Marcus is a bass guide based in Chichester and former skipper and guide in New Zealand. He has spent over a decade refining a unique approach to targeting bass with carefully presented soft plastics.
I called him on his day off—he was, of course, out bass fishing. What followed was a fascinating waterside conversation about his finesse-based approach to estuary bass, punctuated more than once by the bend of his rod and the tantalising takes of a 60cm fish…
In this article we cover: sight fishing for bass, targeting estuary bass on finesse (small) soft lures, rod choice for working soft plastics, lines, leaders, ned rigs, texas rigs and Marcus’ favourite bass set up for this light-weight approach. Marcus is working with Daiwa and Fishus Lures at the time of this interview..
Rod Choice for soft plastics: lighter rods prevent hook pulls when using finer hooks
The most obviously unique thing about the rods he’s using is the casting weight. Most bass anglers reach for something that can cast 35g or 42g.
“The rod in my hand is a 3-19 gram.”
Marcus likes slow action rods
Unlike many bass anglers, Marcus also has a preference for slow-action rods. That is, a rod that bends throughout the whole rod and does not recover as quickly to the straight position. He explained that he finds it’s easier to fish for very long time periods with a slow action rod as the rod does the work of working the lure, and you have less resistance when working lures.
In addition, the slower action means the rod is softer, reducing the chance of hooks bending out in the mouth of a big bass on a fine hook. Nevertheless, if he spots a big bass he will sometimes rig on a carp hook to reduce the odds of a bent hook to zero.
“I’ve developed a rod with Daiwa that’s very soft in comparison to a lot of other rods. That’s the rod that’s in my hand right now. With those little fine-gauge hooks, fishing in shallow water, there is a lot of pressure on the hook… If they’re crystal sharp, the hook often goes right back in their gob, so it ends up high in the hard palate of their mouth. You’re very likely to pull hooks or bend hooks, even on light gear. So you do just need a very forgiving rod.”
“Oh my God, he just took it. Wait a sec, sorry, I’ve got the cray in my hand (a 1” crayfish imitation). Sorry, dude, I want to do this interview but he’s huge, and I want him………. He’s on it. He’s on it. He’s on it! Oooooh!
… I had the hook up, but he popped it back out right in front of my face.”
Interview continues…
I asked Marcus if this was kind of a half-way point between LRF tactics (the use of extremely light-weight rods that cast only up to around 10g) and a typical modern bass rod.
“Yeah. However, I can load the rod deep if I want and I have pushed this to its limits on a Patchinko 125, and it’s still in my hand in one piece. So whilst it is a light and soft rod in action, it works a big Patchinko 125, no problem. So you can still go out all day long with just one rod.”
“In the harbour, I use 18lb. I’ve gone through a proper journey with braid in the UK for the bass. (After returning from New Zealand to the UK) I started on 13lb, and I think that’s too light. There’s no benefit from going down to that fine stuff for bass. 18lb seems perfect. 16lb in some brands.”
“Right now I’m using J Braid Expedition in smash orange and amazing.”
For leader, Marcus uses:
“9lb. I’ve got a big, long length of it so that I can run it along the floor without spooking the fish. Probably eight foot.”
For context, most bass anglers use around 20lb breaking strain leaders for bass fishing, so this is around half that. At FISHMAG, many of the guides we’ve interviewed use longer leaders than the average angler. So do commercial line-fishing bass boats…
Ned Rigs vs. Texas Rigs
During the call Marcus spotted another 60cm+ bass. He put the phone down. The bass spat the hook – I heard him swear. I imagine I was sat on a pile of bladderwrack or something on the estuary mudflats as a face on his phone screen. Marcus tied on a Texas rig with a tiny craw bait he had in his hand. I heard him say something about how the fish’e’s tail slapped like a kayak paddle…
I’ve just taken a hook off a black minnow. And it’s like, the very, very smallest black minnow size. It’s absolutely miniature.”
“I’ve just rigged up a little Texas rig, and this miniature cray… it’s like, probably an inch, one inch, on a 1g Texas rig.”
