Last stop in my Dorset smackdown was Kimmeridge Bay – a mark with almost cult status – especially for Bass. But I had LRF wrasse on my mind…

I’d looked at the rocks before, scanning them with my binos from the car park up on the cliff. It all looked good and I was itching to give it a go. By 5.45am I was perched on a rock and into my first fish. There were a huge number of wrasse present. I didn’t find a lunker but it was one of those sessions where you could try all sorts of lures and techniques, knowing there were fish there, feeding.

Eventually I moved to a different mark at the edge of a shallow kelp bed. I was able to wade out alongside it and cast a 4g jighead and paddletail some way behind. After another couple of wrasse I hooked something that behaved altogether differently and I was soon pleased to see I had hooked my first Bass of the morning. Only a small one, but that changed my plan of attack (see Light Bass Fishing post).