OK, so I gave in...........

• I felt almost no confidence, but I simply could not resist getting out on the coastline yesterday late afternoon and early evening to chuck a few lures. The expectation of actually catching a bass was about zero, but this stunning weather has got to me. Me, my red rod, a few lures (ok, quite a few lures), and my sheepdog Jess. It felt a little like summer until the sun dropped further in the sky, but I have been promising myself not to head out lure fishing for bass until at least April. Are we not eternal optimists though ? And yes, I was right, I saw not a sniff of a fish.

• To be perfectly honest, it was not really a proper fishing session as such - I wanted to get a few photos of the coastline as the sun dropped low, and I also wanted to have a really good walk/scramble around to check out where I reckon the fish might be hanging around when they are in. My feelings are that where I was fishing is going to be a back tide mark, with acres of rocks and weed shallowing out nicely as the tide clears. Yesterday was deliberately timed to be over the low water period so that I could see the lie of the land properly.

• The light yesterday evening did not end up as impressive as I thought it might, but I took a few photos I was fairly happy with. Just sitting there with my camera on a tripod and watching the sun dip over south Devon kind of does it for me really. Nobody else was around, and more's the pity that no bass were around either !! To be fair, the water was about as clear as possible and bigger tides are going to help. But as I said, how can you resist going plugging when the weather is so good ?

• In years gone by I would now be chasing bull huss in a big way around south Devon, with regular trips thrown in to the shallow reefs up in the Bristol Channel (Hinkley, Lilstock etc.) for the thornback ray and spring codling, but I tend not to spend much time these days with beachasters in tripods. It's awesome fishing, and it always will be, but I am restless person by nature and I live for different experiences. And I simply do not have as much time as I used to.

• My feeling is that it won't be long until we connect with a few bass around here. Reports of bass turning up in various places are increasingly frequent - and I don't include Ireland here, that place is a (bountiful) freak of nature. Jealous, me ? I have a feeling that certain methods might work in very specific places around here (cryptic eh ?), and much as these east winds are blowing in lovely blue skies and relatively warm day time temperatures, I am going to feel a whole bit more confident when we get a nice set of spring tides and more onshore conditions to inject a bit of "life" to the sea. We shall see.....

• I would imagine that a few of you watched that mightily impressive Yellowstone programme on BBC2 on Sunday night ? I made myself wait until it was on in HD last night, and I have to admit to sitting there open mouthed in complete astonishment at such awesome programme making. Some of the shots in there were breathtaking. What a place, what a brutal winter. If you missed it, watch it here on the BBC iPlayer. Nick Hart and I spent a day in Yellowstone last summer when we were out doing a job in Montana, and just that brief glimpse of the place left a lasting impression on me. The mighty Yellowstone river was still blown out with snow melt in late June when we were there. It continues to stagger me at how impressive this world can look. Too much to see, too little time.

Fishing on islands

• I have always had a thing for fishing on islands - I am not sure why this is the case, but I guess the idea of being slightly cut off and even further away from what we might call "civilisation" appeals to me. I will never forget spending a day over on Dursey island on the west coast of Ireland for a TV show we made a while back. I don't remember any particularly big fish, but I do always remember the sense of adventure at getting that ropey cable car over there and then walking until we found somewhere that looked worth fishing. If you want to fish this part of the world, I would seriously recommend reading this photo essay here on my website, and then contacting the people whose details I have put in there.

• How about the insane cod and coalfish fishing we filmed off the coast of Norway on the tiny island of Rost ? See what I mean ? A long way from lots of people and the fishing was off the scale it was so good. Check out a load of photos here if you don't believe me.

• The photo you can see above was shot early one morning last year on the Minquiers, a huge reef system that lies a few miles off the coast of Jersey. I have been in love with the different Channel Islands for years now, and there are plenty of smaller islands around them that can be accessed and fished if you know what you are doing or go with experienced people (if you have seen me trying to navigate a boat, you will know why I choose the latter option !!). I have dreamed of going to the Minquiers for ages, and it was a huge thrill to spend a night out there. Check out how good that water looks for bass fishing - it was tough when we were out there, but anybody with half a brain is going to get excited about tide, reefs, islands, rips and eddies when it comes to bass fishing.

