I have had great fun in the past (tho' little success) trolling for bass off the Manacles in Cornwall. I had no idea there were any left in the area around the Needles. Please tell me, were you using sand eels or artificial lures, and how deep did you set them? just off the bottom? were you trolling or spin-casting? I would love to spend a day with my son after such splendid fish.
Unfortunately I haven't had quite so much luck since - I have a horrible feeling that it might be my "catch of a lifetime" already!!!
Anyway, to answer your question; both fish were caught with mackerel flappers - the larger fish with a huge mackerel (to be honest we weren't expecting to catch anything with it!)
The larger fish was caught drifting from Hurst Castle onto The Shingles in about 7m of water. The other fish was on the Isle of Wight side again drifting down from Hurst on an ebb tide in about the same depth.
Since then we've caught a few more Bass but none bigger than 5lbs all in pretty much the same area - west of Hurst Races.
Whole squid is bloody good for Bass as well. present them on a pennel rig. I've had several large ones from Hordle beach really close in...like 10 feet, but no luck at all from the boat!?!
Best fish afloat was a 13 1/2 lb thornback taken in shallow water just off the house with the red roof East of the mouth of Southampton water, that was on a cocktail or ragworm and strips of squid
