Live sandeels - is there a better bass bait ?

• I would be fascinated to know exactly what the overall most successful bass bait of all time is - I am sure this kind of thing can never be proven one way or the other, but live sandeel has to to figure right up there. Going out with the guys from Premier Baits on Friday was a real eye opener as to how a professional outfit goes about getting sandeels from the sea to the customer in an enticingly wriggly state. As you can see in the photo above, the day started off with a some really thick fog, but this quickly broke to give a stunning morning.

• There is no other way to harvest sandeels for bait than good old fashioned back breaking work. There's me tripping up all over the boat as I try and nail the shots, doing all I can not to get in the way, and the guys kept on smiling at yet another "hold it there for a second" or "hang on, can I get in here" from me, the photographer. It's St. Ives you can see in the background.

• If you want to get hold of some of the finest live sandeels you are ever going to see, you need to get yourself down to Hayle in Cornwall and see the guys from Premier Baits. Call Dave Dunstan on 01209 217062 or 07770 688207, or call Saul Astrinsky on 01736 796234 or 07779 316756 - they will also go out of their way to help you with advice on setting up proper tanks at home to store large quantities of live eels. They are getting some very good sandeels at the moment, and weather allowing, you will be able to buy eels off them until at least mid-October. Bass beware !!

• I remember when I used to have a tank here at home for keeping prawns in, and I was always convinced that my wife used to "acquire" a number of them and then eat them without me knowing !! She has never admitted to the crime, but I reckon she is guilty as hell. Any time I mention how much I used to love and cherish my prawns, she goes bright red and changes the subject. What a killer thornback ray bait........

• Above is a sight that any keen fisherman would dream about - a stack of live sandeels just out of the water. You would not believe the work and effort it takes to keep these things in perfect condition from the sea to their (huge) tanks through to the customer. I had a fantastic time with them, and I am going to try and go out bass fishing with them next to do a follow up piece on the guys nailing bass on their own product.

FieldSports front cover

• I just received a copy of the latest issue of the fantastic FieldSports magazine, and I was really pleased to see that they have used a photo of mine on the cover - this strange looking fish is a milkfish, one of the fastest things I have ever seen on the saltwater flats. There is a feature of mine in the magazine about fly fishing the ultra-remote Seychelles atolls of these milkies as they are known. I always wanted somebody to pick up on this particular shot to use as a cover, and I applaud FieldSports' bold decision to use it. But then I might be a little biased......!!

• Fishing like this ain't even close to cheap, but I have yet to see any better saltwater fly fishing anywhere. I go on these trips because they are work for me - this might not sound quite right I know, but it's what I do. These atolls are freaky good for fishing, and if you can do this kind of thing, you need to speak to the fly fishing travel company Aardvark McLeod. These guys represent the awesome South African based FlyCastway company here in the UK, and I can not speak highly enough of their operation. You can see some photos here.

• I have just got back from photographing a job around St. Ives down in Cornwall - early this morning I boarded a boat at Hayle and headed out with three guys to photograph them netting sandeels. They caught masses and when I have sorted out the photos I will get some up here on this blog. The north coast of Cornwall was stunning early this morning, and we were only a few hundred years off the beach at St. Ives. What a great bunch of guys to work with.

• Photographing this kind of fast moving action requires that you get in amongst it and shoot the hell out of it, knowing that the moving boat and constantly shifting light will kill a percentage of the photos for you. But if you are prepared to work around the guys as they go about their work then you can come away with some really cool stuff. This is not a job for anybody who likes to spend ages planning their shots or doesn't like getting their cameras and lenses wet - get right in there is the key. Full details of this bait operation next week - are there many better things to use for bass than a live sandeel ?

Bass and shore fishing guides

• A great way to learn more about fishing is of course to pay for the services of a guide. In UK saltwater fishing we have plenty of professional charter skippers, but there are not very many shore guides that I am aware of. While it is perfectly normal in say fly fishing to hire a guide (or a ghillie) and work with their knowledge to better your fishing, our UK sea fishing culture is not really ingrained with using the services of a guide.

• My post from the other day about lure fishing confusion got me thinking about this, as did an email from Tim Griffin alerting me to a bass guide I had never heard of (thank you). Yes, of course we all like to go out and do things ourselves, and I know that the idea of actually paying somebody to take you out shore fishing is anathema to many anglers, but I know of few more shortcuts to success than working with a decent guide. I have worked with loads of different guides and operations all over the world, but what about in the UK and Ireland ?

• And also bear in mind that there are loads of professional bass fishing guides over in France, where their bass fishing "culture" tends to revolve around fast open boats and wildly exciting waters. As I learn more about this, so will you. Isn't it strange how working with guides and the attitudes surrounding it is so different from country to country, and also between the various fishing disciplines ?

• The guide I can most wholeheartedly recommend for bass and also general shore fishing over in north Cornwall is of course Ed Schliffke (aka "Ed the Bass"). Ed used to take me and my brother out shore fishing some years ago now when we were down on family holidays near Padstow, and he is still one of the best there is. I will never forget those trips, and I lay some of the blame for my fishing addiction firmly at his door !! Ed knows his bass fishing big time. You can contact him here. Take on board what he advises you go for and you will have an awesome time. Take the kids out as well and spend time on one of the most beautiful coastlines there is.

