When can’t you catch bass on lures?

I find the bass fishing season so interesting. It’s also tricky to know when is the right time which is why so many people ask ‘When can’t you catch bass on lures?’ It wasn’t that long ago when the bass fishing season was generally considered to be from the middle of May to the end of October. I think back to when I first started working for this magazine when most bass fishing articles were based around those times of year, with specific location based differences taken into account. How many of you remember those amazing black and white tales of the incredible bait fishing for bass in winter surf on the west coast of Ireland?

The increased interest in going lure fishing for bass has banged home the fact that bass are often around and catchable for far longer each year than was previously thought. More anglers are out fishing for starters, and more anglers are trying for longer and longer each year, and in a wider variety of different locations as well. This very much depends on where you fish and the conditions we get as we move into late autumn and winter. However, I look forward to November and December for my bass fishing. Last winter was very mild and relatively settled in terms of storms and relentless rain, so I kept on going and I ended up catching my first ever bass on a lure in February, out on the open coast. The only month I haven’t caught bass on a lure in the UK is March, but I have been out fishing with a friend and I have seen him land a few.

I am not saying you will catch bass all year round on lures, and especially from areas such as Norfolk and Suffolk where local anglers tell me about their autumn fishing suddenly coming to an end most years. But in some parts of the UK and Ireland it is very much worth a go now and then if you get really favourable conditions. There is no such thing as a typical year in fishing terms, but I would generally expect to start finding fairly regular bass on lures in early to mid-April around where I live in Cornwall. Saying that, a colder than normal winter tends to result in a later than average start. The simple fact is that if you don’t go out and try you will never know.