The countryside is alive and kicking

• What an incredible three days at the CLA Game Fair up at Blenheim Palace - the sheer numbers of people wandering around was staggering, indeed I heard rumours of close to 100,000 on Saturday. To see this number of people at a countryside show really does make you feel good about the future, for however hard our successive governments try to stamp all over the rural way of life, it is still very much alive, and kicking very hard indeed.

• Nick Hart and I had a blast doing our demonstrations each day, even when the sound went down on the first one and we had no choice but to shout ourselves hoarse just to be heard by the grandstand !! The response from people was fantastic, and my thanks of course to the hundreds of audience members who sat through the half hour demos, and a special thanks to our volunteers who came up and worked with us.

• I spent most of my time in and around the Fisherman's Village, and it was great to meet so many different people who kindly came up to me and said they enjoyed the TV programmes of mine - firstly it staggers me that people are still prepared to sit through them (my thanks), and secondly, the fact that half hour shows of me wittering on in a high state of excitement does not drive people completely demented has to be some kind of bonus.

• What really made my three days was the number of kids and female viewers who came up to me - anybody who knows me knows how embarrassed I get at being "recognised" by the people who watch the shows, but on the other hand I am so honoured that people enjoy what we do. The fact that so many female anglers and kids told me they loved the programmes left me brimming with pride that our little shows can give off such a good vibe to such different audiences.

• I did get a chance to see some other parts of the Game Fair, and as always is was utter class - so many things to see and buy, and such a good feeling about the whole show. Great weather (seriously cooking on Saturday), loads to do, but not enough time. I am already looking forward to next year.

• For people like me who work in the sport fishing industry, the Game Fair is also a good chance to see lots of different people and talk shop. A lot of fun is had when the crowds clear out in the early evening and the people working there can wind down a bit. There were some sore heads on the Saturday and Sunday mornings................

• The Bass Lures guys were doing a roaring trade with their demonstration tank and their Slug-Go and Lucky Craft lures - well done for coming along to what too many people wrongly perceive as a being game fishing only thing. We all went out for supper on Saturday night (thanks guys, I owe you), and they were in a slight state of shock at how well it had all been going. I am so glad a company like this had the guts to come along and prove that something really different could work so well at the Game Fair. I was unsure how they would do, but their success at the show has made me sit up and take even more notice of this explosion in bass fishing interest currently going on.

• You would not believe the number of people who wanted to talk about bass fishing, from the sea, fly and coarse fishing worlds, in equal numbers it seemed - there is an increasingly loud revolution going on, and the companies at the forefront of modern bass fishing in the UK really deserve a great degree of respect. I did a forum on Saturday morning with John Bailey and John Wilson, on the subject of UK saltwater fly fishing, and of course the main topic was the bass - where, how, why etc., and we had a packed audience. It seems that everybody wants to be a part of it.

• My friends at Aardvark McLeod and The Latin American Fishing Company had stands next to each other, and they were all saying how well it was going, with fantastic interest from all kinds of punters in fishing around the world. Selling this kind of overseas fishing takes great dedication and passion, all done with a great degree of approachability, and these two companies have exactly what it takes. If you want access to the best fishing this world has to offer, come and talk to these two companies - I work with people I like and trust, and who offer the kind of attitude I go about my work with.

• The Hardy Greys stand was smothered with interested punters seemingly every minute of every day, and the retailer stands were reporting a roaring trade going on. So where was the credit crunch this weekend ? We had a fantastic barbecue at the Hardy stand on the Friday night (huge thanks and credit to Steve and Lucy, you both deserve medals !!), and the guys were all buzzing at the amount of interest in their huge range of fishing gear.

• Anyway, I got back home to Plymouth yesterday, and now it is eyes down in my office to get a load of photos processed and fishing features done for various magazines. I am really pleased to be here for a while now and spend some time with my family - I might even sneak out for some plugging later this week as well !!