• I have worked a couple of times with an excellent bass and shore fishing guide over on the outrageously stunning Ring of Kerry in south west Ireland (in Waterville to be precise). Kevin Brain has a bad bass fishing addiction, and he puts lots of clients into plenty of fish. He emailed me the other day to say they have been having a spectacular winter on the bass. Why on earth do more bass freaks not spend more time over there in winter ? They also have a B&B where you can stay. Contact Kevin here and see a feature on him right here.

• Bill Ryan works further up the coast from Kevin, on the equally pretty, wild, and rugged Clare coastline. He's one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet, and I very much look forward to working with Bill again. See a feature on Bill here, and contact him here. There is a huge amount of good fishing around here.

• Tim Griffin told me of a professional bass fishing guide on the west coast of Wales, see here for all the details. I have not fished with these guys, but the operation they run comes highly recommended. I am also in contact with another angler setting up as a bass guide in Wales, so as and when I have more info, I will post it here.

• There is of course my mate Nick Hart who is one of the best fly fishing guides and instructors I have ever worked with, anywhere. Nick also guides a fair bit of bass fishing on the fly, so do make sure to contact him here if you are coming to the westcountry. If you are from the saltwater or coarse fishing worlds, why not have a go at fly fishing ? It's a blast.

• This is by no means the definitive list of bass and shore fishing guides, but I hope it helps for the moment. As I come across and fish/photograph with more, I will get the details up here and in the various fishing magazines I work for. Think about the time and money that can be spent on going to different places for fishing, and then work in the costs of a decent guide - suddenly it all makes sense when you are into fish that you might never have caught on your own. Local knowledge is key.

A perfect day - very nearly ruined.....

• Yesterday was just about the best day I could have had without going fishing - my girls and I went over to north Cornwall to see some friends, and with the stunning weather, we all had a picnic down on the Camel estuary and basically had a blast building sandcastles, collecting shells and walking out on the sand at low tide. Out of the wind and it was really warm, and my sheepdog Jess was happy to chase sea gulls until we had to head home to Plymouth. What an awesome way to spend a Sunday.

• But the rugby on Saturday afternoon came close to completely ruining my weekend - I know the mature me should rise with ease above such an outright disappointment, but to do this took real strength of will. To say that England were awful (once again) is something I hate having to admit, but surely the time has come now to start dropping players who can not stop giving away daft penalties. I would hate to be Danny Care when Martin Johnson gives him hell - and the idiot deserves it, what an insane way to get yellow-carded. "Professional fouls" I can understand when you have no choice but to try and prevent a score, but the penalties we kept on giving away were mad. The only reason the game was so close was because Ronan O'Gara momentarily forgot how to kick at goal. How much longer can I keep on watching the England rugby team do so badly ?

• I heard from a friend over in Ireland that they had a couple of bass at the weekend, including a fish nudging the 5lb mark. These fish came on crab baits, proving once again that if you go to the right areas, bass are a real possibility all year round. I fully expect reports of good lure caught bass fairly soon from over there. They also had a huge flounder and some small sea trout.

• I generally have a fisheye lens in my camera bag, but it rarely gets used. It's the kind of lens to bring out only on the odd occasion, like the shot you can see above - sometimes a shot simply "jumps" at you, and I took this one a few years ago with my friend Graham Hill. Yet again he was smashing decent fish on lures, and with the generally pretty poor light we had that particular day, I was keen on trying something else photography wise to try and emphasise the majestic lines of these fish. The head of a bass always makes a strong impression on me, and getting in really tight with a fisheye allows me to make something of that feature. Personally I really like the shot, but I do have reservations about using fisheye lenses too much......

Stunning winter weather

• The weekend was about the most beautiful weather imaginable for December, and I have rarely seen the north coast of Cornwall looking so good (we certainly got no days like this in the summer !!). Friday was a howling west/northwest wind that was snorting into the Camel estuary, giving awesome conditions for the numerous windsurfers and wake-boarders who were out around the famous Doom Bar. And then on Saturday and Sunday there was hardly a breath of wind, with big blue skies and no clouds - the swell died right off and my two girls had a blast playing on the virtually deserted beaches, plus Jess could chase sea gulls for hours. A perfect weekend, especially with a round of golf at Trevose. I also reckon I found a couple of potentially interesting places to try for bass.......

• I heard from Graham over in Ireland, and he nailed five bass yesterday up to about 5lbs - great fishing, and all the fish came on these MegaBass XLayer soft plastic lures, on very neap tides. Modern hi-tech lures like these do not exactly come cheap, but they are proving to be lethally effective for the bass. You can get hold of them right here. It seems like the bassing over these has not slowed down at all.

• Monday morning could not pass without a decent dose of proper black metal to get you through. Check out a great black metal band from Germany called Paragon Belial - listen to some tracks here. I love coming across some of the more obscure metal bands out there, and the actual CD can be hard to track down. I got mine here. This is a website worth noting down if metal is your thing. I love the album artwork below. Classic extreme metal.

• Another great thing for a winter Monday morning is the news that there is a new video out out from the band who has in my mind released the metal album of the year (see here). Check out the video to the song "The Watcher" here, off Enslaved's very recent masterpiece "Vertebrae". Awesome video, and what a truly outstanding metal album - I am loving it that much that I am actually trying to limit the amount I listen to it for fear of overplaying it. Vertebrae seriously is that good. This one gets inside your skull and will not let go.

