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 ?

Bass fishing - the future ?

• How on earth can such a seemingly simple bit of soft plastic like you can see above create such wanton desire among so many bass anglers ? A modern soft plastic lure like the MegaBass XLayer is to the untrained eye probably no more than a slightly dubious looking ribbed bit of strange rubber, but in the hands of a decent bass fisherman this thing comes alive. Watching the French guys demonstrating various hard and soft lures in the tanks was a real eye-opener. The XLayer for example is designed to be worked in slower tides, with a jig head roughly the shape of the one you can see above. You then literally make it jump and twitch up and down as you retrieve it. Kind of like the guys were using them when I was last over in Ireland in fact - and the bass were nailed big time. See the photos here.

• You need to be able to impart such subtle movements and twitches to these things, and the more information that is literally transmitted down the rod and through your hand and arm will mean more bass caught. Might sound like rubbish, but it's true. That is why I a starting to save up for the red Tenryu Super Mix 240. The right tool for the job.

• By no means am I am now saying that the only people who really know how to catch bass are the French, because that's rubbish. I know some pretty good bass anglers myself who can smash the fish big time. But on a personal level I like to learn all the time. I don't like standing still. The French are doing a lot of different things to us, and it fascinates me.

• The lure you can see above is one of the best looking hard plastic lures I have ever seen - the picture of it does no justice to the overall shape and appeal of this thing, but when I saw this IMA Imagene 130 sitting in a glass stand at the Nantes show, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. This is a shallow diving lure that is designed to worked fairly fast, much like the Maria Chase BW, the Tackle House Feed Shallow and the various Duo Tide Minnow lures, the IMA Imagene will soon be in my tackle box, and specifically in the colour you can see above. A top-end Japanese lure like this does not come cheap, and they can be really hard to get hold of, but I know that in a while you will be able to get them right here. Ask and ye shall receive !! (after abusing your credit card of course) I have heard such good reports about IMA lures, and there is also a slightly smaller 110 model of this one that swims even shallower. Not that I like lures or anything.......

• I had an email from my mate Cato over in Norway, and he caught a 17lb coalfish the other day when he was out ice fishing. That is some fish to catch off the shore !! A guy he knows was ice fishing last week and caught an 80lb ling - yes, you read it right, eighty pounds. Not off the boat, off the shore. OK, off the ice then. Wow. They have got some incredible fishing up in Norway. Cold but insane. Check out Cato's awesome drumming on this life-changing metal album here.

Tough day yesterday

• It feels a bit stupid to be talking about problems with the weather out here in Belize when back home in the UK they are having the worst snow for ages - but yesterday morning especially out here were some of the toughest flats fishing conditions that I have seen for a while. Howling winds and scudding grey skies make it really difficult, so the big jack you can see above was even more of an accomplishment by James. Targeting either permit or tarpon yesterday was never going to happen. We saw a few nice snook lying very close to some mangroves, and James landed a small one, but the bigger ones don't get big by being stupid. We were told of some snook landed on the fly the other day out here to over 20lbs.

• Above you can see James's jack being landed by our guide - this place is an awesome location. El Pescador lodge where we are staying is simply fantastic, and when the weather is kinder they have some outstanding fishing here for serious numbers of tarpon (some truly huge fish as well) and permit, plus stacks of mainly small to medium sized bonefish. Some fly anglers never look twice at big jack crevalle, but there are lots out here -anybody who ignores the chance to fish for them needs their heads examined. Belize is a country that is really growing on me, and the more you speak to the locals, the more you realise just what an incredible fishery there is out here. There are big numbers of resident tarpon around all year that do not migrate, but during July, August and September there are a scary amount of migrating tarpon moving through here, and it is not uncommon to land numbers of them every day. All we need is some half-tidy weather and we have got a decent chance........and the forecast is giving it to be a lot better for today.

• The moment James and I got back in off the boat yesterday, we jumped straight in the kayaks and paddled out into the backcountry behind the lodge. We found some shelter from the wind and James smashed a few bones on a deserted flat, including this one above. Nothing very big, but proper fun - I saw one shoal of decent bonefish moving around, but they were not in a feeding mode. We did see a few tailing fish, and James also saw a spooky permit.

