EXCLUSIVE
Famous for pike and bream fishing, the Norfolk & Suffolk Broads aren’t the first place that springs to mind when thinking about bass fishing. However, that could be set to change with Sam Cox’s exciting discovery of specimen bass on the Broads
Over the years I have heard of the odd bass being caught, including a ten pounder from Norwich. In recent years I have seen more reports of bass being caught on the Broads. These bass are usually small and caught accidently by holiday makers. These bass are often mistaken for zander, which are, in fact, absent from the broads system of waterways.
I had a privileged childhood where most weekends and school holidays were spent fishing from the bow of my father’s charter boat based at Bradwell in Essex. One of my first memories was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound bass. Since then, I have caught many bass by various methods and at different locations. Many of the bass we caught were tagged to help build a picture of the movement of bass. I also spent a few seasons working on a local commercial fishing boat; this gave me a perspective few anglers get. It’s fair to say that I have a passion for bass angling, and for bass as a species.
A few years back I caught a small bass of around a pound from the Norfolk Broads while targeting perch. This one bass caused an itch that I needed to scratch.
BROADS BASS PROJECT
My partner Tracie and I moved to Norfolk last September. We have kept a boat here for five years. Every summer we have a twoweek break aboard the boat, travelling from the northern Broads to the southern Broads, and normally cover around 200 miles. I decided to start my Broads bass project on this break. The how and where to target bass on the Norfolk Broads was occupying my mind. I would frequently find myself pondering where, when and how to target them, wondering how many fish were there and the route they took getting there.
The Broads is a large area of river systems spanning some 303 square miles. The Broads themselves are actually manmade lakes dug in medieval times for peat extraction. These flooded in the 14th century adjoining many to the river systems. There is over 125 miles of navigable waterways made up of seven river systems.
There are two areas where these rivers meet the sea; one is at Oulton Broad where the river Waveney is stopped by lock gates and the other is at Gorleston where the river Yare empties into the North Sea.
Breydon Water is an estuary that separates the northern and southern broads. This area is teaming with wildlife and is where I suspect the bass enter the various river systems. The first day of our summer break was spent travelling from Stalham, where we keep our boat, to a safe mooring two hours from Yarmouth.
The Broads are tidal and our boat slow, so
