IT’S become the biggest fish glut since the massive shoals of coalfish in the late 1980s. Large numbers of boats, sometimes in excess of 20 at a time, have been congregating over a mark off Guernsey’s west coast where bass are shoaling in their thousands.

Anglers and commercial fisherman have rushed to exploit the situation and each day literally tons of bass are being landed, to the point where the wholesale price of this much sought after species has dropped considerably.

The size of the bass are well above average with a large proportion being well over 10-0-0.

Anglers have been catching more in one day that they would normally catch in a year and many who have never caught a double-figure bass, have found themselves hitting that normally elusive target many times each trip.

Anglers have reported being knee deep in prime bass on board the boats, and when so many big specimen fish are being pulled over the gunwales it’s easy to become almost blase.

This could well be the reason why the number of entries for the Fish of the Month and Phoenix Fish Bass competition have been surprisingly few.

However some have been submitted. Jez Vaudin and Stuart Thompson entered bass of 13-10-11, 11-0-5 and 10-12-13 a few weeks back, and boat skipper Richard Seager has come up with a 13-14-3 fish.

Terry Lawrence has entered two, fish of 12-14-5 and 12-3-12 and Richard Blackwell one of 12-10-2.

But it was Stuart Tostevin, who submitted the best entry. His fish weighed 14-15-6, a specimen which is also a Guernsey Sea Anglers Club boat record, beating the previous best which was a 13-0-0 fish caught by Ray Pratt in 1979.

How long will the bonanza last?

The general consensus is that shoals will disperse once the bass have finished spawning and this could well be in days. In fact, there are signs this may be happening already.