• A couple of friends, Rob Yorke and Mark Bryce, have been nailing some good rays recently off the shore, including blondes to over 16lbs, small eyeds to nearly 12lbs, and some spotteds to over 6lbs - nice fishing guys, but then they seriously know their stuff. Great to hear that the fishing is switching on so well around here.

Thank you Paul

• I spent yesterday morning with Paul and his mate Mark up in north Wales, plugging for bass - but the fishing was completely secondary to the real reason we were there. Back in February, a young angler called Alan Wright was tragically taken by the sea while out enjoying the sport we all love (see the original post here), and I was asked if a day's fishing with me could be auctioned to try and raise some money for the family left behind. See here for the original details.

• Paul's generosity in bidding for this time with me blew me away, and we managed to get together yesterday to spend a few hours fishing. Paul's mate Mark took us out to an awesome looking bass spot somewhere in north Wales, and the fact that we landed three bass means nothing really when you think about the pain that Alan's family are still going through now, and the extreme kindness of Paul to bid so much money that I hope will help them out in some small way. You are a gentleman sir, and I am honoured to have fished with you and Mark. The photo above is of Paul casting a bass plug out - it makes my day to meet somebody who is so passionate about their fishing.

• Above is Paul on the right, with Mark on the left. Thanks guys for your time, and thanks Paul for your generosity. Any time you are down my way, please make sure you get in touch and I can show you a bit of my coastline.

• I then drove for six hours to get back home to my family - what a stunning place north and mid Wales is, and to be perfectly honest, I feel somewhat ignorant that these couple of days were my first ever in this fantastic part of the world. It was fantastic to see my family again, but tempered with that joy is the sad fact that Alan's family will never see him walk through their front door again. Fishing is the best sport in the world, but spending time around the unpredictability of nature can bring about the odd tragedy. Please play it safe.

• On Monday, I spent the day up on Anglesey with the guys behind the new company Bass Lures (just how pretty is Anglesey ?) - Nick and Bob are responsible for bringing in the awesome soft plastic Slug-Go lures into the UK, and they are also now the UK agents for some of the finest fishing lures ever made, Lucky Craft. Who in bass fishing has not used or heard of the Sammy, the GunFish or the Flash Minnow ? The amount of bass these things have caught and continue to catch is scary.....

• Check out the Bass Lures website here. You can see Nick and Bob at the CLA Game Fair this weekend, where they will have an enormous tank for demonstrating their various lures and specialist techniques. Above is a rigged Slug-Go lure - there is no way I can describe how awesome these lures look when they are fished, and for the kinds of bass marks we all fish over, they are perfect. On Monday we spent some time out fishing, and I saw bass caught on the Slug-Go - they go mad for it !! A really big fish was also sadly lost on a Lucky Craft GunFish - this lure is lethal, and it was incredible to watch as bass would come at it. It is the noise of a surfacing bass that gets you every time.

• The top lure you can see above is the Lucky Craft GunFish, and the bottom one is of course the Sammy - both slay bass big time. The GunFish in particular is a favourite surface lure of many bass anglers, for it remains very stable even when there is a fair bit of chop to the water. Both lures cast extremely well and I always carry them in my lure box when I am out fishing.

• You can get these lures online here, direct from Bass Lures, or alternatively look at places like Veals Mail Order and Mr. Fish over in Jersey. Be very wary of any cheap imitations of these lures that you might find out there, for they do not work like the originals, and they are constructed very poorly indeed. It is so worth paying the proper price for some of the most successful lures ever made..............and you should see some of the other lures these guys are playing around with, they look lethal. I tell you, this lure thing is a bad addiction !!

• I will be using some of the Lucky Craft and Slug-Go lures during my demonstrations at the CLA Game Fair this weekend - I hope to see some of you there, the weather forecast looks good at the moment and it is a blast of an event.

• I hear from Graham that the Jersey lads caught a bunch more bass on the Monday, at the same place we all fished together on the Sunday morning. Once again the fish were out sunbathing, and they tell me that there were also some seriously huge mullet swimming around, estimated to be around the 14lb mark !!!! The problem is that I have bass on the brain over in south east Ireland, but one day soon I am going to take my mullet gear and have a proper go for the masses of fish we keep seeing all the time. What a place.