• Above is Jersey bass-freak Trevor Sangan fishing a popper off the back of the little island we stayed on at the Minquiers. What a perfect morning. There is also the famous Ecrehous reef system that lies off Jersey, plus numerous others. The bass guys over there have got access to such a vast area of fishable waters. I know that they guys here are always happy to help out with local advice, and they stock the rods, reels and lures that smash the bass big time.

• It just so happens that this exploratory French bass fishing/photography trip of mine that I am in the process of planning will most likely be based around an island or two. Perhaps the fact that islands get me going to much is partly down to the fact that you have to cross water to get to them, and that crossing of water always gives me that slightly increased sense of adventure. I don't care if it involves a boat, a ferry, a plane, a kayak or even a bit of a swim (preferably not), that crossing from the mainland over to an island always increases the heart rate. Fishing is an exciting thing to do in my book.

• I can't talk about islands without mentioning one of the most stunning places on earth - the Isles of Scilly. OK, so they don't have bass fishing, but they have insane shore fishing for species like mullet (monsters), pollack, huss, wrasse, conger etc. Accessing the different islands out there is like entering a new world every day. It's been too long......

• And on a different note, I watched a programme last night about the English 2003 Rugby World Cup campaign - mainly to remind myself of how great we once were, and to try and rid myself of all this heartache at being an English rugby supporter at the moment. The emotion of those days came flooding back and I think my wife caught me wiping the odd tear from the corner of my eyes - "got a bit of dust in there". She thinks I'm mad, but those were the days were they not ? We were world beaters once, with a team full of awesome rugby players who could do what it took under the severest of pressure. Can we ever be like that again ?

New issue of Catch mag now online

• There is a brand new issue of the online magazine Catch out now - see here. It does not matter what kind of fishing you do, whether it's saltwater, fly or coarse, because I presume that most fishermen like to check out awesome looking fishing. Catch magazine continues to blow me away with the quality of the work in there, and this issue they have gone mad and dropped a photo of mine in there - have a look in the Light Series for my shot.

• The first photo in that First Light section is simply outstanding, and it was shot by the famous US fly fishing photographer Val Atkinson. Check out more of his work here. OK, so some of us may never go to some of the places featured in Catch magazine, but that is not the point. This online magazine in my mind is a simple celebration of all that is good about fishing - the fact that if photographed well, fishing can look so inviting and impressive. The better we make fishing look to everybody, the better our chances are for keeping this great sport going. That is how I see things anyway.

• I am a fairly useless fly fisherman myself, but to photograph fly fishing is just plain awesome. Many of the world's most beautiful and remote areas are regularly accessed by pioneering fly fishermen, and it this spirit of adventure that I find such an appealing part of fishing. Sure, we tend to all love our "home" fishing the best (give me a bass any day of the week), but just the sniff of a chance to experience different species, cultures, techniques and people is what drives a large part of my work. I know that lots of anglers are never going to venture overseas to fish, but surely there is no harm in dreaming ?

• And my favourite place on earth ? It has to be Ireland. I fell for Africa ages ago, indeed a part of me would love to live and work in South Africa, but Ireland just feels that extra bit special to me. It did the first time I ever went. Every time I go over there I can hardly sleep for the excitement. OK, so Ireland has some outstanding bass fishing, but what most sea anglers do not realise is that there are so many miles of basically unexplored and unfished coastline over there. The more effort you put into a place like Ireland, the more you will get out. In these credit crunch times, and even with the Euro being so bad for us, you can still do Ireland very cheaply. And of course there is some fantastic fly and coarse fishing over there as well.

• I like my shore-based fishing to be as far away from the crowds as possible, and it still amazes me how few people I see shore fishing in Ireland. The guys who know their fishing tend to fish out of the way places, much like around here, but there is so much easily accessible water over there that can chuck up such good fishing. I defy anybody's jaw not to hit the floor when you are fishing areas like the Beara peninsular, the Ring of Kerry and the Clare coastline. What about heading west from Cork ? And what about the virtually deserted coast of the south east ? Ireland is simply stunning. There is so much more I want to see out there - wild islands offshore on the west coast where I hear rumours of mind-blowing pollack fishing. Acres of water stuffed full or rays and huss. Huge mullet swimming around with nobody to fish for them.......

