Seeker Sportfishing

14/12/2024

With such good tides and weather it definitely would’ve made sense to stay on the Bass today but that’s not what I fancied doing, and it was never the plan.
Instead, I met up with Hector, the man behind all my beautiful hand tied jigfly’s, and we fished a river I’ve never seen before.

Such an enjoyable way to spend a day, watching a master of craft pick apart a river and land a stunning 12lb 3oz fish.

We saw about 6-7 fish between us, on a very tough day on paper. Most of them rocketing up behind the fly and then slamming the breaks on in the margin, only to stare at it with no intention to commit…
.We still fooled a few.

13/12/2024

It felt great to get back out for a quick blast on the Bass today after a month’s break from them following a very busy guiding season.
Two lovely fish landed, at 59cm and 62cm.

Both fish reminding me of how beautiful the lightest new Daiwa UK Labrax Estuary rod is in hand, and how much we achieved with the whole range’s development this season.
There’s been rigorous testing and tweaks, unwavering demand to get it all perfect, and stacks of big fish have been put through them.
I’m proud to say the end result is a range that anglers will adore, and in there is some light tackle weapons born from the new demands and the fast evolution of UK Bass fishing.
The whole range should be with Daiwa stockists for April ‘25.

If you’re out over the weekend then go smash ‘em, plenty to be out there for, tight lines 💪🏼

09/12/2024

Here’s a decent shot I managed to get of the fish from my latest reel.

I must have shot nearly 15 photos and managed to get only 2 with all the fish in frame but I’m happy with this one.

04/12/2024

Nerves of steal as you’re staring back at them, reading every fin twitch to see if what you’re doing is changing their mind.

04/12/2024

Here’s a great end of season ‘round-up’ from Ainsley, a fantastic angler on the Isle of white
His page is really worth a follow too - Isle of Wight Bass Fishing

It’s been a real pleasure to guide him this year and with his dates secured for next year, I’m grateful to be able to say we’ll be doing it again.

P.S - I really need to do MY yearly roundup!! Really badly!!
There must be maybe 50+ trips that never got documented with posts this year, some didn’t even get ‘stories’ posts on the day (although many many anglers took away personal lovely photos and memories).

That lack of social media is on me for sure (my downfall along with admin) but we were there to fish and the calendar was very busy, often at capacity.
I’ll look to get a round-up out soon, hopefully in a way that I think is helpful for anglers to read and visualise how the season naturally progresses, waxes and wanes - and the various approaches that it somewhat dictates to us.

Ainsley and I chatted only this week about how I feel it’s best to see a season, and in a way in which might be best (not easiest) to break it down in order to be successful…
…Ultimately, it’s if you have the knowledge and ability to quickly and affectively adapt when you’re required to by nature - is that not just a definition of great watercraft??

I’m about to go on…

Merry Xmas and all that good stuff,
Tight lines 🤞🏻

This past year the Bass fishing has been superb with countless fish in the 55-60cm bracket with locations that have remained super consistent. A sprinkling of bigger fish enabled me to finish runner up in the Dorset Lure Club League (5 fish for 332cm) winning a nice £200 voucher from Mr Fish Jersey. Another highlight of the year was winning the Bass Chase run by Southern Angling Specialists back in June, a great little national competition!
Three highly informative guided days with Seeker Sportfishing have heavily influenced my style of fishing this year. The first trip back in May was focused on tiny soft plastics and unusual locations and this was key in how the rest of my year unfolded by translating this knowledge into my own fishing. Because of this I rarely used a lure over 4” all season and my most productive locations were ones that I would have previously walked past!!! This in itself boosted my catches massively compared to the previous year.
My trusty Apia rods have served me well and I added the superb Art Magic (Uk Custom) to my collection from The Art of Fishing. This is an unbelievably good rod and one I highly recommend!!
Overall it’s been a highly enjoyable season and I’ve now decided to put the rods away until March! My lure fishing journey started in the summer of 2022 and I’ve fished continuously through every month of the year until now but I think a little break is in order this winter! Looking forward to what will hopefully be another good season next year, I hope you all have a good year end and tight lines…

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 😁

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.

17/09/2024

Just about to grab a 2hr session before I’m off to get these worn out feet of mine X-rayed and checked. Very quickly as I stand sorting my lures for the session, he’s some help on colours -

I feel it’s a fairly simple thing when fishing the harbours. Look down at the ground and match to that, the crustaceans and crabs do exactly that, if you do too then you’re generally all sorted. More so with softies but still applies slightly to topwater lures. Of course, some natural colours like pro-blue are always carried too.

Topwater - Even prior to all this Bass fishing in the U.K. I’d already had a long standing love for any orange and gold lure combo. It was my go-to for Inchiku and Kaburas for years and it’s continued to be the case for my topwaters here. Pictured is my lure box this morning while getting ready.

Gold/brown/orange 👌 perfect!!
Burnt orange belly lures with high contrast as it flanks. 👌

Softies in dull mute colours - maroon/pumpkin/browns w/black speckles. Motoroil green with fleck. There’s endless weird named colour mixes and hues but pop some of those ‘harbour floor/crab colours’ in your lure box for next time.

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.

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