Fishing for real men

• Although I am somewhat loathe to have to admit it, I have become something of a "warm weather" specialist over the last few years. Any kind of fishing that involves t-shirts and suncream over floatation suits gets my vote every time. To think that some years ago now I used to moan about summer and jump for joy when winter was on the way and the cod started showing up off our shores (distant dreams down here ?). How life changes.

• But this ice fishing that I keep hearing about up in Norway has really got me interested - my mate Cato has emailed me again to tell me about some staggeringly big cod some guys have caught recently. Check out these frankly insane photos right here (scroll down the link). You will see pictures of cod to roughly 45lbs taken from under the ice - mad, completely mad. Look at the shots of the guys fighting these fish through the ice. Now this is fishing for real men. Not warm weather wimps like me !! Just the thought of possibly heading over there next winter to photograph this sends me rushing to the nearest radiator for a reassuring blast of warm air. But I have got to see this stuff. I guess the old floatation suits I have here are going to have to come out of retirement.

• Cato also had a 6lb char from his local river up in Norway the other day. Great country, awesome music. Cato drums for one of the finest metal bands on this earth, Enslaved - if you have been following this blog, you will know how much I rate their latest album. see here. Enslaved are off on a big US tour soon (see here), along with another fantastic band, the mighty Opeth. I would hazard a guess that Cato will be stopping off along the way to smash a few nice fish !! As I keep saying, how can you get better than a mix of metal and fishing ?

• And to prove that I can take a bit of cold weather fishing - my last trip out to Ireland late last year (see a stack of bass photos here) saw us having to wrap up against some properly icy conditions. Bitter north winds in our faces, frozen roads and beaches, but the bass were on big time. Real men like me wore no more than a pair of shorts and a t-shirt (my nose is growing....), while the other lads had to wear virtually every single bit of fishing clothing they possessed. No gloves, hat, fleece Buff or thermal tights for me !! Yeah, right.....

• Roll on the English summer. I went out walking a stretch of coastline yesterday morning with a mate from Cornwall, and like an idiot I thought it would be fine to leave my wet waterproof jacket in the back of the car. Nice one Henry. Those big blue skies soon gave way to driving, icy rain and a gale on our backs - you know when the backs of your jeans are soaking wet but the front is completely dry ? That will teach me not to heed the weather forecast. Saw some nice looking plugging water though.....

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 ?

Winter bass fishing - what do we do ?

• Now that we are properly into winter, what does the bass junkie do ? On a personal level, I used to spend virtually all my fishing time in the winter chasing cod - collecting bait, fishing, surviving on very little sleep, fishing again, crabbing at strange hours, and trying a few rigs up. And then fishing again - a lot !! Times have changed though. But what are our options if we want to carry on chasing bass through the colder months ?

• Well, to be perfectly honest, I am not completely sure of all our options - there always seem to be bass around somewhere in the south west, and especially up the estuaries (bear in mind I am talking about shore fishing here). We used to sometimes catch schoolie bass in almost plague proportions when we were cod fishing in very rough seas just inside the Camel estuary (and especially off Flat Rock and Stepper Point), and I know of some really big bass caught when guys are flounder fishing. So it is not as if every single bass does a disappearing act until later on in the spring !!

• So we know that bass are a distinct possibility when fishing with baits, and I know guys who love this time of year for going after big bass. But what about on the lures ? A tougher time without question, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is worth a few attempts with these soft plastics that you can fish on jigs, bouncing them along the bottom. It is not going to be a bumper time of year on them, but I would guess that a few of us might get the odd surprise from time to time.............

• The most famous place for "depths of winter" bass fishing has to be the south west of Ireland (and specifically Kerry and Dingle), where the local bass freaks can experience some staggeringly good fishing on the right conditions. All the tourists and visiting anglers have long gone home, but when they get the correct onshore conditions into January and February especially, I know of a few guys who do really well when bait fishing for the bass - the Irish strands are of course the stuff of bass fishing legend, and sometime soon I simply have to get myself over to the south west to experience it. I reckon that classic fishing could look very cool in black and white as well.