• I am out photographing with Nick Hart tomorrow, for a Trout Fisherman feature. The weather forecast continues to look good, so hopefully we might get those big blue skies for the shoot. There is something very cool indeed about being out and about when the winter weather is showing us just how fantastic this country can look.

Front cover in Germany

• I have been working on a freelance basis for the big German fishing magazine Blinker for some time now, and above is my first front cover with them - it is of Nick Hart holding a well-conditioned rainbow trout. I reckon the photo works well on the cover and I am always over the moon to get a cover. Blinker has a huge circulation throughout parts of Europe and it is always full of really good looking articles - I wish I could understand them as I reckon I could learn a lot, but my German is seriously non-existent !!

• This shore fishing for bass with soft plastics has got me really intrigued, and I have already been looking around for different lures and jig heads. Just how easy is it to spend too much money on our fishing ? I reckon Graham, Patrick and Cian are going to land some truly monster bass right through the winter if they get the right conditions over in Ireland, and I would bet that the majority are going to come on the plastics. Not that hard lures are suddenly not lethally effective (of course they can be), more that a couple of locations they are fishing demand some different tactics. I truly believe that they have the potential for awesome bass fishing right through the year, taking into account the Irish close season of course.

• Sometime next week I will do my best to get a couple of photo galleries up here from my September and November Irish bass trips - I came away with plenty of photos that I need to illustrate my articles etc. Fishing can be such a visually stunning thing to do, and most times I consider what I do to be the best job in the world - ok, so not every day is going to go great, but just having the chance to work around the best sport in the world is a privilege, and my focus is on making it look better and better all the time.

• Have a good weekend all, I am off over to north Cornwall with my family to spend a weekend walking, golfing (yes !!) and messing around on the beach - whatever the weather, we don't care, my two girls have got full waterproofs and they love being out and about. Jess can chase seagulls for hours on end. I might also get the chance to check out a couple of potential bass marks I have been thinking about, under the pretext of "let's walk this way, it looks nice" sort of thing. You always need that fishing head on.....

Some big Isles of Scilly mullet

• My mate Del rang me up from the Isles of Scilly this morning to give me an update on his recent mullet fishing exploits - and the old boy's been been doing pretty good !! Mullet to 7lbs last week, and a nice fish of just over 6lbs this morning, before the winds swung around on him and killed it for a while. That is some outstanding fishing, yet so few anglers have any idea that the Isles of Scilly produces some awesome mullet when the conditions are right. It is coming up now for their best time of year on the mullet and I am hoping to get over if time and weather allow, sometime over the next couple of months.

• Below you can see Del bringing a nice mullet to the net from a filming trip we did over there some time ago now - there are few places I have been on this earth that are as pretty and unspoilt as the Isles of Scilly. Del and his mate have got all the mullet fishing you could hope for to themselves. How about the outrageous shore fishing for pollack as well ? One of my all time favourite species off the shore, and one of my favourite places ever. You can't go there and not fall in love with the place. If you are lucky enough, it will be Del and his taxi that picks you up from the airport - he runs Island Taxis. Del is always really helpful towards visiting fishermen, especially if the bribe involves good quality mullet hooks.

• Not that we get excited when we are out fishing or anything. Below you can see Del frantically making hand signals to me about some rather large mullet he was seeing - fishermen never exaggerate !! I remember filming this particular episode in fact, and we saw some cracking mullet swimming around, but the crew kept spooking them because they needed to be around us all the time. I had to ask them to hang back and let Del and I do our stuff, and as far as I can remember, we got a mullet or two for the camera. I might have got somewhat overexcited as well - mullet tend to do that to me. Proper fish.

• One of these days the phone is going to go with Del telling me about a double figure mullet he has just caught - it is going to happen. An old friend of his had one of just under 10lbs a few winters ago, and Del has had a proper double in his net before, only for the net to break and the fish get away (you need a bigger and newer net). I remember that particular phone call being more of a counselling session than anything else !! He is seeing some huge fish at the moment, often just out of range, but the fish will make a mistake soon enough. Del told me his mate got smashed to pieces by a seriously proper fish last week on those big tides.

• Seems to me that a lot of fishing is really beginning to pick up at the moment, especially on the bass and mullet front - the extreme amount of rain we had in August has to have had a far greater effect than we tended to think. My mate Andy had a couple of nice bass on Sunday morning on the Cornish coastline, including a fish just under 5lbs and a tidy one that came off, all on lures. I would have been out with him normally, but I had my in-laws staying with us for the weekend and I wanted to be around. They are very cool people. But I knew that Andy would catch bass - the tides and conditions were about as spot on as I can remember all year.

Tough job, but we nailed it....

• Yesterday was a tough job overall, but Nick Hart and I got it done, and we made it look as good as the light and the conditions allowed. We were photographing another feature for Trout Fisherman magazine, at Temple trout fishery on Bodmin moor over in Cornwall. Very close to the awesome Colliford lake in fact. The light was for the most part very grey and low, and for some reason the fishing was really tough. Nick though can catch fish when it matters, and yesterday he did really well.

• Above you can see Nick releasing a nice rainbow trout from the top lake. I suppose some days the fish just like playing tough !! Bodmin moor is a wild place, but when the skies are low and there is simply no depth or contrast to the view it can be tough to make what you are shooting really "jump out". But then that is what I am paid to do, and I thrive on a challenge. My attempt at a bit of a different "gear shot - fly, rod, reel" is below. Yes, Nick is deliberately out of focus in case you were wondering.

