Bring on THE FINAL

Much as I love fishing, the biggest thing this week is without doubt the monster game coming up on Saturday evening. Even if 20lb cod were crawling up the line and asking to be caught, nothing would give me cause to miss watching the biggest rugby match since the epic 2003 game. I simply can not believe that we are in the final again, never thought I would get back from Canada and be able to watch England in the semi-final, let alone THE FINAL. It is going to get rather emotional !!!! All credit to the players, to come back from where they have been is extraordinary - not sure if I can keep a lid on my high state of excitement this end. All credit to South Africa, they played a good game to reach the final, I thought that is where they would be at the start of the tournament. Rest assured that plenty of wind-up emails and texts are winging their way between me and the guys I know down there through fishing. May the best team win - England of course. On the fishing front, it really makes me happy to hear of some good early season cod fishing from the huge Chesil Beach; that is great news that a few fish are showing up. Hopefully this might give rise to a better winter's cod fishing throughout the UK - it can not get much worse than last winter.

In the middle of processing a stack of photos from Canada and here is one that I think sums up the steelhead fishing - imposing, snow-capped mountains, autumn colours, angler in the river fishing with a double-handed fly rod, waiting for one of the world's great fish to hit. Here for a couple of weeks and then a quick trip over to SE Ireland to go bass fishing and photographing on those big spring tides at the end of this month. Click here for some photos from previous trips.