• Messing around on the kayaks is a blast, even though we got lost for a bit and could not work out where to go in the maze of mangrove channels out here !! With the sun rapidly going down, I did not fancy getting stuck out in the backcountry when the mozzies came out to play. It's before first light as I am typing this and we have two full days left to get this properly nailed - if the weather plays ball then I hope we can show just how good it can be out here.

• As regards some fishing that is more in keeping with all the snow I keep hearing about back home, check out this mad Norwegian ice fishing at this link right here. Scroll down the page a bit and you will see my mate Cato and a friend of his with some proper pollack and coalfish that they nailed through a tiny hole in the ice - check out the size of the fishing rod !! This looks like class fishing, and Cato tells me they had pollack to 12lbs through the ice, mainly on various soft plastics fished on jigs.

Irish bass fishing - some thoughts

• I continue to be amazed at the overall quality of the shore fishing over in Ireland - but perhaps what amazes me the most is that I still meet fishermen who almost don't want to believe how good it can be. Nowhere on earth offers good fishing all the time, but if you get the conditions close to right and do your research, then Ireland can offer some truly outstanding shore fishing for a huge variety of species. And you will catch a lot more if you are prepared to work hard and walk/hike a lot.

• I am aware of some very good bass fishing in certain areas of Europe, such as the Channel Islands (awesome, go there), France and Spain, but I can only speak from personal experience when I say that so far I have yet come across anywhere that offers such consistently incredible shore fishing for bass as Ireland's somewhat "secret" and little-known south east corner. Ireland overall is an incredible place to visit, and in my mind the bass fishing is the pinnacle of it all.

• Above is a shot of my mate Graham Hill with another quality bass that we caught the other day - the sun was just creeping over the hills to our right, and I used a large aperture on my 16-35mm lens to really make the head of the fish stand out in the frame. It's the kind of shot that a magazine could easily use over two pages, with the text running down the right side....

• Using direct flash is something you can't really avoid when photographing fish in the pitch black, but you always run the slight risk with a reflective fish like the bass of losing a bit of detail in the flanks. Direct flash is a very harsh light, but when an incredible fish like Tom's 11lb monster comes out on the first morning, I'll use all the flash I need to try and make a half-decent shot. What a perfect start it was to another outstanding trip over there. I would hazard a guess that Tom is still in a state of shock back home in Frankfurt !!

• Barely a cloud in the November sky as Patrick Gallagher fishes for bass with modern soft plastic lures - without a doubt it is the French bass anglers who are the most experienced at fishing these methods, and we have a lot to learn about it, but the guys I know are doing extremely well already. Fishing keeps me hooked because I am forced to learn new things all the time, and this drives me forward. We have all used soft plastics for years to nail fish like cod, pollack and coalfish, but using them for bass in very specific locations and ways is a new thing to me, and I can't wait to see how it keeps developing.

Is this the metal release of the year so far ?

• Sometimes a new album comes along that literally blows you off your feet it's so good. Some hit you straight away like a bullet between the eyes (see here for example), and some are what I call "growers" - they take multiple listens to fully open up because they are so layered and full of different emotions, tempos, and overall hugeness. Go and listen to a classic album like "The Sham Mirrors" by Arcturus to see what I mean (check the track Starcrossed here).

• The new Enslaved album "Vertebrae" is a truly immense release, indeed I am of the feeling that it is my album of the year so far. It is that good. This is a monster, a true "grower", something that I am listening to over and over again, and each and every time I am hearing new things that get me going. This is extreme metal, make no mistake, but it is hugely progressive, thoughtful and just downright awesome. When metal is this good I have to be careful not to weep with the sheer emotion of it all. Check out a few tracks here.

• Every single track starts off of course as a song when you first "spin" the CD, but the next time around and you begin to understand just what is going on as the different layers of music within each song begin to open up and reveal themselves. Give me a few more releases like this and I might consider changing jobs and looking for work as a metal reviewer !! Seriously, "Vertebrae" is immense. Go and buy it now and then spend the whole weekend with it on repeat.

• How on earth does a relatively small country such as Norway keep on producing so much outstanding music ? I would guess that more CDs than any in my somewhat huge collection are from Norwegian bands. Black, death, thrash, heavy, progressive, you name it, Norway contains some of the world's greatest metal bands. And the fishing ain't bad either...............!!