• It felt almost too mild yesterday, hardly like a UK November day in fact, and that is coming from me, an angler who very much likes the heat and sunshine. I see that they are forecasting some wind and rain coming in for the weekend, and I reckon we need it to put some "life" back into the sea and get fish moving around again. Two weeks of east and north east winds does not do us any favours down south on the fishing front, especially at this time of year.

• You can see the red buzzer in the fish's mouth - Nick ended up fishing this fly virtually static beneath an indicator. Yes, some fly fishermen might well choke in their glasses of medicinal gin at the very mention of the word "indicator", but who cares ? Use what works and catch fish. Nick is a very forward thinking fly fisherman who simply refuses to ignore new methods and techniques that might give him more of an edge, and I respect him hugely for that. If you did not know, Nick Hart also runs an awesome online fishing shop selling gear that he actually uses and recommends himself. Nothing beats personal recommendations, so check the Hart Flyshop out right here. You know it makes sense. Check out Nick's blog here as well.

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.

Front cover and some Irish bass thoughts

• Above is a current cover photo of mine on the front of the US magazine Destination Fish - this strange looking fish is a bumphead parrotfish that was caught by South African fly angler Rob Lewis out on Providence atoll in the ultra-remote Seychelles. I believe that I might have been the first fishing photographer to document these creatures being successfully targeted and captured on the fly, on the flats, and I have got a bunch of awesome photos. I really like their choice of my photograph for the cover (well I would, wouldn't I ??!!), and I imagine that it certainly "jumps" at you from the newstands. There is only one guiding company on this earth that I trust to put you onto this kind of world class saltwater fly fishing, and that is FlyCastaway. Fishing like this does not come cheap, but if you can do it, talk to Pete or Charlotte at Aardvark McLeod. Check out a bunch of my Seychelles photos here, here and here.

• I have naturally been thinking a lot about my recent trip over to Ireland - was there anything more we could have done to nail a few more bass when the weather went really still, clear and settled ? Usually I would have fancied our chances big time on the baits, but the weeks leading up to my most recent trip had seen insane amounts of rain, and a lot of the bait marks were far too coloured up to produce the goods. I have just heard that in fact they are starting to fish well again as the freshwater starts to clear away. Sod's law !!

• I know that Andy is just about coming to terms with his first Irish experience, and I hope to get him back over there next year. On our penultimate morning he got hit on his lure, and then immediately saw a huge bass jump behind it. This fish came at his lure a couple more times, but would not take - Andy nearly fell off his rock, and put the size at "well into double figures", and bear in mind that this guy has personally witnessed fish to 13lbs plus being landed over in Cornwall, so he knows his bass. Much like Graham back in July, Andy proceeded to talk fluent Swahili for about an hour after he saw that huge bass......

• I manged to get a bass over the 6lb mark on this penultimate morning, but as Pat grabbed the lip of the fish, it turned and shed the hooks. It hit me right next to a rock and really put on the gas, but these red Tenryu rods have serious power in reserve for when you need to play them hard. So we did not get the photos, but at least the fish went back just fine, that is always the most important thing to me. I de-barb all my treble hooks on my bass lures as I believe it is far better for the fish, and unhooking is just so much easier and more efficient. The less time spent trying to remove hooks, the better the fish recovers. I do not believe that I have lost any fish due to doing this - the bass that got away would have got away with or without barbs, and I would hope that the majority of bass anglers crush the barbs on their trebles.

• That morning also saw a rather excited Pat doing his best not to fall off another rock with excitement - with all this nearly falling off the rocks, you probably think they are all overdoing the Guinness, but in fact Pat saw a bass he reckons was nudging 14lbs swim right beneath him in the crystal clear water. The fact that the fish was not interested in his lure was mildly frustrating to say the least.

• Whichever way you look at it, this recent Irish trip was still a huge success - we saw plenty of decent fish, and for the most part the light was excellent and I managed to get a load of photos that I am really happy with. The photograph with Pat and Graham being hit by a big wave is in fact one of my favourite I have shot this year (see this post here). I could see that Pat had a fish on, and I knew that Graham would get right in there to help his mate land it. Moving as fast as I could over some seriously treacherous ground, I dialled in -1 stop of exposure compensation to my Canon 1D MK111 camera/70-200 f4 L lens combination as I walked/crawled/scrambled over the seaweed covered rocks, to prevent blowing the exposure with all that white water against a dark rocky background, and the result was an awesome sequence of shots that in my mind show the kind of bass fishing on the edge that a whole load of us enjoy. Being in the right place at the right time comes from a lot of practise and a certain amount of luck, but mostly it comes from knowing when not to fish. Believe me, I want to fish all of the time, but this is my job, and I need to get the kind of photos that are going to sell for me time and time again. Nailing a photo like that is as much of a thrill to me as catching a decent fish - yes, I am in love with my job, and I am proud to say so. I am also lucky enough to work around some fantastic people, and I am forever in their debt.

• I am flying out to South Africa on Thursday evening, so I had better get on with clearing some work and then getting ready for this trip. It has been far too long since I was in Africa, and I can't wait to see those vast skies and smell those unmistakable smells of the most awesome continent on earth............