• Thank you again Paul - what a gent.

Sunbathing Irish bass.........

• This morning was one of those sessions that you want to commit to memory and then recall at will to get you through the harder fishing times - it could not have been more perfect. Everywhere we looked we could see bass milling around on the surface, as if they were sunbathing, and close in to the shore were a load of big mullet. Trevor reckoned he saw mullet approaching 10lbs !! (why do serious mullet anglers keep ignoring Ireland and the millions of mullet ?)

• The sea was flat calm, and all you could hear was us bunch of monkeys gibbering away in a complete state of over-excitement at the mass of bass that kept showing themselves on the surface - I have never seen anything like it before. The sea was like a millpond, but the bass were no pushover at all. We could see loads of them, but they were going to need catching......

• The morning actually started off very cold for me - I tried to get around a rocky point, and then realised that if I went any further I was going to get cut off for a few hours, so I turned back to come at the mark a different way. Big mistake !! One wrong step and I was under, and the only thing that kept me afloat long enough to grab a rock was my waterproof Lowerpro camera bag that acts like a life jacket. Nice one Henry. It has to happen to me once a trip. I fished and photographed for the next few hours with a load of nice cold water to keep me company inside my chest waders. But it was worth it......

• Trevor was first in with this stunning fish you can see above, taken right in tight to the shore. These bass are in incredible condition at the moment.

• This is the lure that has been doing the damage over the last couple of days - I don't know how it happened, but as if my magic one appeared in my lure box this morning, and also and in Graham's !! This is the Tackle House Feed Shallow - it is perfect for the kind of ground we have been plugging over, because it covers plenty of terrain at a very shallow depth, and the bass love them to bits. You can get them here. I am loving learning all about a bunch of new lures, and it is even better when a fish or two throw themselves at you - I managed a nice one of about 6lbs at range this morning, in between taking a stack of photos in the awesome light. The bass hit my lure right on the start of the retrieve and really went hard. I think I might have yelped with the excitement of it all.

• Here is Trevor with another fine fish taken around high water - this guy fishes seriously well and it is a pleasure to watch. The more ground you cover means the more fish you are going to cover, so all that extra leg-busting effort is always worth it. The more you put in, the more you get out, it is that kind of fishing.

• Graham was going to come to the party sooner or later this morning (after the "singing" I heard about from late last night, enough said !!), and he did it in style with this stunner you can see being landed above, and then held carefully below. I gave him 8.5lbs for the fish, but in truth I reckon it was nearer the 9lb mark. There was never a question of killing a fish like this simply to know exactly what it weighed, that is not what we are about, and it went back strongly after the obligatory photo call. Graham really is a staggeringly good bass angler, and more often than not he is out on this incredible coastline all on his own because there are so few anglers fishing it. Mad, totally mad !! I have to move over there......

• Part of me is gutted to be leaving Ireland, but the other part of me is also very excited to be heading over to north Wales for a couple of days. It is typical that the weather I am leaving behind is perfect for bassing, and I have a feeling that Graham and the Jersey lads are going to smash the fish big time over the next couple of days. But such a big part of my job is meeting new people and seeing new places, and I love it.

• How civilised is this ? At the moment I am on the Stena Line ferry from Dun Laoghaire over to Holyhead, watching the end of the Open golf on the box, with free wireless internet on my laptop. A chance to update the blog, catch up on emails, and have a decent cup of coffee. Isn't technology great ?

• It is also a chance for me to reflect on the last few days I have had in Ireland, and to begin editing the photos down and preparing various features for magazines. It continues to amaze me how relatively few sea fishermen travel over to Ireland to explore the coastline. It could not be easier to get here, the place is crawling with fish of all kinds, and I still have not heard of any better shore fishing for bass in Europe - west coast, east coast, south coast, take your pick, but the south east corner is something very special indeed. Graham and I are looking at some bass tides in September for me to come back over for a few days, and then we will try to sort out some cod tides for the winter - did you know that there is some fantastic cod fishing from the shore as well ? I love my bassing around home, but in all honesty it simply can not compare to what I keep seeing in Ireland. This is not a complaint, it is simply a fact.