• It is a real punt to go that far for winter bass fishing, for you are gambling with the weather in a big way, but it has to be worth it just for the chance to stand thigh deep in surf, waiting for a bite, and with nobody else around. If you are interested, the person I would contact can be found right here - Kevin is a professional shore fishing guide in Kerry, and he just happens to be a serious bass junkie. Check out some photos of him fishing right here. We never hear about a lot of their Irish winter bass fishing, but it can be very good.

• As for the south east coast of Ireland that I am head over heels in love with (the country as whole in fact), well it does seem that they can catch bass all year round, depending on conditions of course - on baits and on lures. I am sure you can sense from this post that I have a lifetime of information still to absorb on bass fishing, and then I could probably live again and still be left with more to learn. But isn't that what makes fishing such a profoundly absorbing sport ? I stand by what I have always said - walk away from the angler who professes to know it all.......

• I hope you like the two black and white bass photos here - they are such a magnificent species and in my view they deserve to be shown off in glorious colour. But I have stumbled on the odd shot in my (vast and ever growing !!) photo library that has jumped at me with my black and white eyes on. The tail shot especially is one I really like far more in black and white than in colour.

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.

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.

Tough last day, but what a trip......

• Graham and I decided on a bit of a gamble today as regards the bass fishing - we knew we could probably nail a few where we have been fishing over the last few days, but I was after some different photos and we both felt like covering some more locations. Another stunning winter day, hardly a cloud in the sky, very cold, and just about perfect to be out and about it (when you've finally climbed into multiple layers). We had a few small pollack on the lures early this morning, and Graham hooked a good bass that came off, on a soft plastic lure fished right in amongst the rocks. I was fishing away and saw a bass of around 5lbs swim right below me, seemingly oblivious to my good looking Tide Minnow 120 Surf lure that had just gone right by his nose. We then fished another few different locations, but never saw another sniff of a fish - these northerly winds are great for my photos, but they have really cleared the water up and flattened the sea off so much that the bass are momentarily switched off. Who would have thought the seas could get too calm for bass fishing in winter ? Doesn't really make sense....

• Above are a few of the soft plastic lures that we have been messing around with to great effect over the last few days. When the winds swing around, I am fully expecting the bass guys to keep on nailing big fish right through winter - I know the phone will be ringing soon with an excited Mr. Hill and the capture of another prime bunch of oversize Irish bass, and I will be left working out how on earth I can get back over here again as soon as I can. I love heading back to see my family, but I also hate leaving Ireland. Graham Hill is one of the finest blokes you could ever hope to meet and he is a complete pleasure to fish and spend time with. I cherish my fishing/photography days in Ireland more than most people could possibly imagine.

• Our cod fishing last night did not really amount to much, but to be perfectly honest we were both completely knackered and wanted to get our heads down so that we could have another early start on the bass this morning. They do get some fantastic cod fishing around these parts, but again, we could do with some wind and rough seas to get them moving properly. But this is winter !! This morning were some of the most treacherous, icy roads I have ever driven on, but I'll take those big blue skies all day long please. Lots of coffee and thermals and I can face almost anything !!

• Anyway, I thought another couple of different photos of Tom's magnificent 9lb 8oz bass from the other day would be worth putting up here. I know he had a bigger 11lb fish on his first morning, and I got a few nice photos, but you can always make such a special fish look a whole load better in the day time, when you don't have to chuck direct flash on them in the dark. Well done Tom, a cracking couple of days. Catch you next year ?

• I am on the 9am Stena Line ferry back over to Fishguard tomorrow morning, and then it's about a four hour drive back home to Plymouth. I got done for speeding last time I was coming back from Ireland, so I could do without that again. What an awesome few days, but then it always is over here, however the fishing goes.

Bitterly cold, but the bass are still feeding

• It was just Graham and I fishing this morning, and we decided it was worth a go on the crab baits - we took lure rods as well, but with a biting northerly wind and increased colour to the water, both of us felt this morning was the time to put baits down for the fish. On my first cast I had a good bite, but the fish dropped it. A little later, Graham connected with a decent fish on a rod he won in a match the other day - a Greys GRX-S bass rod. Above you can see him beaching the bass. Check out those huge skies that are a serious joy for me to use in my photos - not bad for the last day of November !!