Back from Canada

• Pete and I arrived back at Gatwick yesterday morning after a short flight back from Canada - a 30 minute hop from Fredericton to Halifax, an hour on the ground (so I've sort of been to Novia Scotia !!), and then only just over five hours back to London. Just time to pop a couple of sleeping pills, grab a couple of hours kip and then drive back to see my family. As ever, it is about the biggest thrill possible to get back to my wife, two girls and of course my sheepdog Jess - her paw is fully healed up and that means I can take over to Ireland on Saturday.

• What an awesome trip it was - this was my third time over to Canada, and every time I get back I start thinking about just how much there is to see and do over there. We got chatting to a couple in the airport who had been over to check out some houses prior to emigrating there in a year or so. The amount of house and land you can get for your money in the Quebec and New Brunswick areas is staggering.......

• The thing that really got to me the most was the astounding amount of world class salmon fishing that these areas have, from pure sight fishing in crystal clear rivers to double-handed work on the famous pools of the mighty Miramachi. Some of the all-inclusive trips over there can work out a lot cheaper than heading up to Scotland, and I am amazed that this stunning part of Canada is not receiving a huge influx of European salmon fishermen every season. What I really love is the the fact there is simply no class system attached to the salmon fishing over there at all - you either fish or you don't, whoever you are and whatever you do. Fly fishing happens to be the way that it is done, and everybody seems to do it. I would highly recommend that you talk to Pete or Charlotte at Aardvark McLeod as soon as you can about a trip over there.

• I now have a couple of days here before I head over to Ireland with a friend from Cornwall. Once again we are going to be fishing and photographing along the deserted south east coastline with my mate Graham Hill. The weather has been appalling recently, but all the forecasts I can get hold of are all pointing towards a good, settled spell of weather that should be just about perfect for the bassing. I love this kind of fishing as you can most likely tell, but it is also work for me as I need a huge amount of photographs to illustrate all the bass related features that I am writing for various magazines at the moment. Yes, I love my job, but then why not ? Life's too short to spend this much time doing something I hate.

• Andy and I will be driving up to Fishguard on Saturday and taking the fast Stena Line ferry over to Rosslare. I love this journey because the anticipation builds in me all the way, to the point where I get so excited that I rarely sleep much on the first night there. Told you I was a fishing junky !! Whatever happens with the fishing, I love every minute of my trips over there, and perhaps if I ask nicely, Graham might pull on his dancing shoes and sing for us (sorry mate).

• The photo above was from my most recent Irish trip, and perhaps if I ask nicely the skies might be that blue again ? Here's to dreaming......

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.............

Daft sea conditions - more like winter

• Yesterday saw some of the roughest sea conditions I have seen for a long time, more winter than summer. I know we Brits like to bang on about the weather, but when you have the kind of "summer" we are having at the moment, you would understand where we are coming from. The beaches were blown out here yesterday - Constantine was a seething mass of white water and foam, so my chances of plugging have been zero. I could have made a proper effort and sneaked over to the south coast to find some calmer water, but I would rather spend some time with the family and leave the serious bassing for back home and Ireland in a couple of weeks (bring it on !!). If the conditions had been better, I would have done as much as possible - all the gear is with me here, including these stunning looking new plugs I want to try out.

• I am heading back to Plymouth today, but the forecast for the next few days is still for strong onshore winds and a mix of sunshine and showers (but more showers I believe), so I have a nasty feeling that I am going to get blown out on the south Devon coast as well. There were a few decent bass landed on baits around Plymouth recently, including one of over 11lbs, so there are a few serious fish around it seems. But general reports are that bassing has been a bit slow - is it because the sea is taking so long to warm up this year ? I reckon we could be in for a very good late summer and autumn on the bass. Guess I had better look at booking myself another Irish trip for September or October !! (all work of course.........)

• The guy I went pike fishing with a while ago (Danny Parkins, a seriously good angler) has got hold of me to tell me about some epic fishing for chub he has been having on lures, around his home town of Tiverton. Danny had a chub of just under 7lbs the other day, and that is some fish. I am going to have to see some of this fantastic fishing - he has really made me think about getting into a bit of winter pike fishing later on in the year, so I hope to be able to do a bit of that when time allows.

Pounding seas

• Ever since we got here late on Friday, the seas have been pounding in, pushed by pretty strong onshore winds and really up and down weather - one minute the sun is out and I am getting the suncream on, and the next minute it is nearly time to put a fleece on. Still, this kind of weather is what makes us Brits great !!

• I tucked away as much as I could this morning close to Trevone to try plugging for bass, but those waves just kept on pounding. I had to time it so that I cast and fished in a lull between the biggest waves, and then backed off as the lines of rollers came in. I knew it was too rough for lure fishing, but I wanted to give it a go - a fish turned on me, but I could not tell if it was a bass or a pollack. The actual clarity of the water is not that bad, but it is going to have to calm down somewhat for me to have a proper chance up here on the north Cornwall coast.

• But to be perfectly honest, I am not really that bothered that plugging conditions are not great, for I am getting some proper time to spend with my family. Work and travel has been pretty hectic recently, so I am loving being out of my office for a few days and getting to spend uninterrupted time with my wife and two daughters. I have even played a bit of golf, but frustratingly not that well as I have not been playing much for ages. That little white ball could drive a man insane !!

• I am not sure what the weather is forecast to do, but if it calms off I am going to get back out for a few hours bassing. And if not, at least I have got a week in south east Ireland coming up from the middle of July - now that is something I seriously can't wait for.

Was that summer ?

