Bass Fishing Lago di Coghinas 2019

I did my recent summer vacation on the beautiful island of Sardinia in Italy. Searching for the fishing opportunities, I stumbled upon the Coghinas Lake (Lago di Coghinas), situated in the northern part of the island, not too far away from my vacation residence. Soon, I found out that the lake is one of the best destinations for black bass fishing in Europe. Further research brought me to the internet page of MC Bass Guide (mcbassguide.com), the agency run by prominent bass angler Mirko Civinini and his wife Nadia, offering full day guiding trips on the lake and boat rentals. I’ve contacted Mirko and set a date for the fishing. I was very excited, since I never fished the black bass before.

Finally, the day had come and I headed up with my car to Tula, a small city situated next to the Coghinas Lake, where Mirko and Nadia have been waiting for me. We picked up the boat that has been parked at the nearby lodge and unloaded it to the lake. The boat was impressive, a fully equipped Nitro Z8 bass boat, powered by 225 PS Mercury outboard motor. Soon, the boat was in the water and we were ready to sail off. The brutal power of Nitro brought us promptly to the first spot Mirko selected for fishing. It was around 9 pm and the weather was warm and sunny, without wind. The lake shore was surrounded by solid rocks diving into the water and providing enough cover for the fish. The rocks steeped down into the water up to the depth of around 10 m. The water color was cloudy green.

I brought a large arsenal of lures with me, mostly hard and soft baits, which I usually use for zander fishing. I also had some creature baits, worms and offset hooks in different sizes. As Mirko positioned the boat at the spot, he checked my bait stock, told me which bait to take, how to setup the rig, and soon, I was ready to start. I had my own gear with me, the 5-pieces WFT Penzill spinning rod at 2.10 m, 1 oz (28g), paired with the Daiwa Exist 2506 reel, which was spooled with 12 lbs Duel x4 braided line. The leader line was 0.30 mm Stroft FC2 fluorocarbon. On Mirko’s recommendation, I started with the 5 inch “Lunker City Hellgies” on a texas rig with 5-7 g tungsten bullets. It turned out that the Hellgies were an excellent choice. One after another, I was catching my first bass. Mirko gave directions where to cast, explaining the structure of the bottom. Soon, I got familiar with the spot and specific fishing technique that required a bit of delayed reaction compared to the typical zander fishing I got used to. In a short time I was able to catch more than 10 fish, some being more than 40 cm long.

Mirko proved to be a very experienced guide. It was clear that he knew every corner of the lake and was able to select the best tactics for given conditions. As the wind became stronger, we changed the spot and found the one that was relatively good protected from the wind in one of the side bays of the lake. The new spot brought us also some decent fish. We kept on changing spots and searching for the big bass. In the meantime, I ran out of Hellgies, mostly destroyed by the fish that I caught. For the rest of the day I continued fishing with craw imitations from Reins and Zoom given to me by Mirko. Mirko was fishing just occasionally, also catching a couple of nice fish. One could notice it was a daily routine for him. The last spot we took before calling a day regarded us with a few larger species making a perfect completion of the 8 hours long fishing trip. At the end of the day, I was able to catch more than 30 bass and a few perch.

The black bass is a really good fighter. It jumps out of the water, dives in and doesn’t give up the fight easily. With relatively light tackle each fish makes enormous fun, especially the big ones. However, the spectacular jumps give the fish more time to shake off the lure from the hook. Therefore, fishing with stronger gear would probably save me some lures and give more confidence at landing. The line breaks due to rocky bottom were also not rare, but it was not so severe. Even though this was my first encounter with the bass fishing, I was quite impressed with the whole experience. The Coghinas Lake is a paradise for big bass, and I could highly recommend it to everyone who visits the area and would like to try this kind of fishing. The service at MC Bass was top-notch for a very fair price. I’m sure I’ll visit the Coghinas Lake again.