• Here is the result - a cracking bass weighing 8lb 8oz, glinting perfectly in the early morning sunshine. The weather continues to be stunning, and although there was not such a hard frost this morning, a far fresher northerly certainly kept the temperature right down - note the hat and gloves again. The fishing was slower today by Ireland's standards, but how often do you see an 8lb plus bass coming in ? Still pretty awesome fishing to me.

• We did try the soft plastics today, but apart from a couple of bumps we hooked nothing on them. Not completely sure why I have to admit, but there were far less fish moving around this morning. Perhaps the cold has finally got to them a bit.....or perhaps not.

• Above is a nice bass of 5lb that I managed to nail on a small crab bait - a typical knock-back slack, then tap, tap, thump right over kind of bass bite that was essentially unmissable (he says !!), and it gave a good scrap in the tide.

• Here you can see the sort of peeler crab baits we were using this morning - a simple 4/0 pennel rig fished off a Varivas 3-way swivel (the lead is connected via a split-ring I put on the 3-way swivel), a short 35lb fluorocarbon hooklength,and a 4oz plain lead that can roll around in the tide and find its own resting place. Still the best all round shore fishing hooks I can find are the Varivas Big Mouth Extra pattern - get them here. All nice and easy stuff, and the bass like it just fine.

• Graham and I are heading back out for a few hours' cod fishing over the high water this evening, and then we have made a plan to get out on the rocks tomorrow for some more lure fishing. It might be a bit of a gamble, but we are both itching to fish a certain mark on the back tide that has produced plenty of fish in the past. We shall see....

Off to Ireland, via London

• I have not seen photographs yet of the monster Irish bass from Saturday, but I have spoken about it with Graham again - what a fish. Part of me wishes that it had at least been weighed and then released, so we could know exactly how huge this bass really was, but it does not really matter. It was a huge fish, and no doubt there are some larger ones there......

• I am heading over to Ireland on the Thursday morning Stena Line ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare, and if I can get hold of a photo of this huge fish when I am over there (people and computers/cameras eh ??!!) then I will post it up here as soon as I do. But before I can get myself over to one of my favourite places on earth (Ireland), I have to head up to London this evening for a couple of meetings there on Wednesday, and then I can get all emotional when I go to see the Satyricon gig with a friend of mine. Work, metal, off to Ireland for more work (that I love) - sounds good to me. This is our winter time and I'll take whatever weather we get over there, and I heave heard from Graham that there are also a few cod showing, as well as the bass. I don't reckon on getting much sleep over there on this trip, but who really cares ? Coffee, early morning extreme metal in the car and fishing photography can keep me going for days on end.

• Have a look at part 2 of my new modern bass fishing series in the latest issue of Sea Angler magazine - above is a photo from the feature on pages 50, 51, 52 and 53, all about where to go looking for bass. While it is impossible to cover everything you want to in just one feature, the issue of what I always call "watercraft" is in my mind the most vital part of any sort of fishing. Far too many of us spend far too much time worrying about rods, reels, and weird rigs, when in fact we should be spending far more time thinking about our quarry. This is partly why bass fishing drives me so much - I am forced to go back to the drawing board somewhat and learn new skills all over again.

• And as for last Saturday's rugby against the South Africans - gutted, truly gutted. As you can imagine, I had some "interesting" emails from some friends down there early on Monday morning, gloating over the record defeat, and generally asking what the hell happened. You tell me !! It has been hard to be an English rugby supporter since the glory of Sydney in November 2003 (the best day of my life), but we soldier on. One knock back after the other, but still we soldier on. The best man is in charge of the team, I truly believe that, but it looks like a team of scared kids on the pitch, almost frozen with indecision and a lack of free thought, endlessly recycling slow ball that moves laterally across the pitch with very little incision or depth. And we used to have a pack of forwards that were feared throughout world rugby, but not anymore. Come on England, let's get back to a squad of leaders like we had in 2003, and let's please start winning again. Make us proud, and save me from any more abuse from the South Africans I know. I need to be able to turn up there with my head held high.