Canon 1D MK11, 16-35mm f2.8L lens (at 31mm), ISO 200, f9, 1/100, polarising filter

• OK, it's a bit premature to start moaning about the end of summer, but it certainly felt like it yesterday. I arrived back from a grey, windy Newcastle into Bristol airport last night (wearing shorts and t-shirt of course, how sensible is that ?), to be met by howling winds and torrential rain. I feel really sorry for all the people at Glastonbury for the weekend, including a good friend of mine - why is it that it seems to always rain there ? There is no way that we can have a summer like last year's is there ?

• To take myself away from the gloom of an overcast morning, above is a photo of a nice big bass that my mate Graham caught last autumn over in Ireland. I wish I could show you a photo of my latest, greatest capture, but with work and travel recently, my own fishing efforts have been zero. That is going to change from this weekend though, for I have a few days over in Cornwall with my family to look forward to. I have packed the alarm clock for a few early morning plugging sessions.........

• I have a few really interesting new bass lures here to try out, including some that I have yet to see anywhere in the UK. Some of them look lethally effective, so I will give them a go and see how they do - watch this space. All in the name of "work related research" I assure you. Not that I like playing with new toys or anything like that.

• I sent a bunch of these US soft plastic Slug-Go lures over to a couple of mates in Ireland recently, and I am hearing sketchy reports that they are working really well for the bass. When I say sketchy, what I really mean is that I think the guys have really begun to nail fish big time on these Slug-Go lures and are trying to keep it quiet from me !! But I have my sources.............you would not believe the action these soft plastic lures have when they are fished properly, indeed I have yet to see a lure like it. Check here for where you can get hold of them in the UK. Don't get me wrong, hard plastic lures are great for bass fishing, but there is a quiet revolution going on with soft plastics - just take a look at the French bass anglers for a start. You are going to hear a lot more about them over the next few years I am sure.

• One thing I really notice about travelling in the US is the welcome you receive - shops, restaurants, hotels, you name it, most of the time you are met with a beaming smile and an offer of help. I really like this attitude. Manners cost nothing in life, and it is something my wife and I are working hard to instill in our two girls. On Wednesday evening, I checked into a hotel just over the road from Newcastle airport at about 11pm, to be met by a surly, sour excuse for a receptionist who hardly had the good grace to look me in the eye and say anything more than a mumble of "this is what you need to pay before you can have your room". Nothing approaching "welcome, how are you ?" or "enjoy your stay" or "what can we do to help ?". Nothing of the sort. I should have said something, but in truth I could not trust myself to remain calm. A lack of manners really winds me up. My rant for Friday morning is now over !!

• If you get The Field magazine, check out a really good looking feature of mine on the insane golden dorado fishing I photographed earlier this year out in Argentina (check here for a stack of photos). Look on pages 86, 87, 88 and 89 - I really like the fact that they have used one of my fish jumping shots as a whole page image on page 87. My thanks to the designer for picking it out.

• Remember to have a look through my Montana photo gallery which I have put online - check here for a selection of photographs from one of the most special places I have ever been on this earth. I am still dreaming about it.

• Gerhard from FlyCastaway emailed to tell me of a 16.5lb tigerfish that one of their clients caught on Monday, on a fly of course, at a new camp they are using in Mozambique. That is some fish on the fly, but then not much surprises me with the FlyCastaway lot - in my mind one of the top guiding outfits on the planet, and I do not say that lightly. Speak to Aardvark McLeod about booking trips to fish with them - and for Argentina and Montana. You can see a bunch of my tigerfish photos here. Tigerfish are deeply impressive fish to be around. It has been too long since I have been to Africa, so I can't wait for my South Africa trip at the end of September. Nowhere feels like Africa.

• Anyway, I am off on holiday for a few days later on today, but I will do my best to keep this blog updated - hopefully with a few reports of a few nice bass. You don't know how much I am looking forward to getting back over to Ireland in July.

First light bass trip

• I sneaked out yesterday morning at 4am for a plugging session with a friend over in Cornwall, to coincide with the last part of the flood tide. But when we got down there, conditions did not look half as good as the forecast had promised. There was a nice bit of sea running though, to put some "life" into the water, so Andy and I gave it a proper go for a few hours.

• There were loads of small bits of weed in the water which made plugging a bit tricky, for half the time we would pick up a bit on the retrieve, and then that kills the action of the lures. But it was more than fishable. I love being out early in the morning when nobody else is around, it is such a special time of the day.

• Andy caught this bass below on a Maria Angel Kiss lure in the blue colour (see here for them), and he also got hit a couple of times. Another bass also came clean out of the water to try and grab the lure right at his feet, but missed it !! This fish came fairly early on, so we both thought that a few more fish might show themselves......

• I had a nice bass of about 3lbs follow my lure right in to my feet, only to turn away and never show itself again. Of course I would have loved to catch it, but I also get a hell of a kick out of actually seeing these awesome fish in the water. How hard did I try and will that fish onto my lure ??!! I am sure you can imagine the expletives that were ejected over the choppy water when the fish didn't hit my lure - I need to grow up a bit, but fishing gets me terribly overexcited. I was using an Aurora Mackerel coloured Lucky Craft Flash Minnow in an effort to get down a little bit deeper than the Maria Chase BW goes. I also caught a small pollack on the Flash Minnow - I am getting good at nailing small pollack on the bass lures. But not so good at nailing the bass at the moment !! Still, it's always very cool to see one caught.

