January Wild Bass

With the turn of the year, it seems a lifetime ago since we started selling our local Suffolk bass into London fishmongers. The wild bass season for commercial fishermen and anglers runs from April 1st to Jan 31st, meaning a closed season of 2 months, designed to coincide with the fish spawning.

With this in mind, we’re currently making the most of some significant catches of rod and line caught bass from our Southern Channel boats operating out of Weymouth Harbour; our own East Coast bass having mostly migrated back out to sea now, we’ve had to look a little further afield and there’s no doubt that these Channel fish are first class.

Caught very selectively, using lures, these voracious carnivores are caught when the tides are stronger as they feed on sandeels and mackerel over the banks and bars offshore of Portand Bill. The majority of the fish landed are between 1-2 kg currently, which are a fantastic eating size, but we’re also seeing specimens up to 3 and 4kg, which some of our London fishmongers are enjoying.

Fish after Christmas is generally poor, with boats slowly returning to sea after the break, but with the links we have direct to Skippers we can maximise our landings to suit our wholesale customers and also our now well-established retail venue at Grange Farm Shop, Hasketon where every Friday, you can come and purchase a selection of stiff-fresh, seasonal native fish and shellfish from around our coastline.

The bass are proving incredibly popular locally, either as whole fish to oven bake or fresh fillets, which pan-fry incredibly well or cook magnificently a la plancha. These just-landed bass (often sea to plate in under 24hrs), are of such exceptional quality they are also ideal for sashimi or ceviche and then of course there is the smoked!

We started cold smoking the bass a few weeks back with our partners Wightman Fishing in Lowestoft and we sell out of it at Grange Farm every week. It’s a very classy product and the feedback has been fantastic. A sort of turbo-charged smoked haddock, but way tastier and can be used in exactly the same way. Kedgeree, risottos, chowders or just simply poached in a court-bouillon and topped with a golden-yolked free range egg.

Stunning.