It sometimes happens that one angler noticeably outfishes another angler during the same session on the same mark - how can this be?

I don’t feel remotely competitive with my fishing and I don’t care who catches the most or the biggest fish when I am out fishing with other anglers. I just like being out fishing, preferably with good people, and even better if it’s in a good looking location with exciting conditions or light and so on. I know that some anglers do get competitive and I have seen plenty of anglers get hot and bothered if they are getting outfished - but it’s not my thing………….

So I hope you can read this blog post and not just think Henry, you boastful tit! I have been and will continue to be outfished by way better anglers than me on many occasions. I could either be a twat and get angry, or I could strive to learn from these experiences and these anglers and try to understand what they might have been doing better than me to produce more or bigger fish. I was fishing with a friend the other day and we happened to be fishing close together because of the makeup of the location. I am pretty sure it’s the deepest water I target for bass and I reckon I know the mark fairly well. I would class the friend I was fishing with as a very good bass angler who seriously thinks about his fishing and how he can continue to improve and adapt.

So I have fished the mark before and I like to think I know it okay. This lad had not fished where we were fishing before so I did my best to explain to him what I believed the ground was out there and where the bass tended to come from on this particular mark when we had caught them in the past. I don’t want to come across as overbearing, but I am also not going to withhold what I think I know for (pointless) secretive or competitive reasons. If somebody comes fishing with me, I really want them to catch fish.

I started fishing with a lure and jig head combination that has produced plenty of bass for me on this particular mark - the 13cm Slender Scoop Shad in pink rigged on a weedless BKK Silent Chaser EWG Round Head 4/0 21g jig head, as per the photo above. To be fair I have had bass off this mark on a lot of different lures which I can get down to the bottom, with the larger Savage Gear Sandeel V2 Weedless in various colours probably being the most successful over time. Which of course comes from it being the lure I have fished with the most on this mark, but that tends to be how we arrive at favourite lures and/or colours for particular marks - what’s worked well before?

I cast on an angle I have cast many times before. I wait for that gentle “tap” through the rod tip which tells me the Slender Scoop Shad has successfully arrived on the bottom. I then do nothing more complex than pick up the tension and start a straight-retrieve at the sort of speed which again has worked for me before because it keeps me near the rougher stuff but generally doesn’t snag up. I obviously can’t see the real sea bed, but over time I have come to visualise what I think is down there. My friend casts out and looks like he is fishing in a similar way to me, and we are not far apart because we are trying to target the same sort of area.

Thanks to Dave from Labrax Mafia for the use of this photo

I hook a bass on that first cast. It’s a small bass but it’s a good start. Over the course of the session I think I landed six bass and got hit a few times without connecting, all on that pink 13cm Slender Scoop Shad and BKK Silent Chaser EWG Round Head 4/0 21g jig head combination. My friend was using different lures and he didn’t land a bass, and at one point I grabbed a pink Sandeel V2 Weedless in the larger 13cm/33g size from my lure box and said why not have a go with it to make sure he was definitely getting down to the bottom before starting the retrieve. Nothing doing for him though, so eventually I said why not grab my whole setup so he could try the Slender Scoop Shad and I would fish with the Sandeel V2 Weedless.

The pink Sandeel V2 Weedless in the larger 13cm/33g size

He did then get hit a couple of times but didn’t hook up on the pink Slender Scoop Shad, and I got smacked hard but missed it (bad angling, end of, eejit!) on that pink Sandeel V2 Weedless. I am useless at counting fish but I reckon I ended the session with six bass whilst my friend landed none. He has outfished me before and will do so again, so what the hell was going on here? Was it quite simply the lure and jig head combination that was outfishing whatever he was choosing to use? Was it the lure colour making the difference? Is there more than I realised about my retrieve speed and various adjustments I tend to make depending on how far into the retrieve I am? Although we were fishing close together and putting lures into the sameish bit of water, did the fact that I have fished the mark before and he hasn’t really make that much difference?

Or was fishing doing its thing and quite simply choosing to bestow the luck upon me for that particular session? As I said at the top, I am not in any way trying to boast about my good fortune because I find that kind of behaviour distasteful anyway. I would hope you know me by now - I am just genuinely fascinated in what the hell went on and why it happened like that. I can come up with all kinds of theories, but at the end of the day I don’t know exactly why I caught some bass and my friend didn’t. I sure would like to know though because it would help me get better at this fishing thing! You all have a good weekend, I for one am looking forward to some huge rugby games tomorrow in the Nations Championship because football isn’t my thing at all. England (rugby) v South Africa at altitude in South Africa? Help?

Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.




Bass fishing, Lure fishing, Fishing tackleHenry GilbeyJuly 20261 Comment