• I am not sure when I will be posting here next, but most likely it will be when I am over in Ireland, so check back here for various trip reports - hopefully with a few photos of some decent fish and stunning light. We shall see !! This is my last trip away before Christmas, so it is going to be a great one whatever happens. Any trip to Ireland is just about perfect for me anyway. Bring it on.....

Outstanding black metal photo book

The cover of Peter Beste's book - "True Norwegian Black Metal"

• I have just got hold of the most awesome photo book called "True Norwegian Black Metal" that really should be part of any metal freaks' collection. Anybody with any interest in black metal will I am sure be aware of the US photographer Peter Beste - there is nobody I know of who has done what he has done. He has got right to the heart of this fascinating sub-culture and come out with a collection of incredible photos, many of which you will have seen in various music magazines etc. Check out Peter Beste's website right here, and check out some of his incredible black metal photos here. This guy has got proper talent and I am really pleased to have got hold of a copy of his new book. I know you can get it on Amazon., because that's where I got mine.

• The great thing about black metal (music aside) is that it is a highly visual, theatrical form of music that really lends itself to being properly photographed. Whatever your feelings are about what went on some years ago now, black metal has morphed into a thriving musical genre that covers the globe. Norway though is always referred to as the spiritual home of black metal, and they happen to have some awesome fishing as well. I have just heard of another monster halibut in fact, around the 400lb mark - that is some fish. See how easily I can slip between my two favourite subjects ? I am really glad that a decent photographer has dedicated proper time to covering the visual side of extreme metal.

• The photographer Peter Beste has also made a documentary on black metal, and more specifically the mighty Gorgoroth and their main guy Gaahl (listening to them as I type this, inspirational stuff !!), and you can go to his MySpace page right here and watch it. Scroll down the page, it is on the left hand side. Isn't the internet great for things like this ?

• I am getting very excited about heading over to Ireland later next week. I have got a couple of meetings in London next Wednesday, followed by the Satyricon gig that evening. Rock on !! Then on Thursday morning I will drive to Fishguard to catch the Stena Line ferry over to Rosslare, ready I hope for four days of intense fishing and photography for some cod and bass. All I can do is hope that the weather allows us to do as much as possible, but I'll take whatever comes along, especially at this time of year. It is meant to be getting properly cold down here over the weekend, so we shall see what happens.

Monster Irish bass

• A huge well done to my mate Graham Hill over in south east Ireland - he landed a bass of just over 14lbs on Sunday morning on a lure. That is some fish !! This without doubt proves a couple of things that I have been banging on about for some time now - that Ireland offers some of the finest shore fishing for bass that there is, and that Graham is one of the most accomplished anglers that I have had the pleasure to fish with and work around. I know how hard he works at his fishing and how much thought he pits into it, and the rewards keep on coming. I am over the moon for the man.

• We spoke on Saturday evening and he told me of his plans to head out early the next morning because the tides and conditions were just about perfect, so I was half expecting some kind of message the next morning. Graham has six bass on lures, with the best going over the 14lb mark (you can see a photo and further details here). I have never even seen a bass that big, but the guys over there believe there are far bigger fish around, and I know that Graham has had a couple even larger himself. Whilst it was a great text message to read, in all honesty the news did not surprise me that much - he's an awesome angler and he is fishing an awesome bit of coastline. I am over there later next week and I can't wait. I am hoping to get the chance to photograph a bit of cod and bass fishing, plus whatever the weather and conditions throw at us.

• The successful lure for this monster bass was I believe the very same white/silver Tide Minnow Surf that I was talking about the other day, see here. Sometimes you just get a feeling about certain lures, and I guess that Graham felt the same way !! You can get these bass slayers right here. All the Duo Tide Minnow lures seem to cast and fish fantastically well.

• Below is Graham with a roughly 9lb bass that he nailed back in July when I was over photographing with him and a bunch of Jersey bass freaks. See the photos from that trip right here. We had an epic few days and I know the guys came away somewhat blown away by the quality of the fishing. Honestly, thoughts of moving over there for good are occupying my thoughts a lot these days.

