There is no actual fish that you can describe as a bass; it is a generic term used for quite a lot of different game fish, all related to the ubiquitous perch. There are salt water bass as well as freshwater bass; in fact one of the favourite places to look for them is the junction between saltwater and freshwater, where they are often caught by anglers who are in fact looking for salmon. They are a pretty versatile finish and inhabits many different environments; you can find them over reefs or sandbanks, inside wrecks, inside harbours and often well up estuaries. Part of this versatility is down to the feeding habits of bass; they are great opportunists and that rather than spend a lot of time and energy hunting down prey they will take whatever happens to be available at the time, provided that little effort is necessary! This makes it easier to catch them by using ground baiting, or by fishing in areas with a rough surface bottom where food will collect. Fishing for them in harbours can be a rewarding practice; they come in to grab the smaller fish that feed on the biological debris in a harbour, old bait and smaller and poorer fish discarded by anglers.

Rough weather can be very kind to bass; the stronger undersea currents can not only expose food which had been covered but also collect it into rough crevices where the opportunist fish can find it easily and a good time to look for them is straight after a really good strong gale; bass will often come in to feed will insure at the conditions like these particularly if there is a lot of weed about.

Some useful UK sites: here are good ones for taxi insurance, betting tips, car insurance for young drivers

How you catch your bass is a matter of personal taste; baiting with rag worm, lugworm, sand eels, small fish or crab or have their disciples but the most important thing to do is to find the correct time and place to throw out your line, and for those you need local knowledge so there is no substitute for doing your homework!

This next part may well seem like blasphemy to fishermen who prefer to put their catch it back into the water after they have been properly inspected and weighed; but bass and really do taste very nice! Bass fillets are delicious fried, baked or even made into a fish chowder; my favourite recipe is to sprinkle them with a little salt, cover them in olive oil and bake them in a medium oven for 20 minutes or so.