Novice to Bass Fishing: Advice needed.

Kettleson

Hi folks.

I've been angling for years during the summer, mostly clambering down rocks to deep water, spinning to get pollack and mackerel. And there's only a limited few opportunities when the right conditions allow. And I'm getting a bit old for climbing down slippy basalt rocks to get to the deep water.

The pollack and mackerel seem to be getting smaller and scarcer (is that just me?) and so I want to try some different techniques specialising in bass fishing.

I live now on the coast by the sea in Strandhill but a lethal riptide on the main beach does not make the wearing of waders a wise idea.

There are a couple of channels in Culeenamore where there is a bit of deep water when the tide is coming in, but I'm not sure if there fish run there, and folk mostly seem to fly fish with waders.

I've been checking out a few videos on you tube and the technique at 2:20 (using a weight and shad) seems simple enough and interesting.

http://youtu.be/YauOjnmayWE

The last few seasons chasing mackerel and pollack have been pretty disappointing.

I'm basically looking for any sort of advice to go after bass, or if anyone would suggest other techniques worth trying, that would be much appreciated.

eg: beachcasting or specialist bass fishing

I'll be buying all gear from scratch and leaving the spinning rods to one side for now.

ie: whats needed.

types of rod, reel, lures, line.

Any advice or links much appreciated....

Many thanks

stevie_b

Your spinning gear is fine - you'll catch bass on the same gear as you will pollock and mackerel. However your biggest problem is location - you won't catch bass if they aren't there in the first place, and unfortunately Strandhill is a bit far north. There is the occasional one caught around there but north of the Shannon estuary would not be renowned for bass fishing

Zzippy

There is the odd bass around there, but the people you see flyfishing are mainly fishing for sea trout, which are plentiful in that area.

Kettleson

Cheers folks, that makes sense. Much appreciated .

I might try that shad technique and see how I get on.