• But not as much as Iggle Piggle's tune !! Still having problems removing this one from my head - I did not have the heart to break my youngest daughter's Iggle Piggle teddy when they were out on Friday morning, but I did have a glint in my eye when I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee and saw it staring maliciously at me. "I could rip you to pieces in a frenzied rage" were my initial thoughts, but then I managed to reign myself in and think about my girls. I am a mature father of two now, and I am not about to rip an innocent teddy to shreds - perhaps just a little smack in the chops though ? Iggle Piggle is the Devil in disguise.

• And as for the England v Australia match on Saturday afternoon, the less said the better I reckon. I accept that I will be receiving numerous abusive emails from my South African friends this week, ahead of next Saturday's game, but I can take that ok. What I can't take is the fact that the Aussie scrum pushed us off the ball. We are a young side though and I trust Martin Johnson to get them on the right road given a bit of time.....

Plenty of fish, but no cod

• Should have been there the night before !! Both Simon Jackson and I reckoned there would be a fair sea running at Chesil after the winds we have had recently, but in actual fact it was virtually flat calm and incredibly bright with the moon out. A stunning night and great fun to catch a load of fish, but really we were after cod - and they resolutely were not playing ball at all. I reckon the previous night would have seen far better conditions, for recent reports have been of some cracking fishing up there.

• Whacking out baits off the beach is a little bit different to the bass fishing that I have been concentrating on, but it was a blast to get the Penn 525 Mag reels out, clip on some pulley rigs and make up some delightful looking squid, lug and crab baits. Apart from light tackle bassing on the Irish beaches, the majority of my shore fishing is off the rocks, and I tend to feel a bit "lost" on a huge beach like Chesil where I can't read the water and make head or tail of what is going on beneath the surface. But I was lucky to be fishing with Simon who knows the beach well, so I was in safe hands. Rest assured that he comprehensively outfished me on the dogfish and whiting side of things, but I was concentrating more on putting out big baits and hoping for a nice cod. That's my excuse anyway.

• Above is one of the generally small and somewhat anemic whiting we had last night, but at least they kept the rod tips bouncing away. Dogfish I can always do without, but we all know that they have saved many a potentially blank session. What surprised me last night was the number of anglers all along the beach - great to see and I hope this carries on right through the winter. Cod have an almost mythical allure to us UK shore anglers, and I dread to think of the countless thousands of hours I have chasing them in years gone by. Worth every single minute though.

• Any of you with young kids out there will know all about a problem I have right at this very moment - and it is driving me completely mad. My wife and I let our two young girls have no more than half an hour of children's television a day, right after their tea and just before we take them upstairs to give them a bath. Most of the stuff they watch seems to be complete drivel to me (Lazy Town anyone ?), but they seem to love it, and we make sure they watch programmes with at least a little "merit".

• But what is this problem ? The f£%$&%$ songs that are played during the programmes, when they get in your head and refuse to leave you alone. Not very extreme metal or rough and tumble I know, but at the moment I simply can not get this "Iggle Piggle" song from the programme In the Night Garden out of my head !!!! My youngest daughter was given an Iggle Piggle teddy for her birthday on Monday and it keeps playing the tune. Totally inane, completely stupid, designed for kids, and last night on the beach I had this wretched song going off in my head all the time. I even had it bouncing around my skull when I was taking Jess for a walk early this morning. What do I do ? Help me.....

New issue of Catch magazine

• A new online fly fishing magazine was launched a couple of months ago, see here for all the details. Called "Catch" magazine, it is full of the most outrageously sexy fly fishing photography and short films, and I even managed to have a load of my stuff in the premier issue. Not bad for a little old UK fishing photographer !!