• Anyway, off to Wales and then back home late Tuesday - I hope to see some of you at the CLA Game Fair next weekend, when my demonstrations with Nick Hart will revolve a lot around fishing different kinds of lures for species like bass. Am I obsessed ? What do you think.......?

Back from Norway, off to Ireland - plus some website updates

Canon 1D MK11, 16-35mm f2.8L lens (at 16mm), ISO 250, f9, 1/640th, polarising filter

• I got back home from Norway yesterday afternoon in time to see my two girls before they went to bed, and now I am just about to head off to catch the Fishguard-Rosslare ferry at 6.30pm this evening. Things aren't usually as bananas as this, but working in fishing is never what it seems !! It is getting harder and harder to leave my family behind for these trips away, but at least when I am at home, I am working from home and get to see them plenty. A week after the CLA Game Fair I am going to take a proper week off and spend the entire time with my family, and I can't wait.

• So, from photographing salmon a couple of days ago to photographing bass fishing - it is going to be a blast to get back to Ireland and fish/photograph with Graham Hill, plus Patrick and a couple of guys coming over from Jersey for a few days. If the weather lets us, we should see some nice fish. The photo above is standing atop a mark that Graham and I will no doubt be fishing sometime tomorrow - how on earth am I going to be able so sleep when I am this excited ?

• I spoke to Nick Hart on the way back from Heathrow yesterday, and he told me that Neil who guides with him had just landed a 14lb fresh salmon from the Exe - perfect water conditions for them, but poor for us in Norway. It has to be sod's law !!

• There have been a whole load of new photo essays put up on my website, see this page here to get an overview, and then click on them to have a look. Here are some further details :

Fly fishing for giant coalfish in Norway - click here.

Fly fishing for golden dorado in Argentina - click here.

Steelhead fishing in Canada - click here.

Lure fishing for golden dorado - click here.

Sight fishing for Atlantic salmon in Canada - click here.

• Anyway, I had better get on and pack my car up now. As much as time allows me to, I will do my best to keep this blog updated with news of our bassing exploits over in Ireland. I then spend a couple of days in north Wales on the way home, so it is going to be a very cool trip indeed. Hope to see you at the CLA Game Fair at the end of the month.

What a place.......

Canon 1D MK111, 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens (at125mm), ISO 400, f8, 1/100th

• This is an incredible place out here - the Namsen is one of the mighty European salmon rivers, and each year some monster salmon are taken during the season. We have been unlucky fishing wise and have come right in the middle of some unseasonal low water conditions, but above you can see the size of fish possible from this stunning river. When the water is up a bit more, fishermen are averaging over nine salmon plus per rod per day on the good beats, and that is some fishing. Lots of big fish are landed every week. I guess I am going to have to come back.....

• Is it not somewhat ironic that conditions back home in the west country have been good for the salmon, with a silly amount of rain, yet over here in big salmon country, we are hoping for just any rain at all ? I love the fact that fishing is so much bigger than all of us mere mortals who try to tame it - as it gives to us so generously at times, does it not at other times try to break our will with the sheer levels of frustration we can be presented with ? How is that for profound on a Sunday morning ?

Canon 1D MK111, 70-200mm f2.8: IS lens (at 125mm), ISO 400, f5.6, 1/500th

• In the end, I am here to do a job for Hardy & Greys Ltd., regardless of how the actual fishing conditions are - the salmon might be off the boil, but the weather conditions and light levels have been just about perfect for nailing a whack load of double-hander fishing and casting shots. Fishermen out here use a two-handed rod as naturally as we might use a single-hander. It is such a graceful way of fly fishing and I am really enjoying being around it again. Above is the Hardy & Greys Marketing Manager John Wolstenholme in the middle of a cast - the fact that he is a South African has been by the by. I never mentioned the cricket at all yesterday !! ( I am bad). Come on England.