• I am especially glad to be able to praise this new Enslaved album so much because their drummer Cato Bekkevold is a friend, and he happens to be one of the biggest fishing junkies in Norway. Apart from being an outstanding drummer and a thoroughly nice guy, he also writes and photographs about fishing for various magazines and books - Cato seriously knows his fishing, indeed he catches more big pike, cod, coalfish and other such beasts than anybody I know. I also know that he has a series of signature pike lures out there, made by a company a company called StrikePro, see here. How cool is that ? As I keep banging on about, what better mix can there be in life than fishing and extreme metal ? Except that Cato is actually doing the metal part big time, instead of simply air drumming like me !!

• I still get emails about the TV programme that we filmed up in Norway, for those huge coalfish, cod and wolffish, and not many people know that we only got to hear about those places because of Cato. He told us we had to come and film the fishing at Rost and Saltstraumen, and I listened to him because I trusted his opinion. Anybody who has seen the programme will have seen how insane the fishing was up there, and it seems to be getting better and better every year. Check out some photos here, here and here. Cato came with us when we filmed - I owe that episode to the guy big time. What an outstanding drummer as well.

• It is Cato you can see in the photo above and further on down the page - I photographed Enslaved up in London when they last toured the UK, for Metal Hammer magazine, and they blew the other bands off stage that night. As a live act they are truly immense, and after I had done my bit photos wise down in the pit, Cato had got me access to take photos around his drum kit. It was a blast. There are some more photos of the band below. Check here as well. Go and buy this new album.

Monday morning - back to it

• By rights I should be posting a photo of the current dire weather conditions, but I can't face that on a Monday morning. Instead, here is a shot of one of my most favourite places on earth, the Isles of Scilly. Yes, we love to talk about the weather here in the UK, indeed some would say that we are mildly obsessed with it, but come on, let's be honest here, just how bad has this "summer" been so far ? Can it get any worse ?

• I had an awesome week on the Isle of Wight with my family, taking full advantage of any sunshine we got to head to the beach and go fishing for crabs, blennies and prawns with my two young girls. Luckily they still think their dad is quite sane when he jumps into the water and comes out clutching a crab in his hands !! How long they will think I am relatively cool for is anybody's guess though. But we had a blast - on one day we would all be whacking the suncream on, and on the next my wife and I would be walking across the beach in a bracing 50mph breeze. We got the lot and I loved it.

• The week started off fairly costly though as my sheepdog Jess cut her paw really badly on a rock and we had to take her to the vet to get the wound stitched up properly - not cheap, but vets know we'll pay virtually anything to look after our pets. Jess is still not allowed to go for proper walks, it was not a nice cut at all, but hopefully soon she will be fully healed so I can take her fishing again.

• Anyway, back to work with a vengeance, and life is about to get properly hectic again. I am off over to Jersey to photograph some bass fishing later this week for a few days, flying straight out of my local airport here in Plymouth - very handy.

• Another week or so here after Jersey and I then head over to the east coast of Canada to photograph some more of this awesome Atlantic salmon fishing they have in these incredible crystal clear rivers. Sight fishing for these fish blew me away last year, and I can't wait for this trip. There are a load of photos from that trip here, and you can find a photo essay here. Like last year, I will be travelling with Pete from Aardvark McLeod. And I rather bet Pete is hoping that we will not be sharing rooms so he can get some sleep - I tend to take a while to adjust to time differences and I seriously struggle to keep quiet when I wake up at 3am all the time. All I want to do is get out there and get the pictures, and I can't stand having to wait for dawn !!

• Virtually straight after this trip to Canada, I am turning around and heading back over to south east Ireland to get a load more bass fishing photos - plus some fishing of course !! As always for this kind of trip, I will be getting the Stena Line ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare. This is such a good way of getting to Ireland as you can carry all the gear you need and not worry for one second about weight restrictions etc. Check out a load of photos from my trip there a while back, see here.

• I have been keeping in close contact with Graham over in Ireland, and when the weather has relented they have been catching some fantastic bass as always. Jealous, me ? Never.....

