A front cover

• This is my cover photo on the current edition of Trout Fisherman that is in the shops right now. Check out the feature inside on pages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, shot with Nick Hart earlier this year at Burton Springs Fishery up on the north Somerset coast. Very close in fact to a few spots I used to fish a lot for rays and cod. It's Nick that you can see on the cover - one of those fantastic big blue sky winter days when everything is perfect for photography.

• I have had a few front covers with Trout Fisherman this year - see here, here, and here. It's always a kick to get one, and I like to see what the various designers choose to use. A lot of people have no idea that photography is such a huge part of my work in fishing, and it seems to be growing and growing.

• The main thing going on today is obviously the fact that a brand new England rugby team under Martin Johnson (we are definitely not worthy) is playing the first of a series of autumn internationals. Is this the new dawn of English rugby that we have all been waiting for ? I am seriously hopeful................considering that Martin Johnson was our greatest ever skipper, I have high hopes for what he can do with the team. I get the sense that the respect for the man is so great that the players dare not turn up without their A games. We need England to be great again. Bring it on big time.

• I had a text message from a friend over in south east Ireland last night to say that he had caught a 4lb codling on his first "cod cast" of the winter, and that the signs are good. It seems to be a little known fact over here that a lot of the southern Irish coastline chucks up some great cod fishing in winter, from the beaches and the numerous estuaries. I am due to be heading over at the end of this month to photograph some of it, and if the weather plays ball, I am sure we will find time for a bit of bass fishing as well !! How could we not ?