• See what I mean about dreaming ? Fishing is about dreaming, and something like Catch magazine simply stokes the fires further. One of these days I am going to do what I have dreamt about for years now, and that is to jump in a camper van and take myself off to remote parts of Ireland I have never been to and simply roam and fish until I drop. To dream is good.

A few nice fish around

• There were a few decent fish caught over the weekend down here, so I guess that big southerly wind we had on Friday night did a bit of good. It played havoc though with Del over in the Isles of Scilly, but even so he landed a few mullet up to 5lbs - the bigger fish were there, but with so many maggots coming out of the weed he was unable to bring them larger fish within casting range. Still, a 5lb mullet would do me just fine !!

• A friend of mine landed a 28lb conger eel for a mate of his on a rock mark in South Devon that I used to fish for bull huss a lot, with some success as well - I had them to just under 14lbs off there myself, and I saw them landed to over 15lbs. My mate told me he nearly got washed in landing the eel, and they lost a bigger fish as well. Take it easy on those rocks when a bit swell is running.

• I also heard of a 12lb thornback ray and a 12lb plus cod from the River Tamar - it can be a frustrating and difficult place to fish at times, but the Tamar has a long history of chucking up decent fish. Virtually all my best shore caught cod came from Devil's Point at the mouth of the Tamar, fishing usually an hour and a half either side of low water on all sizes of tide. I never found any kind of pattern to catching cod in the Tamar, and it was more a case of if you could hold your bait out there in the tide, you were in with a shout of a decent fish. Daytime, night time, small tides, big tides, rough weather, flat calm weather, rain sunshine, doesn't matter - peeler crab always worked for me for the cod, with prawns killing for the thornbacks, but the prawns catch the cod as well.

• Flounder fishing has never been my thing, but the guys have been catching some nice fish. A friend of mine has had two flounders of 3lb 12oz already, plus numerous other big ones, and the signs seem to be good for the Kingsbridge estuary especially to switch on sometime very soon. Good to hear that the famous River Teign has been producing so many quality flounder again.

• Below are a few more examples of some black and white photographs that I have been playing around with. Any comments are more than welcome, and please bear in mind that I am not always sure how these low-res JPEGs look on other computer screens - I work on calibrated screens in my office here, and there is always a degree of loss of detail when you down-res an image to put on the internet. They look very good on my screens (but then I would say that !!) at full size, so please bear that in mind when you look at them.

• I photographed this stunning girl in southern India a few years ago, in a local village close to where we were fishing for mahseer (see here for some photos) - I have never seen anybody look through a lens with such ease and confidence.

• The above photo was shot in Zambia when we were chasing the outrageous tigerfish on the fly - what a fish, what a place. A bunch of photos from that trip are here. It's those skies that work for me here.

• This kid was fishing with a dropnet off the local pier on Los Roques, an archipelago off the coast of Venezuela. I tend to obviously major on shooting fishing, but I also like to look around for different photos when I can. See a bunch of stuff from Los Roques here.

• We blew yet another tyre heading back to Kampala in Uganda, after smashing the Nile perch at Murchison Falls in a major way. A bunch of locals gathered around to see what on earth a couple of white guys were doing with a dusty Landrover, a spare tyre and a jack. The kid you see above just looked so serene and calm. See here for more photos.

• I am not completely sure whether fishing gear works in black and white yet, but I do really like the photo above that was shot out in Canada a few months ago. A very simple composition, but something about the angles always worked in my head.

Fantastic Irish bass

Photo courtesy of Matthew Thomas

• This kind of thing really makes my day here in the office - Matthew Thomas emailed me to tell me all about the huge bass you can see above (thanks for letting me use the photo Matthew). Weighing 11lbs 4oz, he caught and returned this magnificent fish around Waterville over on the Kerry coastline in Ireland. To catch and then return a fish like this really deserves huge respect from us all.

• But what has made me so especially pleased is that Matthew told me he had read some of the Sea Angler articles that I have done with his fishing guide over in Ireland, the extremely talented Kevin Brain. After reading those articles, Matthew booked a day with Kevin over in Waterville and this bass of a lifetime was the result. This proves two things to me - that fishing articles do work in putting anglers in touch with good fishing, and that a guide is as invaluable as a decent fishing rod. There are not many guides in our UK and Irish sea fishing worlds, so we need to use them as much as possible and help ensure their future. Well done to Matthew and to Kevin.