• Anyway, the next issue is out, and you owe it to yourself to have a good look through it, especially if like me you live in the UK where we are heading into (grey) winter. Blue skies, good looking fish, locations to dream of, and some very cool short films as well. Check here for issue number 2. I had the "Greatest Hits" slot in the first issue, and I am really glad to see that one of the all time great fishing photographers quite rightly has those pages this time (I was merely warming the seat up) - to anybody with any interest in good looking fly fishing, I am sure the name R. Valentine Atkinson needs no introduction at all. The man is pure class and I had the privilege of meeting him in Denver a couple of years ago. Yes, you guessed it, we talked photography and fishing !! Check out Val's website right here, and look in the new Catch magazine from page 8 onwards for some truly breathtaking photos of the world of fishing. He is what I call a proper photographer.

• Catch magazine is full of material that will inspire you, and if the New Zealand photos from page 90 onwards do not have you staring slack-jawed in pure wonder then you have no soul. I have to get down there someday, but I have always been a bit worried that I might love it so much that I never come home........

• Anyway, with my talk of grey UK winters, I can't see a cloud in the sky today here in Plymouth - what a stunning morning. Later on I am heading off up to Chesil Beach to shoot a bunch of photos. If some cod turn up then that would be great, but we will take whatever comes along. As anybody who reads this blog will know, I have been doing mainly bass fishing this year, so perhaps tonight I might actually swing a lead (safely and without any attempt at a pendulum cast) in anger. Could be interesting......

• My mates over in south east Ireland I know are getting highly overexcited about this decent weather and the building tides - I think they rather fancy some serious time on the bass over the next few days. Best of luck guys, and I will post info here as and when I hear it. It is this time of year when a proper crocodile of a fish can turn up, whether on bait or lure. Seriously, every single day I am wrestling with a desire to sell up over here and move over to Ireland - all I have to do is to persuade my wife that we should do it, and that "no, of course not, I wouldn't go fishing all the time" ??!! She knows me too well.

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 ?

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.

Greys sea catalogue front cover

• Above you can see the cover for the new Greys 2008/9 Sea catalogue, with my photo on it - I shot this on the rocks between Treyarnon Bay and Constantine Bay up on the north coast of Cornwall, with the imposing Trevose Head in the background. I love this rugged coastline, indeed it is where I first ever went sea fishing, and I can still remember the exact spot that my first ever wrasse went and jumped on my hook. I have spent probably many thousands of happy hours up on that coastline, both for fishing and for family holidays - a proper winter storm is really something to see when it crashes full bore into those rocks and beaches. Awesome ain't the word.

• Come to think of it, we used to fish hard during the big winter storms for the codling, at places like Newquay headland and Flat Rock in the Camel estuary. We always played it safe and tucked out of the way of the worst of the weather, but it was always big south westerly gales that used to get the codling moving inshore. You have to have that colour and "life" to the water up there that the big south west storms create. Getting out of the van at midnight on top of Newquay headland with a force 8 raging away was quite something. Driving home at dawn was another challenge as well. We didn't catch big fish, but often we caught plenty - far better than going to lectures or writing essays at university !! Those were the days......

• I am told that this catalogue will be in the shops sometime soon, with a bunch of new products in there. I really like the look of the new Greys Platinum Bass rod for starters (check here), plus the reworked Apollo clothing. It was always good stuff anyway, but the new bits and pieces are even better. Have a look here. If you fish in the UK, you know why we need decent waterproofs !!

• Anybody notice anything about the front cover photo ? You need to know the coastline to understand what I am on about.............there are also a load of my photos inside the catalogue as well. Believe it or not, the cover photo was taken in the middle of summer, even though it might look more like a stormy winter's day. My brother and I (the guy in the photo) caught a couple of bass that morning on plugs if I remember rightly. Nice conditions.

Recent front cover

• Here is a recent front cover of mine, for Trout Fisherman magazine - I believe it was in the shops very recently, but I have been away a lot and did not get to see it for a while. It makes me really happy when your editor or designer picks out a photograph like this for use on the cover, for in the end a cover shot is designed to get people to pick the magazine up of the shelf and buy it. I could shoot wild brown trout for evermore.....

• The issue of front covers really interests me, for I never get a say in it, and sometimes I am blown away by them, and of course other times I am left rather "cold" - granted, I have a slight bias towards the use of my photos, but in all honesty I love to see a cover that grabs you instantly and draws you in. Sometimes I am genuinely blown away by the magazine and catalogue covers I see, but on the flip side I think some of our publications could at times take a lot more time, care and effort over picking their covers.

