d confidently advise anyone and everyone to purchase one, I love mine and it flawlessly stands up to the tough abuse that comes with SW Bass fishing.

My older model Certate and this updated ‘24 one are both spooled with the newly released J-Braid Expedition - in 8.5kg/18.5lb (0.13mm, PE1)
A seriously good braid, again I simply can’t knock it and would definitely advise even the most discerning angler to spool up with this.

15/09/2024

This area is not only full of beautifully scenic marks, there’s also loads of slightly offbeat more Urban zones where you might find moments of incredibly cool sight fishing.

By approaching these places very differently to others on a guided day, we often extract fish from them by using a lot more finesse than other more typical ‘Bass’ environments we’ll be visiting.
Many of these fish are habitual visiting these small areas, often seen and targeted but few get fooled unless your angling approach and presentation are tweaked throughout.

These types of ‘marks’ are often quick stops in a guided day, and often not the prettiest, but they come with lots of learning and hopefully some of the coolest action I can put you on if it all comes together 🤞🏻

The photos are taken from 5 separate clients this year, none of which I think got a write up at the time.

12/09/2024

The last two days have been a huge success, not just going by numbers of fish caught, or size, or even my own personal account. Importantly, I’m positive my clients would echo my sentiment, walking away with the lessons and value they’d hoped to get when booking, and having a blast while doing it.
I’ve been successfully mined of knowledge while meeting expectations.

A wide open topwater bite was found both days but only at certain tide times and locations due to small tidal ranges over the Neaps.
When the going was good then it was frantic and full of excitement, dreamy topwater stuff…but don’t get me wrong, when it dried up we searched very hard and carefully to find single fish that sometimes didn’t show or eat (occasionally they did 😉).

Ying/Yang in full effect out there while baits around.
Temps should soon switch them to fingerling full time.
Smiles all round 😁.

08/09/2024

Awesome session today after really struggling to make the correct calls this week.

A full 5 days of guiding reduced to just two and a morning session, all due to rain. None of these downpours really came in as predicted but I feared too much that it wouldn’t make for great fishing while the majority of fish sat out of reach on baitfish. Rain cooling the systems, plus that heavy stuff really has heaps of road run off after Summer days, Northerlies and no sun only making me second guess it all further.
I really owe it to my clients to not be out there when it’s all pretty much against us on paper.

What actually transpired was 80% of the time the weather never came in at all and I lost guiding days in beautiful overcast and calm conditions. Very frustrating! The one thing that continually made me hesitant to get clients to commit to journeys from far away was the threat of big thunderstorms, even the real time rain radar seemed to not keep up with the weather and nothing hit while I sat gritting my teeth looking out the windows.

When I did guide clients, I found out that I’d made wrong calls around weather and it did come in, we missed bite times, I failed to get timings right due to factors way out my control like closed paths, and I witnessed good anglers with their limits of dead beautiful big fish in sensitive spots.
To me, proper anglers killing these big fish just doesn’t make sense and sticking to ‘rules’ is a lame argument with a bag of over 60cm dark gold fish - a post for another time.

So, one of the tougher weeks at work for myself as I should’ve now learnt the lessons my incredible bosses overseas have taught me and just gone out! Necessary work days guiding disappeared and, when I did guide, I somehow didn’t quite nail it as much I’d hoped. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Giving myself some grace, Saturday was beautifully accurate and a huge success at each mark with a very happy client. I’ll do a post on this soon.

Today I really couldn’t give care what weather hit, the call was made largely around my client telling me he had to return to Reading for a family emergency very late despite being here the day prior, the weather looked crap so I said to stay there…and I fished hard. Grateful for when it absolutely chucked it down but yet again the weather never hit anywhere near enough to have not run today.

Back at it soon, these things aren’t easy 😉

05/09/2024

They’re definitely very focused on baitfish at present, causing the going to feel exceedingly tough for a shore angler.