• What a stunning day today, perfect for going to the beach with the kids, my wife and of course my dog Jess. I can not for one second understand why some petty-minded local councils ban dogs from some of the beaches around here in south Devon, so we go to places where Jess can run around chasing seagulls and basically having a blast. Strikes me that if we do not stand up for ourselves, we are all going to be banned from having any fun or taking any normal risks in this country, in case it gets in the way of health and safety issues. And then we'll all get priced out anyway with the scary increases in the cost of living. Nothing like a Saturday morning rant..............

Not the finest fishing session

• Three of us headed up to the rugged north Cornwall coast on Saturday evening to try for a ray or two, but we ended up with virtually nothing - James landed one miserable dogfish to show for all out efforts. I am hearing of some good ray fishing around the south west, but I guess we picked the wrong spot !! Above you can see James blasting out another bait.

• We left Plymouth in the pouring rain, and it then cleared up around Bodmin. But when we got to the north coast, it was shrouded in a dense fog that never lifted the whole time we were there. Conditions seemed to be excellent, with a nice swell rolling in and a good tide as well, but for some reason the rays were staying away from our sandeel baits.

• But just how good are those Daiwa Saltist reels ? I first put them on this blog back in January, see here for my review. I am seeing more and more shore anglers using them to great effect, and at the moment I know of no better 7000 size shore multiplier that we can get our hands on. Mine are loaded up with 20lb yellow Sufix Tritanium, with my current favourite shockleader, rig and trace material - the staggeringly good Sufix Zippy that is now available in the UK. Check here for details. You have to use this line to understand how good it is.

• I hear that more and more forward thinking bass anglers are starting to get hold of the Tenryu plugging rods that have so grabbed me. Reassuringly expensive, but worth all of it, these rods are where it's at right now for me. Whilst I am using the Red Dragon Express and can't find one single fault with it, arguably the most popular model is turning out to be the Rod Bar Model 270, see here. Think I might start saving up again !!

• Well done to Nick Hart for grabbing a few hours before work and landing a nice westcountry salmon, see here for the report. I have yet to photograph salmon in the UK, but they are such special fish to be around. My only experience of them was over on the Gaspe peninsular on the east coast of Canada, an experience that totally blew me away. Check out some photos here, and then book yourself a trip of a lifetime with Aardvark McLeod. Read Pete's report of a monster permit on the fly out in Cuba the other day - what a fish !! Just how badly do I want to photograph that saltwater fly fishing ?

• My mate Cato Bekkevold over in Norway has just emailed me to tell me about some great zander fishing they have just had, for fish up to 20lbs !! Together with a few nice pike on surface lures, this convinces me more and more that Norway has some of the best fishing around. I also hear that they guys are doing really well up at Rost for the halibut, cod and coalfish. See here for some reports. Reports are also excellent for the start of their salmon season.

• Anyway, enough about fishing for today - onto my other obsession in life, extreme metal. I can't believe that any metal fan does not listen to the awesome band Opeth - I know of no other group which so successfully blends such far out, progressive elements into their own brand of crushing death metal. The lead singer can seamlessly switch between stunning clean vocals and one of the world's most brutal death metal roars as naturally as I can switch between fishing and metal !!, and it makes for a seriously good band. I have just got hold of their new CD, called Watershed, and it is a hell of an album - spin it over and over and you'll start to lose yourself in this stuff, it's that good. The kind of CD you really need to sit down and listen to the whole way through. Listen to some tracks here. I photographed these guys in London a while ago, check through this lot here for some very cool photos of them, a few of which appeared in Metal Hammer magazine.

Catalogue cover

• I got hold of a copy of the new Veals 2008 Bass catalogue today, with a photo of mine on the cover, and plenty more inside. I really like the choice of photo as it works well for the landscape format of the catalogue. And there is a huge amount of bass fishing tackle inside - check out their mail order website here. These are the guys I get my much loved Maria Chase lures from.

• A couple of friends of mine had an incredible catch of 19 small-eyed rays the other night off a rock mark in North Cornwall. The rays may have been of no great size, but that is incredible shore fishing in anybody's book. I have always had a soft spot for small-eyed ray fishing, and one of my favourite marks of all time has to be the well known Skate Rock close to Treyarnon Bay in Cornwall. I used to spend a lot of time up there and we had some awesome fishing over the years. I have sensed a bit of a revival in the numbers of rays around over the last few years, and I hope it continues.

• Check out a plaice fishing feature of mine in the new issue of Sea Angler, on pages 120, 121, 122 and 124. Whilst they are not exactly the most "explosive" of fish to catch, there is something very special about seeing these flatfish.

• With the current explosion in light tackle bass fishing interest, I am really glad to see that Mel Russ (Sea Angler editor) has gone and "discovered" the delights of fishing with surface lures. I note that he was fishing with one of Ireland's top bass anglers, John Hall. Check out some stuff I did with John a few years ago, click here. Little can beat fishing with topwater lures anywhere in the world.

• There are a bunch of my photos in the current issue of Trout Fisherman, check out pages 42, 43, 44, 45 and 46. Words are by Nick Hart.

• Anyway, enough about fishing. How about a bit more metal ? Anybody who has been into metal long enough to witness the "birth" of thrash metal will have several Testament CDs in their collection. And they are back with a stunning new album called The Formation of Damnation, check here for a few samples.