• Take the fantastic cover below, of a magazine that I do a bit of work for - the awesome FlyLife, based down in Australia (check here). There is a big GT feature of mine in there this issue, but it is the current cover that really grabbed me. I am not sure who shot it, but I love the photo, and I really respect the fact that the editorial team decided to put it on the cover. It's a very simple but well thought out photo (these are always the best ones) that immediately grabs me, mainly because of the excellent use of a very shallow depth of field on a wideangle lens to pull you right onto the eye of the trout. This particular magazine continues to look fantastic every single time, and I am really proud to have got the cover twice now - see here for one of them.

• I can't believe how stunning the weather has been today, for I genuinely believed that I would not be wearing shorts any more this year - rest assured that they came out today though. I could take plenty more days like this, especially when I get proper time like to spend with my family. It has been fantastic being at home again. Many anglers' thoughts are now of course turning to cod fishing, but I have not let the bass go just yet..........

Back home from South Africa

• I landed at Heathrow at about 6am on Monday morning, still dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, so it was somewhat of a shock to step out into a temperature of 6 degrees !! And then on Monday night we had a proper storm come in here in Plymouth, with really strong winds and torrential rain - another lovely welcome home as I took my dog Jess for a walk at 7am Tuesday morning, fully kitted out in waterproofs. All that after having not worn more than shorts and t-shirts or tropical shirts for nearly two weeks. I know you are feeling real sympathy for me, because I am getting none here !!

• But today it is beautiful, a properly crisp, early autumn morning, with big blue skies and light winds. It is such fun to be back home with my family, for it has been a seriously hectic few weeks of being away - but this is the life we have chosen and somehow it seems to work just fine. But now that I am back, I need to spend serious time in my office and get a load of photos sorted out for magazine features. Usually I never have a load of photos stacked up, but right now I have Canada, Ireland and South Africa material waiting to be processed, and I am just beginning to shift the Irish bass fishing stuff I shot the other day. I really like being away from what I have shot for a while, and then coming back to it with a refreshed and clinical eye - we nailed some awesome stuff over there, but I can only do this because I work with good people.

• Look carefully through the spray above and you will see my mate Graham Hill banging a bass lure out. Note that he is wearing some seriously good waterproofs, the Greys Apollo stuff, check here. They have a lot of new gear out at the moment, and it is really worth taking a look at these waterproofs - we tend to need them in the UK. This is the kind of photo that you hope people are really going to pick up on, but at the same time I wonder if some people are also going to worry about it presenting fishing as being perhaps a little "extreme", when in reality Graham knows exactly what he is doing and would not put himself at risk. Well, perhaps a little bit, they are bass we are chasing after all.......

• Above is Andy Bignell fishing just as the tide starts to drop, and right before I came down the rope to join him. It's a very simple composition, designed to work perhaps across two pages (a double page spread or DPS) with text laid on top of it. We shall see. You never quite know how various designers will work with your material.

• Talking of good material, if you come across the US fishing and hunting magazine "Traveling Sportsman", check the current issue out - this magazine looks stunning and it is seriously going places. I am proud that a 10 page feature of mine is in there (pages 80 - 89), all about fly fishing for Africa's outstanding tigerfish (check some photos here), and have a look at the magazine's website right here. If you are into good looking fishing, shooting and hunting from around the world, get this magazine.

• I have also been sent a copy of one of the most impressive fishing magazines that I have ever come across, called "Fishing Wild", hailing from Australia, and the brainchild of an outstanding Aussie photographer called Col Roberts. Have a look at their website here. Take it from me, this is a publication you want to track down, and how badly does it make me want to spend some proper time in Australia ? Thanks to Col for sending me a copy - when fishing is done properly it can look out of this world, but so few people really do it properly. Fishing Wild is done properly, like the Traveling Sportsman.

• Check out a cod fishing feature of mine in the current issue of Sea Angler, on pages 50 - 55. I shot this out of Poole this summer with some great guys who seriously know their stuff on the boats.