We’ve got locust like clouds of seabirds feeding for prolonged periods over Sprat and Whitebait, running along temps and colour breaks for km’s only 400-800m off most of the local beaches.
It’s all part of the plan, caused by these beautiful big chlorophyll factories we fish in getting the heat and required variables as the year progresses to really crank out phytonutrients back in to the ocean and fire the food chain right from the bottom up.
In turn, these filter feeding huge shoals of smaller baitfish turn up in late summer/early Autumn, joined by mackerel and plenty of Gars moving on similar currents and with food. It feels like most of the Bass locate and move to these dense baitballs, staying close and going absolutely nuts on them at select times.
That vacuum affect can definitely be felt if you’re not at the party, and the intense volume feeding that the Bass will exhibit in this scenario can potentially bring periods of really dull bites inbetween the feeding action, just to make it a bit harder 🙄. As if needing to cast 600m wasn’t difficult enough.

Anyway, we headed to the Coast yesterday and luckily we found a few.
The harbour fished absolutely rubbish at almost every mark we visited, not barren of Bass but definitely low in numbers. 1 nice one off the top, in the 13th hour 😮‍💨.

3 fish landed in total yesterday by my awesome client, Jack. The day was a purchased by his partner as a gift for his 29th Birthday.
The smallest 1 got photographed, the 2 biggest ones were dropped after unhooking them and prematurely released. Proper butter fingers day. I dropped his 3rd one to make him feel better about how he dropped his biggest 😉

Lovely fish, all well landed. The great memories and the info garnered will remain without all the photos.

….This Coastal session also had me excited to return today to catch a very small but productive weather window with another client.

01/09/2024

30/08/2024

Live, tomorrow at 5pm! From Daiwa UK

It’s been an honour and a pleasure to work on a passion project like this with such fantastic sponsors. I feel very blessed indeed.

Filmed and edited by the super talented Ryan Hayden Angling.

I hope my fellow anglers enjoy a bit of glossy Bass content to watch.

29/08/2024

Good luck out there if you’re fishing over the coming weekend. It’s definitely topwater time 💥

Here’s a shot of one from the tail end of last week that smashed an Espetit 95mm.

Fishus Lures UK/Ireland
Daiwa UK
YETI Europe

25/08/2024

That’s what’s it finally gets to look like when it’s all gone to plan - a trophy sunrise shot of a new pb 🌅

We dialled in constantly to get everything feeling and looking just right lure wise and then honed in, as the tide allowed, right on to this stunning fishes likely ambush zone.

She showed once and gave Matt chance to present something in front of her, the next two casts however returned without any interest until the third landed perfectly so as to intersect her likely hold up point. We got to see a deep swirl and bow wave as she moved on to the 3” plastic and then she looked like she backed off, returned up to it and then it was just a very subtle hold that required a decent response or it would’ve been a missed bite.
Great angling to set the hook and luckily the little 1/0 fine gauge single held perfectly on a tough but expertly played out fight where the fish made repeated attempts to try get back and sit in the available current, only adding to the weight and power it was showing Matt. His 6-24gm rod and 2000 reel handling it all beautifully and not looking under-gunned.

Unreal scenes in a super still and flat calm sunrise, with every drag click and swirl echoing around the marsh. Matt and myself quickly realising this was a proper one.
No net to add to the tension right to the end ✔️

A true trophy landed and a pleasure to say it’s Matt’s new Personal Best by quite some way! Congrats!! 🎉

It’ll also be the current 2024 Season pb for all the anglers I’ve guided this far, but hopefully not for very long 😉

That’s a great way to end what’s been a tough week of weather - Postponing 4 trips and only managing 2.

These big fish really revive myself on a lot of levels and keep me excited to get back out there and find more for my clients!

Tight lines and see you out there!

24/08/2024

Topwater was absolutely on fire this morning 💥

Without being cruel, I’m somewhat grateful to today’s client for having to cancel on me last minute and covering everything like he did.

There was explosive airborne bites on some retrieves, while others were wary but zoned in torpedo follows needing well timed pauses and encouragement to finally commit.

The Espetit 95mm in Translucent Anchovy did all the damage.

23/08/2024

Good luck out there over the weekend. The fishing has hugely improved!

Here’s the biggest one of 4 at last light this evening, as that wind finally dropped.

I had 2 on topwater until I missed a huge bite in the fading light. Quickly clipping on a 4” paddletail and within 2 casts I was hooked up to a stocky and golden 53cm one.
Did I properly fool the same fish? I reckon so.

Tight lines 🤞🏻