Perfect conditions, but only one bass landed

• Check out how good it looked on yesterday evening's low water - about as perfect as I could hope for in fact. A small swell, a bit of chop, good clarity and fairly overcast skies. I had a feeling it would be like this from the weather forecast. Plenty of "life" to the water. These are the kinds of conditions you can dream about for chucking lures at bass, and I really thought we might clean up........

• Early on, a bass that might have touched 4lb chased my lure in almost right to my feet, to the point where I ran out of water on the retrieve. I never saw the fish again, but I knew they had to be around. The sea just looked too good. The lure ? The Maria Chase BW. There were also a few small pollack smashing at the lures, but Mark, James and I had only bass in our sights. Just seeing these fish chase your lures is enough to give me heart palpitations. One day soon it's going to be a monster bass chasing my lure in and grabbing it right at my feet...........nothing like dreaming !!

• It is Mark in the photo above, fishing a stunning looking gully with his holographic silver Maria Chase BW (you need this lure in your box for bass fishing, see here). Just before I shot this photograph, Mark saw a nice bass around 5lbs charge and turn on his lure, and although he felt the fish, it did not hook up. What a shame. If you want to fish ground like this for bass, do yourself a serious favour and look for a decent pair of breathable chest waders and proper wading boots. I know I bang on about them, but they will revolutionise your fishing. Check here for some good waders and boots. To me they are as vital as a decent rod and reel.

• James hooked and landed a small bass that you can see above, and all this happened before low water. Naturally I thought the flood tide and impending darkness would bring the bass on the feed big time, but for some reason all it did was switch them off !! None of us saw a proper hint of another fish, save for some small pollack. Weird......

• Note the green braid on James' spinning reel - he has gone and succumbed to the awesome Varivas Avani Sea Bass braid in 23lb breaking strain. It is vital to really underfill your spinning reel, almost to the point where you think you might lose a bit of distance because of it. But this is the right level to fish braid at so that you don't get those infernal wind knots. Sometime soon I will post a photograph of my line level on the spool of my spinning reel to show what I mean.

• It's a later low water this evening and a slightly bigger tide - conditions look good again. Guess what I'm doing later on this afternoon ?