• Check here for a feature on what Kevin Brain does over in Ireland, and then contact him here. We filmed a TV programme over in Kerry a couple of years ago, and we would not have got anywhere without the expert help and guidance from Kevin. If you are heading that way, make sure to get in touch with him and I assure you that you will catch a truck load more fish and learn a staggering amount from him. Better still, make a proper trip out of it and fish yourself to a standstill !! Bass, mullet, wrasse, rays, codling, pollack, huss, sea trout and salmon, you name it, Kerry has the lot.

• Once again this shows that Ireland offers the best shore fishing for bass that I know of anywhere, and Kevin catches some awesome fish on bait, lures and fly. Words can not describe how pretty the Kerry coastline is, indeed when I first saw it my jaw hit the floor and remained there until I was on the ferry back home. I must get myself back over there soon..............

• My mate Graham Hill also landed a big bass the other day from that magical south east corner of Ireland - weighing over 10lbs, he also returned the fish successfully. I know he lost his Tackle House Feed Shallow lure to a real crocodile of a fish earlier in the session, so he went and put on one of his old favourites, the jointed Storm Thunderstick. These Tackle House lures are really starting to get noticed by keen bass anglers, and so they should - they slay big time. You can get them here. Well done Graham, I will be back over as soon as I can. Bass fishing is an addiction, as Matthew Thomas tells me !! Give in, it ain't worth trying to fight it.............

• What on earth is going on with bass fishing ? Granted, it has always been hugely popular, but there is an explosion in interest going on, as I have continually alluded to in this blog. Why is this happening ? Is it because so many anglers are fed up with staring at rod tips and are looking for a more "involved" way of fishing ? Is it because there is more and more press on going bass fishing ? Is it because the bass is the one species we have that crosses the fishing divides ? I have never met a fisherman who did not want to try and catch a bass. Whatever the reasons, it is making me think hard about what to do in the future, so watch this space and if I come up with any decent ideas you will be the first to know. Perhaps I should start looking into guided/led trips over to various locations in Ireland, or perhaps even think about bass fishing clinics ? Believe me, I am learning all the time, but I am very conscious that there are a load of other people out there who are hungry for information.

• How can I go this long without telling you about another great metal release ? I first got into the Danish band Raunchy around the time of their "Confusion Bay" CD, and you really need to check out their new album, called "Wasteland Discotheque". Check out a few tracks here. I love this kind of insanely catchy extreme metal that gets deep into your head and beats your brain to a submissive pulp !! Give me more.

Well done Wales

• All credit to Wales for winning the Grand Slam in such style yesterday evening..........between clenched teeth I have to admit that they more than deserved it. I bet there were a record number of sore heads over the border this morning !! The Wales v France game was a proper game of rugby, and even on TV the atmosphere seemed to be electric - what must it have been like to have actually been there ?

• At least we put up a proper performance against Ireland at Twickenham, especially after the disgrace that was the Scotland match the weekend before - did England even turn up to that ? I still can't work out what went on there, but in time I will erase the painful memory from my head. My middle brother Julian was at the Ireland match yesterday and said it was awesome.

• Looks like what they have been saying for ages now is possibly true - this Danny Cipriani guy had a great game at 10, but counting out Johnny in the future would be foolish. World class players do not simply become has-beens over night. We all remember that great day in 2003 I am sure.

• Some nice bull huss are being caught around here at the moment, including good numbers of fish over 10lbs, but why on earth do so many anglers have to kill them simply to weigh them in for clubs, medals and trophies etc ? Surely with decent scales and cheap digital cameras the days of killing fish simply to weigh in are over now ? Sadly not..................don't get me wrong, taking the odd fish to eat is just fine, but taking prime fish to get your name up on a board is doing nothing remotely positive for the future of our sport. Anybody can justify taking a fish to eat, but on on earth can any of us justify killing a fish to make us look like great anglers ? If there is one species that we can have an effect on as shore anglers, it is the bull huss - take too many big fish out and I really believe that you are adversely affecting the very marks you fish.

• Anyway, the forecast is for brighter weather and colder winds tomorrow, and I am off for a day's photographing and fishing for mullet, one of the UK's great saltwater species. Few fish fight so hard on light gear - this is going to be a great way to spend a Monday.