• If you do not have Slayer's historical album Reign in Blood in your thrash metal collection, then please leave the building and close the door. I will never forget listening to that album for the first time, and back then I believe I bought it on vinyl. I would argue that nobody has ever bettered it as a pure thrash metal release. Yes, of course, it's in my top five of all time.

• All we need now is for the (once) mighty Metallica to release an album that can come close to their first three masterpieces. What on earth happened to these guys and their recent output ? Go back and listen to the awesome Master of Puppets to see just how good they once were. I don't own any of their CDs after the Black album, and even that I rate as somewhat suspect.

Off to the Florida Keys

• Above is a photo of Nick Hart playing a nice brown trout on Colliford reservoir up on the wild and windswept Bodmin Moor in Cornwall - what the photo does not properly show is just how torrential that rain really is. Anybody who was driving past must have thought we were complete nutters. Nick for fishing and me for photographing from under a blue and white golfing umbrella - try it sometime, it is not easy adjusting a camera around the handle of an umbrella stuffed down the front of a Greys GRXi wading jacket, but the material we came away with made the extra effort all worthwhile. That wading jacket is one of my favourite ever bits of fishing clothing. Decent waterproofs are vital for this kind of work - check out the Hardy EWS stuff that Nick was wearing here. Below is one of the stunning brown trout that Nick landed while we were shooting the feature for Trout Fisherman magazine. Check out a bunch of my photos in the current edition on pages 42, 43, 44, 45 and 46.

• I have now seen my east coast Canada feature in the current Fieldsports magazine and I am over the moon with how they have made the piece look. As well as the cover (check here), have a look at pages 114, 115, 116, 117, 118 and 119 for the full article. Those blue skies are as good as I remember them being. You need to go and do this sight fishing for Atlantic salmon, so talk to Aardvark McLeod about a trip out to the east coast of Canada.

• Anyway, I had better finish packing for my trip out to the US - I fly tomorrow morning with Virgin Atlantic over to Miami and then catch a lift down to Rodney's place in Marathon. Rodney runs a hell of a good guiding operation out there, at seriously reasonable prices, so check out what he does and book a trip for yourself. The Keys are an amazing place and I hear the tarpon are in full feeding mode. Stay that way for my few days please.

• I will do my best to keep this blog updated through the week that I am in the Keys, hopefully with shots and stories of suitably serious fish. Last year I got mostly torn to pieces by big tarpon, so this year it's payback time. Rodney is a master at finding these awesome fish and I can't wait to get back out there.

• I hope any tackle tarts among you found the review of my new bass plugging rod from Tenyru to be of help - granted, not to the bank balance, but most definitely in the ability to fish more effectively with lures that this outrageous rod gives you. Roll on the red devil. I am rather hoping that when I get back from the Keys the bass have moved in properly and are wanting to play serious ball with my ever expanding lure collection. I think I once said that I did not consider myself to be a tackle junkie........

Fishing with braid

• There has been a fair bit of talk I have seen recently about using braided mainlines for fishing with. Over the years I have heard some serious garbage talked about the pros and cons of using braid, but there is no doubt that it is the best way to fish lures for species such as bass. I am totally sold on the benefits and all my spinning reels are loaded up with braid.

• But the thing you really want to do to ensure trouble free fishing is to take a close look at the photo above - note that I have deliberately underfilled my reel, for this really cuts down any chances of getting a dreaded wind knot. Do not be tempted to fill your spinning reel to the brim to try and get a few extra yards distance - yes, of course I have done this, and then paid the price with a beauty wind knot first cast. Underfill for proper performance. Let my previous distress save you from any yourself !!

• My favoured breaking strain for bass fishing is 30lb, preferably in high-vis yellow. I like seeing my lines and I fish a short clear leader to the actual lure. I know that I'll never land a 30lb bass (here's to dreaming...), but 30lb braid casts great, sits just fine on the reel, and enables me to wrench stuck lures out of most snags. I can also horse hooked fish near rocks. You can't go far wrong with 30lb Sufix Performance braid or Power Pro. Both are excellent lines. It was my mate Graham Hill who really put me onto fishing with 30lb braid. You can see him in a bunch of photos here. This guy catches serious bass !!

• I presume you are aware of the news about the somewhat thorny issue of a UK sea angling license - the government has abandoned any current plans to introduce one, see here for the full story. I have deliberately remained quiet about these issues for my feelings are strong and would no doubt cause some kind of reaction which I do not seek.

• Should we have to pay to fish our sea waters ? No, of course we should not.

• But will we have any fish left if we don't pay the right people to fight for the future protection of our already very depleted fish stocks ? Like most sea anglers, I refuse to believe that the introduction of a government run license (or stealth tax in my book) is the way to do this.

• If I felt that my money was going to the right people though.............that is another matter altogether. Things can be done properly - look at the success story of the US striped bass fishery for a shining example of stock regeneration and a booming recreational fishing industry directly linked to having plenty of decent fish to catch. Imagine what kind of industry we would have here in the UK around our own bass fishing if we had lots more big fish to go after ?

• Anyway, politics over for the day. Below is a photo of one of my all time favourite species, the ballan wrasse. The first fish I ever caught off the shore was a wrasse, just below Trevose Head in north Cornwall, and ever since I have had a serious soft spot for these hard fighting fish. Like most shore anglers I went all out for them with heavy gear for a while, but actually all you need is a powerful spinning rod and reel, and some decent bait. Fishing for them is a blast.