September to November is the best bass fishing of the year and it is not close. The fish are at their heaviest, they are feeding hard before they move off into deeper water for winter, and the beaches and rock marks are quieter than they were in August. If you fish for bass at all, this is when to put the hours in.
What drives the autumn feed
Two things. First, bass are building condition ahead of winter, when they move offshore and feed much less. Second, autumn is when the bait fish are at their most abundant and most concentrated. Whitebait, sandeel and sprat shoals push inshore and the bass follow them.
Find the bait and you find the bass. That single idea is worth more than any lure or rig choice.
Rough weather is an opportunity
The instinct is to fish the calm days because they are more pleasant. Bass fishing rewards the opposite. A decent surf stirs the bottom, dislodges crab and worm, colours the water and gives the bass cover to hunt close in.
The sweet spot for me is the day the swell starts to drop after a blow. Still plenty of movement, water clearing slightly from the worst of it. That is when I would fish a surf beach if I could only pick one day.
Safety first though. Autumn seas are serious and rock marks in a big swell kill people every year. Know the mark, check the tide and the forecast, wear a flotation aid on the rocks, and do not fish anywhere you have not seen at a lower state of sea.
Where the fish will be
Estuaries come alive in autumn as bait fish move in and out on the tide. The mouth of an estuary on a dropping tide is one of the most consistent bass spots there is.
Rock marks with broken ground and white water hold fish through autumn. Look for gullies, kelp edges and any place where the water pushes and swirls rather than running clean.
On beaches, look for structure rather than open sand. A gutter running parallel to the shore, a patch of rough ground, a groyne or a river outfall. Bass patrol features.
Lures or bait
Both, and I carry the option for either.
On lures, autumn is when surface fishing can be spectacular, particularly in the low light around dawn and dusk when bass are herding bait fish. When the fish are down deeper or the surf is too rough for topwater, soft plastics on a weighted head fished slowly through the white water do the job.
On bait, autumn is peak crab and worm season. A live or peeler crab is as good a bass bait as exists in this country. Ragworm and lugworm are reliable, and a whole squid or a mackerel fillet fished on a bigger hook will sort out a better fish in a surf.
Tides matter more than time of day
Bass are tide fish. The state of the tide at a given mark is usually more important than whether it is morning or evening. Most marks have a two or three hour window when they fish, and the rest of the tide is dead water.
Keep a note of when you get fish and at what state of tide. Two seasons of notes is worth more than any amount of advice, including this.
Know the regulations
Bass are a regulated species in UK waters and the rules on minimum size and on how many you may take, if any, change from year to year. They also differ for shore anglers and boat anglers, and there are periods where retention is not permitted at all.
Check the current rules before you keep a fish. Do not rely on what was true last season and do not rely on what someone tells you on the beach.
The session I would fish
An estuary mouth or a beach with a bit of structure, two days after a blow, fishing the last three hours of the ebb into dark. Lure rod in hand, a bait rod out if the mark suits it. Move along the beach rather than standing in one place. Autumn bass are found, not waited for.
Mike Talbot grew up in Cornwall and had a rod in his hand before he was tall enough to reach the rod rest properly. His early fishing was mackerel from the harbour wall and plaice on the beaches at low tide, but bass took over in his late teens and have never really let go.
He moved to Pembrokeshire in his thirties for the coastline as much as anything else, and now fishes a mix of rock marks, estuaries, and boat trips across West Wales and the Bristol Channel. He targets bass on surface lures through summer, drops down to soft plastics and HMDs through autumn, and fills the winter with wrasse fishing on the rock marks when conditions allow. Personal best bass: 8lb 4oz, caught on a floating stickbait at first light on a calm August morning.
At The River Bend, Mike writes the sea fish species guides, sea fishing technique articles, and the coastal access and regulation content.
Covers: Bass, wrasse, mackerel, sea bream, pollock, sea fishing techniques, shore fishing, boat fishing, tidal and coastal access rules