Canon 1D MK111, 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens (at 140mm), ISO 400, f8, 1/320th

• As well as shots of fishing and casting, of course we need a bit of tight stuff of the tackle being used. Fly fishing gear often looks so good when photographed in the most natural way possible, and all I had to do here was to ask Ian Gordon to just keep his hand still for a few seconds as I lined the shot up. It is very deliberate here to focus on the reel and have the rest of the rod gradually de-focusing to the front of the shot.

Canon 1D M111, 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens (at 95mm), ISO 400, f5.6, 1/400th

• We have been working with an outstanding guide called Thomas Jonasson, who is originally from Sweden. He fell in love with the Namsen as he fished it many times every year, and one day swore to move to Norway and work as a guide. I asked him if he would fish a bit, and as is often the way with the guide, he has the most laid back and easy casting style that repeats itself time and time again. Thomas casts an incredible line, and he makes it looks just so easy. I really like the way this railway bridge has helped to frame some of these casting shots. This river is a dream to be spending time around, so I can only imagine what it is like when the fishing is going off big time.

Canon 1D MK111, 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens (at 150mm), ISO 400, f6.3, 1/1000th

• I could happily photograph Ian Gordon Spey casting all day long - he is on another level entirely when he is putting lines out. Ian is raving about the river out here, but he knows more than us about the need for a bit more water moving through. It is no different in Scotland - when conditions are right, salmon fishing has been really good Ian tells me, but when the rivers are low, fishermen are going to struggle anywhere. Ian is going to be at the CLA Game Fair, so make sure to grab hold of him and ask about Spey casting.

• It is my last day here today, and we are moving closer to the coast to try a different river, and from the sounds of it, we have a good chance of seeing some fish. A couple of small salmon were actually landed yesterday, and I met a Dutch fisherman who had been fishing for trout and then got torn to pieces by a good salmon that hit his fly - always the way !!

• When I get back home tomorrow, I need to unpack and then re-pack with all my Ireland stuff, ready to drive over there on Tuesday afternoon. I sincerely hope that the weather is going to behave a little bit - I can't wait to get into some decent bass fishing. And then it is on to the Game Fair - I hope to see some of you there.

My new fishing book in Germany

• I have just heard from the German branch of my book publishers Dorling Kindersley (DK) that my new fishing book has been translated into German and will be on sale there soon - with the new style cover that you can see above. I really like their choice of main cover photo, it is a shot I took out in British Columbia (Canada) last autumn, of the legendary steelhead fishing. Come to think of it, the weather we had out there was very much like our current British summer !! You can see a load of photos from the trip here.

• If you had no idea that I have even got a new fishing book out, then please check here for all the details, and then click here and get yourself a copy. I still can't really believe I did this book, it was a scary amount of work to cram into the last six months of 2007, but we did it in the end.

• I am starting to get my gear together for my Norway trip, leaving Heathrow on Thursday morning - flying to Oslo and then connecting up to Trondheim from there. All I want is perfect light and a load of big Norwegian salmon - not too much to ask is it ? I seriously can not wait to photograph this fishing, and I will keep this blog updated as much as internet connections allow me to.

• I am also getting my gear together for my bass trip over to Ireland, and then north Wales on the way back - I have just under a day when I touch down at Heathrow on Monday to drive back to Plymouth, see my family, transfer and back up all the Norway salmon photos, do as many emails and phone calls as possible, clear the memory cards and portable hard drives, and then drive across to south east Ireland. Tight, but it should all be ok. When you work for yourself and on your own in the fishing world, you need to be able to move fast and remain flexible. Modern technology and communications have helped me no end in my work.