• I am getting back from Ireland in time for my eldest daughter's 4th birthday - where does time go ? Then a week or so here at home before heading off to South Africa for ten days to photograph some rock and surf fishing near to the Mozambique border, and then some fly fishing for yellowfish on the Vaal river. See here for some yellowfish photos that I shot a while back. I can't wait to get back to Africa, it has been too long. There is no place on earth that feels the same as Africa.

• And then in October I am trying to plan it that I will be here in the UK for a decent length of time. It's all very well shooting all this material, but I then need time here to sell it properly, and I am also rather hoping that an Indian summer might just come along to give me a few more weeks on the bass fishing around here. Not much is happening right now with near gale force onshore winds, but a friend of mine had a load of nice bass on bait early last week before the monster winds. The fish are there, but too often we can't get at them. I am hearing of a few fish to plugs as well, but again, only when the weather allows it.

• I heard last week from my mate Cato over in Norway that a friend of his had just landed a 50lb halibut on the fly !!! I am really pleased to hear of this being done in Europe, so well done to the angler concerned - to actually go out and do this far out fly fishing takes some doing, believe me. I know that big halibut on the fly are a real possibility out at Rost, where we made a fishing programme and also I shot a load of monster coalfish on the fly, see here for the photos. April, May and into June are your best times for a go at the halibut.

• Make sure to check out Nick Hart's blog here. Not only has he gone and revamped the look of it, but you should check out his post here about an open day he is holding at Exe Valley Fishery on Saturday 30th August. Get yourself along for the day, it will be a blast.

Out at sea

• Above is the intro page of the May edition of the Hardy and Greys online magazine, Fin & Fly - it is a photo of mine from Rost in Norway. I deliberately used the amazing clouds to fill the frame and allow plenty of room for this kind of use. Check my latest Fin & Fly feature out here. What a place Rost and the surrounding waters are, and the fishing is going off big time right now. I have heard that they are catching lots of big halibut, including some 200lb plus monsters, plus stacks of big cod and coalfish. Yes, this area costs more than the cheaper "package-style" pirking for cod areas further up north, but you get what you pay for - the areas around Rost in my mind offer some of the best boat fishing in Europe. Check here for the best guiding operation there is up there, and the guys come extremely highly recommended by me.

• I have actually just heard that Per Jonasson, the guide who worked with us up there last summer for the big coalfish on the fly, has put one of his clients onto a new world record halibut, see here for full details. That is some fish !! I told you these guys were good. You get what you pay for in fishing. See my photos from that trip last year here.

• My mate Malcolm Jones rang me yesterday to tell me all about the great boat fishing he has been putting his customers over out of my home port of Plymouth. The recent good weather has given them a real boost, and they have been smashing good numbers of big pollack to about 18lbs on live launce. This is one of favourite forms of fishing, for you can scale right down and really have a blast with them when they crash dive. I reckon this is one situation when the US style gear I talked about the other day would work well (scroll down the blog). I see no reason why a decent spinning reel and a good spinning rod would not work well. I have landed coalfish to 35lbs on this kind of gear over in Norway, plus big cod, so of course it will work well here. My rod of choice for this is the stunning Greys Missionary 6 30-100g spinning rod.

• Malcolm's boat is called Sea Angler II, and he is one of the best charter skippers around, plus a thoroughly nice guy into the bargain. A day's fishing with Malcolm is always a serious pleasure, so get in touch here. He also makes a blinding cup of tea or coffee !!

• I am not heading over to Norway to photograph the pike fishing, for my contact has just told me that the weather has suddenly turned and messed their fishing up, so I guess it will be next year. A real shame as I so wanted to see this fishing. My contact over there is a mad keen angler with a world of experience, and he also happens to be the drummer for one of Norway's best extreme metal bands, Enslaved. Check out some tracks here. This is one seriously awesome band, and I can't wait to hear their new album due out later this year. I would never have come across places like Rost if it was not for Cato Bekkevold - how perfect is that ? A proper mix of fishing and metal. A seriously nice guy, an awesomely talented drummer, and a complete fishing junkie. I photographed Enslaved a while ago when they were playing a gig in London, shooting for Metal Hammer magazine - they blew the other bands off the stage. Scroll to the bottom of this page to see them in action, with some photos of Cato in action as well. Now if this isn't a cool way to slip extreme metal into a fishing blog then I don't know what is !! You have to give me some credit here.......