Cautionary warning!

Well at last the bad weather seems to have broken and last week I ventured out for my first Bass session of 2019. I’m sure like me, the majority of year-round anglers whether it be salt or freshwater have been crawling the walls after what seems like months of wet and windy weather! Indeed, it didn’t take much persuading for me to dust of the Triplecross, neatly packaging my probable blank by telling the wife I was “prospecting”. The water colour was adequate and the tide was reasonable too. I opted to remain on dry land for this first session as the water felt quite chilly and I was wearing my new varifocal glasses which I was still getting used to.

As soon as I arrived at my first chosen spot and stood looking out across the water, I could feel the cold north westerly wind biting around my ears. Luckily the excitement of the first cast and of course a warm hoodie helped subdue those irritations.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m hard lure biased, so it's no surprise that I kicked off with a surface lure. Maybe 5 minutes in and the first Bass made its appearance. Only small but pleasing nonetheless. Soon after and with a change of lure, now clipped on was a shallow diver, two more fish followed with one being around the 2lb mark.

Apart from a couple of swirls from another venue I moved to, that was how it ended and personally I was fairly upbeat especially not having blanked which I do suffer from on too many occasions!!

This helped me make the decision that the following day I would don my waders for the first time this year and do what I love doing which is wading! The tide looked good just after lunch and traditionally id always done quite well at this mark fishing an afternoon ebbing tide. Thankfully the laces on my boots were still strong unlike on other years, when all pumped up, I’d arrived and they’d snapped whilst getting ready! Very annoying!! Anyway, I ventured out into the brisk march water with the wind still biting as it did the previous evening. The fish were certainly not throwing themselves at me so I resorted to a soft plastic lure which thankfully worked almost immediately. I continued to cast over all my favourite areas, places I’d waded often twice a day over the past 3 or 4 years so I felt I was very familiar with especially under foot, which brings me to the reason for this post.

I guess I was in maybe 3-4ft of water when my foot was obstructed by a large object which caught me completely off guard. I stumbled forward and having no way too steady myself ended up almost fully submerged albeit for only a matter of seconds. This was enough time for my waders to swallow around 3-4 litres of water not forgetting my clothes being completely soaked. Luckily, I was only 60 ft from shore and made my way quickly back to my car and then home.

I think we all become a little complacent when revisiting common fishing grounds, assuming the conditions haven’t changed on land or in this case underwater. It's easy to forget in the 3-4 months over the winter period that tides are constantly shifting / dragging debris from one area to another not to mention regular occurrences like storms and rockfalls which will also both contribute to changes in the terrain on land and underwater.

Thankfully on this occasion I was close to shore and my car, which in turn was minutes from my home. Wake Up call maybe? I was indeed very lucky and hopefully this experience will serve to remind me to remain focused on more than just the fishing in the future!

Mike