• Here is Graham with a bass that he nailed on a soft plastic lure out in Ireland, the MegaBass XLayer - you can get them here. I have a feeling that we have so much to learn over here about using soft plastics for our fishing, and I don't mean simply dropping down various lures over wrecks and reefs for cod and pollack. I mean potentially catching some really good bass, wrasse and pollack from the shore on a wide range of soft plastic lures.

• I was speaking with Nick from Bass Lures yesterday, and he was telling me how well they had been doing recently on the Lucky Craft Wander - they caught some really good bass recently up in North Wales, and it seems to me that very few of us over here have any real experience of this particular lure. Nick was saying that it is designed to be fished at virtually any depth you want, and that you can even walk the dog with it under the water, as you would with a Sammy or GunFish on the surface. It sinks slowly and is easy to control, either with a kind of fluttering motion, or as a sub-surface kind of slider, and you can still use it over very shallow ground without fear of snagging it up. Plenty of anglers in the US rave about this lure, see here. The Bass Lures guys are all fanatical bass anglers themselves and I take what they say very seriously indeed - so yes, you guessed it, I have found another lure I am going to have to add to my ever expanding collection. I can't wait to give it a proper go. Anyway, back to the stack of photos to process.......

Epic wrasse fishing

• I shot a load of wrasse fishing photos yesterday with predator specialist Danny Parkins - he is a fantastic angler and can easily turn his hand to most kinds of fishing, and the wrassing yesterday was out of this world. We even got a drop of sunshine as well to make the day really special. Thanks Danny, it was a blast to fish and photograph with you again - I am really looking forward to nailing a few pike and chub together this winter. The thing I most enjoy about my job is meeting so many different anglers from all walks of life, all with fishing on the brain. None of us are hugely different, we are all fishing junkies and can't get enough of it.
• Danny had a wrasse bite on virtually every single drop down, and while a lot of the fish were small to medium size, a few proper ones turned up and were duly photographed and then returned. Above is Danny winching a decent fish out of the water on his Shimano 50-100g spinning rod - there is simply no need for any heavier gear, and on this set up the fish are such fun. More people should go wrassing.

• Here's Danny above with one of the last fish of the session, a cracking wrasse that fell to bottom fished ragworm right beneath his feet. The location was fantastic, a proper climb up and down, tucked right of the way and no doubt a prolific winter cod mark as well when the conditions are right. You can check out Danny's own blog here. He is a seriously accomplished predator angler, and lures are his speciality.

• The secret with wrasse fishing is to strike the bite and start pumping the fish up all in one movement, for they are devils at crashing back into a rocky sanctuary. Danny was using 30lb braid mainline on his Shimano Stradic spinning reel and it worked great. Keep the end gear very simple - a hook and a weight, possibly a 3-way swivel, that is all you need.

• I will always have a particular soft spot for wrasse, it was the first sea fish I ever caught, and I love the fact that they can be so obliging yet also frustrating at the same time. Seeking out big wrasse is a really specialist thing and I know Danny and his dad landed some really big ones a few weeks ago from the same place. But then he didn't do badly yesterday !! Look at the lips and jaws on this thing - easy to see just how they smash crabs and limpets to pieces.

• I am out later on today photographing some light tackle boat fishing for bass around a quiet part of my local south Devon coastline - please sun, come out and play for us. It should be a blast, and they had a few nice ones last week. I might even take a few lures along and see what I can do, in between taking photos of course.

• Make sure to check out Nick Hart's blog where you can find details of his Open Day this coming Saturday - it will be a great day out, and you might even win an outstanding Hardy Demon fly rod worth around £290 - can't be bad !!

• I know I bang on about the fishing over in Ireland a lot, but that is firstly because it is awesome, and secondly it is because I am head over heels in love with the country. But did you know that they have some fantastic shore fishing for cod during the winter months, along the south coast ? And you can even catch codling during summer off the deep water rock marks up and down the west coast, talk to these guys here and here for this. I am in the process of arranging a trip over there to photograph this fishing, hopefully sometime during December, and you can also catch decent bass at the same time. That is my kind of fishing.

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.

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.......?