Bass Fishing Bude Breakwater

Big Bass, Little Bass

Bude Breakwater, Bude, Cornwall. UK

Bude Breakwater

I was looking forward to this week away in Cornwall, for many reasons! from cream teas, BBQs, and fine food to be sampled, and then walked off over miles of the most beautiful coastlines in the UK. This place is absolutely stunning! But from a fishing point of view I was coming back a second time, more prepared and hopefully with the weather on my side. Last time Cornwall beat me up, and taught me a lesson, with 1 Dogfish to show for which I had fished in gale force winds, horizontal rain, got soaked in the surf, and impaled myself on a hook, it wasn't my finest hour,"Beach Fishing Widemouth Bay" But like I said, I was a little more experienced this time and looking forward to round 2. I kept my tackle to a minimum, just my Vercelli Sypra Fiamma continental 14" rod for beach casting and my Snowbee Sea Bass Special rod for spinning. Both light rods, which pack away into short sections and perfect for keeping in the boot of the car. For tackle again I kept it simple and light, 5 lures, a few packets of feathers, just enough terminal tackle to make up any rigs I may need, a couple of floats and a small selection of leads. The only thing I took that was annoyingly big and bulky was my tripod, a must for bait fishing on hard rock, and an ideal sand spike would of been too restricted.

Sand Eel Ready To Cast

I had a whole week in Cornwall, but had agreed to have a designated day where I could fish, of course this didn't stop me taking my spinning rod with me everywhere and having a few chucks here and there when time permitted, I even had a small 1 lb Bass on a Fiiish Black Minnow on Wanson beach, I even sneaked out after dark for a few hours and revisited my old nemesis Widemouth Beach, although no dramas this time, the outcome was the same, just a lonesome Dogfish which managed to hook himself on a large circle hook whilst playing with the Mackerel head bait which was bigger than his!!! I had formed the opinion that I would fish for a different species than I could catch at home, Rays or maybe Bream, but the reality is you only catch whats in front of you, and after some thought I realised that this is prime Bass territory, and very quickly my attention turned to them. I had decided to spend my day fishing at the Breakwater at Bude, a concrete wall sloping steeply onto a sandy bottom with a deeper gully where the River Neat and Bude canal flowed into the bay, all surrounded by big jagged rocks providing a vast array of features to fish, it screamed Bass! I had collected some bait and gained some valuable intel from the local tackle shop, and it was just a waiting game now till the day came.

Best Bass Of The Year At 4lb 4oz

It was now time, the weather was fair, no rain and quite breezy with a big swell, the only downside was the preceding days heavy rain had been running into the bay causing the water to be coloured, although this would make lure fishing more of a challenge it actually suited bait fishing better, and added an extra array of features as you could see clear and muddy water mixing in different places during the different tide state. I decided to fish Sand Eel on a clipped down rig, although distance wasn't really an issue, it allowed me to keep well up on the rocks out of the way of them pesky surging waves that come out of nowhere, and cast parallel with the breakwater to the side of the rocks at the end of it, this area interested me as I could see a big eddy of clear water covered with foaming white water as it surged around and over the rocks into the bay, and gave the added bonus of allowing me to fish up tide and get a good grip with the lead in the strong flow. On the third cast I caught my rod tip bouncing around violently, I picked up the rod and lifted into a fish, The fight was short lived as the tide bought the fish straight at me and I then slide him gently onto the breakwater, I chinned the fish and he flapped around furiously still full of energy, Yes! a beautiful Cornish Bass weighting 4lb 4oz and between you and me, I would have been dancing around like a loony except for the watchful small crowd of tourists, and now it didn't matter that this was my only bite of the day.

Gully Caught Flounder 

But fate had given me a chance to return a few days later, a kindly payback for sober nights and a hell of a lot of driving around sight seeing, and even better was the tackle shop just had a delivery of fresh Ragworm. This time the water was gin clear, the sky was blue, and the wind was but a gentle breeze, whilst waiting for the tide to come in and cover the sand, I fish the outside of the breakwater onto a shallow sandy strip edged by large rocks, as good as it looked, I never had a bite. but the tide was moving quickly, and now the inside had water to fish, remembering where the gully was, I launched a 1 up and 1 down rig baited with Ragworm out into the bay to fish in gully. The tide seemed a lot stronger today but I let the rig slowly work its way along the bottom. A fairly large bite revealed a greedy Flounder that had taken both baits on the rigs.

When Angler Becomes The Bait

As the bay filled with water I returned to the same tactics that I had caught the Bass earlier on, casting to the same area, but to no avail, I did pick up the odd tiny 6" Bass though, Changing tactics again, I used my spinning rod with a 2 hook flapper baited with small Ragworm and dropped it onto the sand at the foot of the Breakwater, immediately tiny rattles on the rod tip which resulted in a lot of missed bites and stripped hooks, I dropped the hook and bait size down from a 2/0 to a size 2 and then I started to catch the bait robbers, tiny little Common blennies, there must of been hundreds of them close in. One even decided to bite my finger in revenge for dragging him out the sea, oh my God!, they got a strong bite for a little fish, and he didn't want to let go either!!

As Small As They Come

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed fishing the Breakwater at Bude, again very different to the beaches I'm used to fishing in Kent, but for a small area the vast array of features and how it changed during the tide and even from day to day kept me interested and constantly searching for fish, trying to second guess their routes into the bay and intercept them with the right bait and rig, It had rewarded me with my biggest and smallest Bass of the year, a new species of Blenny and a sizable Flounder, I'd made a fishing friend, and when that sun is out and the water is turquoise blue, and the surfers are bobbing around waiting for that next big wave, its easy to imagine your a million miles away from home, Cornwall is such a beautiful place, and definitely not the last time I will visit!