A few recent guiding sessions got my mind thinking.The first session was with Graham Bass and his son James. Graham had recently celebrated his 70th birthday and this was a present from his children.Both Graham and James are accomplished anglers, earlier this year Graham caught and released a fish of a lifetime, 15lb 4 oz off the top !!, a truely amazing capture.So where do you go from there ?

As with alot of us Grahams prefered method of catching is off the top and who can blame him !!. Graham spoke of wanting more consistency in his bass fishing. The conditions favoured us, strong winds and coloured water, so top water fishing would have been fruitless, so on went the sps to be bumped in the flow, a method Graham had zero confidence in.To cut a long story short Graham hooked and lost two fish,then landed one albeit small, the confidence was growing !!. and this fish was probably worth as much as a big double in the fact it had given him another string to his bow, catching bass on soft plastics in coloured water. Confidence is key to sucsess.

You could say i spend most of my time thinking about bass fishing !!, whats the best method for the conditions in front of you to provide the best results.My second session was with Barry Everington, the conditions were tough with a howling easterly and coloured water. Again topwater work drew a blank but Barry bagged a new pb bouncing a 12g black fiish minnow in the flow, a cracking fish in tip top condition, catch and release as ever.So Barry too has a new string to his bow and plenty of confidence this method works and works well !!

I had a short session recently, conditions were good with a bunch of fish topping at distance, the water clarity was good for topwater work but i couldnt get a touch, so a change of method was needed, so i put on a ima rocketbait and cast straight into the topping fish, two turns of the handle and i was in. Im sure if i stubbornly stuck to fishing off the top i would have blanked, so by just working under the surface i got a result and a new string to my bow !!