While Marcus was using a Texas rig when we spoke to him, he actually prefers Ned rigs for most situations:
“I prefer a Ned on most stuff. A little tungsten TRD craw Ned in warm brown is perfect, because if you do need to drop it, like we often fish those static fish in the grass by casting way past and bring the lure near to them about two foot, as soon as they kind of start to think, ‘What’s going on?’ What they will absolutely spook if you bring it towards them, and they won’t chase it in the grass. So you have to drop it. And if you just drop it on a Ned, it just goes tail up, and it just sits in the weed, but they just come over the top and hoover it up. So fishing Neds just makes sense to me.”
Ned Rig vs. Texas Rig for bass fishing
“I could have put a little Ned on, but I wanted… These fish aren’t moving once they’ve picked the bait up. And I was playing with stuff yesterday and for the last week. They need stuff puffing in the sand. And I also just wanted to give them something unweighted to hoover back really hard. They weren’t picking stuff up very easily. So I just figured Texas might get it back in their gob a bit further. But yeah, Ned would be fine. There’s no one way to do anything.”
Marcus uses high-end Daiwa reels for his bass fishing in size 3000. He looks for reels with a highly adjustable drag that can be fine tuned and for a high retrieval rate “so you’re not whisking an egg all day”.
“I’ve got the 24 Certates. This is an LT, 3000 DXH. And likewise, exactly what I was saying with the slow action rod preventing angler fatigue, I also really recommend a high-gear reel. Otherwise, you’re just whisking an egg all day long, and again, you’re burning yourself out just slightly quicker. So, a 3000 size with a higher than average retrieval is what I’m after.”
The drag system is particularly important for his style of fishing:
“The Certate has a very incremental drag, and it means that you can just really fine tune your setting for your application. Yesterday, when guiding, I was often saying to the guy, “you know, we’ve moved away from this lure size profile – we’re off the fine jig heads and back onto top water lures – so make sure you drag up again.”
“There’s so much technology in this little reel. It looks so simple, almost like a little work of art.”
Credit: FISHMAG Above, a photo from the saltwater fly fishing festival. It took place in the Chichester area, due to its hugely varied fishing locations. What a fantastic place for a bass guide to operate from…
The Varied Habitats of Estuaries
Marcus fishes in the Chicester area – which has unique fishing conditions. However, for anyone that has access to estuaries, or large harbours – anywhere there are bass in sheltered water – his approach could be applicable.
“The harbour here is massive, a huge, kind of natural expanse of water. We’ve got everything here. We’ve got a lot of current that runs through it, it’s tidal, obviously, and has areas of bladder wrack, sea grass and cord grass. We even have some urban areas where there are very good bass.
Sight Fishing Approach
“Every sight fish is completely its own. Even all the different bass that I was casting at just now, I was gauging each fish almost individually. Sight fishing is all about just getting them to inquire, so you’ve got to know where their head is!”
“There’s a lot of stuff that we do that’s very static, like the fish are just sitting and they’re not moving, and then some fish are cruising fast. And every scenario is different, but we spot them.”
Urban “Pond” Fishing
For trapped fish in urban areas:
“We’re looking for fish moving in what’s essentially a pond that they’ve got trapped in over the big tides, and now they’re stuck in there. These would have been fish that came in probably seven days ago or something.”
“This is a really unique area. The ground is smooth mud. There are little gammarus (those little shrimp things that jump everywhere) on the mud. So I’ve scaled everything down specifically for these fish and what they’re feeding on. These fish require you to cast way past them. Then the lure has to be found by them, and then start moving when they see it. If the lure moves towards them, they often spook. It should be retreating from them when they find it. “
Another scenario we often see is that we see is bass tailing in the bladder wrack (a brown seaweed). They’re pushing themselves onto shrimp or crab – sometimes fry – but usually shrimp or crab.
Marcus will retrieve paddle tails through the bladder wrack to seek these fish out.
“Another common scenario is seeing fish that are coming to rest over the top of the cord grass. And that behaviour is truly just rest. They’re coming over the top to get away from predators and the tide. They will still eat things that move over the top of them – they’ll opportunistically grab. That’s a cool way to sight fish. You present stuff until you get it near them, and then you just drop it in the cord grass nearby and let them find it. Get them moving. As soon as you see their tail move, you know they’ve heard something. You just drop your lure at point where it is and keep it static. They will go and find it themselves.”