• I'll take my lure and light bait fishing gear, plus all kinds of clothes, from t-shirts to wet weather gear - you never know what you'll get over in Ireland, but we have nailed bass whatever the weather so I am not unduly bothered. I would never even think of going bass fishing without my chest waders and wading boots, and on this trip I'll take my Hardy EWS breathable waders and wading boots, plus a pair of Greys GRX breathable waders as back up. If a mobile style of bass fishing is your thing, you seriously owe it to yourself to get some proper chest waders and wading boots - they will revolutionise your fishing.

• I had a long chat yesterday with Nick Hart, discussing our fishing demonstrations that we will be doing at the CLA Game Fair at the end of this month (full details here). I reckon we have got these ones nailed down tight, and they should be a blast to do, and to come and see of course - hope you can make it, please give us a little clap at the end in case nobody else does !! I really like doing these demonstrations and the feedback has always been very good in the past. It is going to be a fantastic three days at Blenheim.

• It seems as though the bass are around in fairly good numbers at the moment, but the weather is preventing a lot of us from getting at them. A friend of mine managed a decent plugging session before these big winds came in, and he had some nice bass to about 4lbs, plus he was smashed by a really good fish that crash dived on him and did him in the rocks. There are some nice fish coming from Jersey, but again when the weather gives way a bit, and the same over in Ireland. There seem to be a decent number of smallish bass on baits around South Devon at the moment (with the odd good one thrown in), but the sea is going to have to calm down for the lures to work again. There is so much colour to the water at the moment that it looks more like the Bristol Channel in close.

OK, joke over - give us back our summer

Canon 1D MK111, 70-200mm f4L IS lens (at 90mm), ISO 200, f11, 1/500

• Above is a photo looking across to Constantine and down the north Cornwall coastline, from Wednesday morning this week. I was on the beach with the kids and managed to get a few photos of the big skies and rough conditions just before my two young daughters turned totally blue from the cold wind. But as I said the other day, we are nothing if not hearty us Brits, and my girls were swimming/paddling in a rock pool as I took this photo, in little wetsuits of course. With the sea running at less than 15C, I reckon that is pretty hardcore - but you won't find me swimming in these temperatures, it's far too cold.

• I am really feeling for our charter skippers at the moment - this is a busy time of year for them all right now, and the weather is dire, plus it is forecast to get even worse. They are saying that we might get gales to severe gales tonight and tomorrow. These winds are playing havoc with their trade, and I only hope that we get a prolonged settled spell sometime soon. The fish are out there, but we can't get at them.........

• I am off over to Norway on Thursday, to photograph some salmon fishing up near Trondheim. I believe that it will be 24hr daylight when we are up there, so it should give me a chance to really push things hard and get some awesome photos. I have been wanting to photograph the salmon fishing in Norway for ages now, so this is my chance to get things started. I am travelling with a couple of guys from Hardy & Greys Ltd., so it should be a blast.

• I then get back to the UK four days later (the 14th), and the day after that (the 15th), I am driving over to SE Ireland for this bassing photography trip. It's not too bad a drive at all from Plymouth, about four hours to Fishguard, jump on the StenaLine fast ferry over to Fishguard, and then less than hour over to where my mate Graham Hill lives. I have done this journey loads of times, and I expect to be doing it plenty more in the future - the fishing is that good over there.

• I am travelling back from Ireland on the StenaLine Dunlaoghaire to Holyhead route, to do a couple of jobs up in north Wales, which I can't wait for. I will have more info in due course, but you can guess that it revolves around bass fishing !!

• And then straight after I get back from north Wales, I am heading up to Blenheim Palace for the CLA Game Fair, where over the three days (25th, 26th, 27th July) I am doing some fishing demonstrations with Nick Hart. The Game Fair is always huge fun, and if you have any interest at all in the outdoors (fishing, shooting, hunting, animals etc.), then you should try and come along. Please come and find me if you do, I will mostly be around the fishing area. If you have not been to the Game Fair before, you will be staggered at just how huge this event is, and there is far too much to do and see in just one day.

• I have just found out the exact times of our fishing demonstrations, and these are :

Friday 25th July : 12.15 - 12.45

Saturday 26th July : 13.00 - 13.30

Sunday 27th July : 10.45 - 11.15

• Remember to check out the photos from my recent trip over to Montana, check here for them. What a place, and both Nick and I are itching to get back over there sometime soon. In the meantime, speak to Aardvark McLeod about a trip somewhere nice and warm, with plenty of good fishing !!

• To sit perfectly alongside this vile weather, how about some old school, classic-style death metal to warm you up ? Hail of Bullets play it proper, and that means awesome riffs, sick vocals and a warming glow of nostalgia working its way around your body. If you remember the band Asphyx, you will recognise the vocalist immediately. "....Of Frost and War" is the title of the new album from Hail of Bullets, and you can listen to a couple of tracks here. Track this one down and I assure you that any die-hard metal freaks among you (and I include me here) will be banging your heads in time to this one. Ah, they don't make 'em like that anymore.............

Plugging for pollack

• I went to try for bass again around the low water on Friday evening, and again the conditions looked good - not quite as promising as the day before, but still very favourable. It was just me and my dog Jess and nobody else. After all the rain we had, I never had a drop of it out fishing and there was even a really pretty sunset as well. What an awesome way to spend a Friday evening - out on the rocks with nobody else in sight.

• Low tide was around 8.40pm, and I really wanted to try the last few hours of the back tide and then an hour or so up, but unlike on Thursday, I never even saw a sniff of a bass. Why ? I have no idea. It felt good, I liked the slight jump in the size of the tide, and it just screamed bass at me, but all I caught were some small pollack. At least these honest little things tend to jump on the hook when a blank is looming, and while I love catching (proper) pollack from the shore, it's the bass that I am after.

• Pollack are actually a species that more anglers should chase - I don't mean the little ones that are hitting me all the time at the moment, but the bigger fish that you can catch from the deeper rock marks. I love fishing for them in Ireland, but the best shore fishing for pollack that I have come across so far has been out with my mate Del in the stunning Isles of Scilly. Hooking big pollack in over twenty five metres of water on deep-spun jellyworms and sandeels is about as much fun as fishing is going to get. I also really like using lighter spinning gear to chase them from the millions of rock marks over in Ireland - I still believe that there are many thousands of spectacular fishing spots over there still waiting to be discovered. I only with I had a lifetime to spend looking around...........

• The tides are now building nicely into next week, and I'm going to try and fit in as much bass fishing as weather and work will allow before heading off to Montana in a couple of weeks. The great thing about going plugging is that you can do lots of short, sharp sessions that can fit in well around a "normal" life. I love the fact that you are always doing something - it is a very "involved" way of sea fishing, and moving around the rocks and gullies all the time to look for places to cast really keeps me thinking. Staring at rod tips chasing bigger fish is what makes us sea anglers what we are, but light tackle, mobile fishing is where it's at for me at the moment.

• I am booked up for a week's fishing and photography with my mate Graham Hill over in Ireland for July - the tides are fantastic and all we can do is hope for a bit of decent weather. There is a strong chance of some awesome bass fishing at that time, both on lures and on bait. Check here for the sort of fishing I have had with Graham over the last few years. Any keen sea anglers should get themselves over to Ireland for their shore fishing. I can't get enough of the place.

• After that week with Graham, I head back via North Wales to do a couple of bass related jobs up there. This should be a blast and I can't wait to see this part of Wales, I have heard so much about it. It should be really interesting.

• And then at the end of that week in July it is the CLA Game Fair where Nick Hart and I do fishing demonstrations together over the three days. If you have any interest in fishing, hunting, shooing or the outdoors, you should get yourself along to this fantastic event, held this year up at Blenheim Palace. I always look forward to this weekend - what a shame it had to be cancelled last year, but this one is the 5oth anniversary and it will be a blast. If you come along, I'll be around the Fisherman's Village most of the time, so please come and say hi. You could even come and watch the demos that Nick and I do !!