“Another scenario is targeting transient fish passing through. I look for areas where different bodies of water are meeting. I’ll put a little paddle tail on and be casting in front of their trajectory and trying to get them about foot and a half in front.”
Lure Approach Based on Sight Fishing Conditions
Starting lure choice:
“I often start on a paddle tail, okay, and then I will drop the paddle tail to the floor to see if they’re a bit more head down. But usually a paddle tail is going to do it for you. I don’t fish a huge amount of craws. It’s just so happens that you’ve got me while I’m fishing them.”
On persistent attempts:
“Sometimes just getting them to move towards it, wondering what it is, is 80% of the battle. You might put the lure in front of a fish over and over, and it’s once you get the enquiry that you’re getting somewhere.
“I don’t particularly fish in strong current very much. You need to be fishing something like 20 gram lures and bouncing bottom. I would prefer to fish it with a weedless jig rather than a neg rig. If there’s weed in that water, which there generally is with when the harbour is blasting out, it makes sense just to go weedless, and it gives a nice presentation anyway.
Fishing in Murky Water
“I’ve always said murky water brings opportunity if it’s approached right. You need to work out why it’s murky. What’s stirred it up? In what direction? All that stuff. There’s not just ‘murky water’. For example, yesterday, there was a bit of a southerly and we went and tried the beaches to see if it turned the shoreline up a little bit (churning up the bottom, revealing food for bass). So we’re actually looking for disturbed, lower clarity water in that case because it could be where fish are feeding.”
Another opportunity in disturbed water:
“If you’ve got the harbour cooking through the summer, and then you get a nice big blow that blows in some of those big weed lines, that puts a lot of food into the water… You can be having some of the best sessions of the year in, like, absolutely filthy water – just full of particles and weed and all sorts.”
What lures do you go for in murky water?
“Paddle tails… we often move to larger stuff like dolive sticks, just drifting, Alby snacks, pintails and things like that.”
Marcus’ also works with Fishus and is a huge fan of their lures. His favourites:
“The spoutee, the S petite 95. And I’m a big fan of that Tennessee shed, because it’s very much like a little sand smelt of this again, as the year progresses, my guiding completely changes with what’s happening.”
“We fished surface lures yesterday, and there’s no definitive kind of time they’re going to eat a surface lure. In the right scenario, even in the middle of winter, they’ll take it. However, to me, surface lure fishing makes perfect sense depending on what nature’s doing at that moment.”
He explains the seasonal progression:
“The harbour is starting its process and turning up the dial slightly (in May 2025). If it was out of 10, it’s probably on a two or three out of 10 intensity-wise. What it’s doing at the moment is just growing all the weed with the sunlight hours and heat increasing.”
The best time of year for surface fishing for bass
“In the lead-up to the May spring tides, harbours often go through a calmer period with reduced tidal range and weaker currents. During this time, water stays in the system longer and there’s less water movement, encouraging weed and algal growth as light levels rise and temperatures climb.
At low tide, stones and shingle warm in the sun. As the tide returns, it flows over these warmed flats, mixing with nutrients released from all that decaying weed… The resulting surface layer is warmer and often rich in phytonutrients, then zooplankton, creating ideal conditions for fry to filter feed.
When that food chain kicks into gear, the bass start looking up.
For me, that’s when surface lure fishing really begins.”
The most common advice Marcus gives to clients day to day:
1. Move slower.
I find every single day I’m saying “look how fast I’m moving – this is genuinely how fast I move around”. I’m walking so slowly, because nature requires you to go at a slower pace to witness and watch everything correctly. I also don’t want to spook fish, or slip and spook fish.
2. Better tackle does catch you more fish
Even if you’re not better at fishing, you’re gonna out fish people, because you’re out there longer without a sore back. I’ve heard loads of people say “tackle doesn’t catch you more fish”. Well, actually, it catches you heaps more fish because you stay out longer, go fishing more often, more comfortably, enjoy it more. The whole lot just makes you catch hundreds more fish by the end of the season.
3. Bring polaroid sunglasses so you can see the fish
It’s essential to be able to see the fish if you want to cast 2.5ft in front of their heads. (Polaroids reduce glare on the waters surface, making it possible to see through the water much more readily).
Thank you Marcus for chatting with us. You can book a guided trip with Marcus via his guiding business Seeker Sportfishing. Subject to limited availability.
