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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How about this weather ?

• There is nothing like the first proper taste of spring here in the UK - big blue skies and (relative) warmth is about as good as it gets, and I for one am loving it. Granted, I would rather not be working when the sun is out, but that is not the point. Living in Devon when the weather is like this is a privilege.

• The photo above is actually from one of those extremely rare days last summer when we actually did see the sun !! Other countries I know think we are all a little mad to be so obsessed with the weather, and we are, and we make no apologies for it. The moment the sun comes out and we all go a little bit loopy. Kind of like werewolves in reverse.

• Make sure to check out my latest article in my modern bass fishing series in the new issue of Sea Angler - look at pages 48, 49, 50 and 51. The opening DPS photo is exactly the one that I hoped they might use. The article itself is all about fishing for bass with surface lures, and as I said yesterday, the magazine is looking awesome. If there is a more exciting way to fish than with topwater lures or flies, then I have yet to come across it. Anybody who doesn't shake with adrenaline when a fish swirls on a surface lure is not really alive.

• I left my office behind yesterday afternoon to go and check a few potential bass marks out. I have walked and explored most of the south Devon coastline before, but for some reason this particular little area had escaped me. And it looked great.........I was looking out for likely looking bass spots, but really I spent most of the time looking for treasure with my eldest daughter. My sheepdog Jess was happy chasing sea gulls, and my daughter and I trawled the beach and rocks looking for shells with holes in them and those smooth bits of worn down green glass you find. That is the treasure, and we came back with masses. The things we do as parents !! It won't be long though until I am down there chucking a few lures for the bass. It was properly warm when we tucked out of the east breeze as well. Stunning.

• I love living in Devon, indeed there is nowhere in the UK that I would rather live. The south west peninsular is a great part of the world, and for the keen fisherman there is a wealth of fishing on offer. I will talk up the merits of Devon until the cows come home, and I have a serious soft spot for Plymouth. It's a great place to live and work, and my family and I have a fantastic life here.

• But then you go and hear about the recent bass fishing they have been having over in Ireland recently, and in truth, the better quality of shore fishing overall, and you do begin to wonder. Less people, wide open spaces, countless spots that are simply never fished, lots of big bass, I could go on. The grass is not always greener, we all know that, and Devon is my home, but I will admit to dreaming. I am fairly restless by nature. You never know..........

Flounder fishing in amongst the icebergs

• OK, so icebergs might be a little bit of an exaggeration (us fishermen, never !!), but when did you last see masses of floating ice in a south west estuary ? I can't remember ever seeing it, but considering that we were set up before dawn after the coldest night down here for twenty years, it's hardly surprising. Along with the flooding tide came rafts of floating ice. I was a bit gutted not to get some big blue winter skies to show it all off properly, but the forecasted cloud cover came in far earlier than they said. I would not have been that shocked yesterday to have seen a polar bear come floating past on top of an iceberg, it was that cold. OK, so not somewhere like Canada cold, but it was proper UK cold at least.

• Still, it was a challenge for the guys to put baits out in between the rafts of floating ice, and a few sets of gear were lost - not to rocks but to the ice. How often can you say that in the UK ? Check out all the ice floating past in the photo above - mad !! Kingbsridge is such a pretty part of the world, and while I can not say that flounder are really my thing, I always love being out and about photographing them with a bunch of mates. With all these cold east winds and resulting clear seas we have had down here, at least the flounder fishing has been keeping lots of anglers going. The forecast says it will change over the weekend, so I will be interested to see how this might kick start our winter fishing.....

• The guys did well to catch a couple of fat winter flounder yesterday in some tricky conditions, and thanks to Yorkie and his magic frying pan and kettle, we were kept warm with hot bacon sarnies and fresh cups of tea. The man is a legend !! Amazing that he can cook so well when he is out fishing, when I hear from his wife Debbie that Rob's culinary skills at home are what might be referred to as "limited ". Damn fine sarnies though, and thanks to Andy for giving my sheepdog Jess a bit of his - she wasn't getting any of mine !! Those eyes looked at me like I hadn't fed her for weeks, but I know Jess too well......

• To talk of warmer climes - I had an email this morning from John Crabb, a Flycastaway guide and one of the finest all round anglers I have ever had the pleasure to fish with anywhere on this earth. I have worked with John in the Seychelles and also out in South Africa last year. John nailed a monster ragged tooth shark of around 500lbs (yes, you read it correctly - five hundred pounds) over the Christmas period down at Jeffrey's Bay, and another FlyCastaway guide (Tim, awesome angler as well) landed one of around 350lbs !!! John's shark took him under an hour to land, and that is some feat of fishing. Check out a photo of a somewhat smaller (but still monster) ragged tooth shark that John nailed for my cameras last year, right here. The guys also nailed some nice kob as well - jealous ? Me ? Never........complete and utter fishing insanity. Bet they didn't have to dodge rogue ice floes though !!

• My late Del also rang me from the Isles of Scilly yesterday - they had an extremely rare frost, that is how cold it was, but the winds have swung around for him and the mullet are back in and on the feed big time. He has a fantastic mullet of 7.5lbs a couple of days before Christmas, plus got smashed by a proper monster, but then the winds swung around and killed the fishing for him. Just Del and his mate fishing over there, and nobody else. Heaven, pure heaven.

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.

Is it just me ?

• Is it just me, or are more bass anglers struggling at the moment around the south Devon and Cornwall coastlines ? Granted, north east winds are hardly the finest direction for inspiring confidence when chasing bass, but still, I'm finding it pretty tough at the moment....

• To be fair to myself, I should have turned around and gone home the moment I saw the conditions on Saturday morning - maybe that overload of extreme metal last Thursday night has done something to my head, but I was sure that there would be a bit more colour and life to the sea. But no. About as flat and crystal clear as possible !! I gave it a few hours, but I saw nothing even move for my lures. Mildly frustrating to say the least...................

• Especially when my mate Graham Hill rings me from Ireland on Sunday to tell me that he had taken three bass on lures that morning, with the biggest nudging 8lbs !!!! "Well done", I said nice and calmly, or something like that anyway. Seriously, I am wrestling with this urge to up sticks and move over to south east Ireland. I am in love with the country that much. It does not fish all the time, but nowhere does, but when it's on, it's insane. See here for starters. I get to fish and photograph all around the world as part of my job, but I would put Irish bassing right up there when it is firing.

• Anyway, above is some proof that there are a few bass around south Devon - Bob Musk is playing what was a small fish, but a bass nonetheless, taken on live sandeel from a local estuary.

• I am sure plenty of you can guess what estuary this photograph was taken in. It is a stunning place with a distinct lack of people and some very nice bass from time to time. Even with grey skies the place looks impressive, especially as the leaves turn over to their autumn colours.

• I am out tomorrow photographing some fly fishing with Nick Hart, so that should be a blast. We are off to a winter stillwater to shoot a feature for Trout Fisherman magazine, and then we are out on Thursday as well. Some people look down a bit at these kinds of fisheries, but I never understand why. OK, so they are not big, wild waters, but they are often very individual places that keep plenty of fly guys fishing right through the winter for some quality fish. My job is to make them look as good as possible, whatever the weather.

It's perfect weather for fishing.......

• .......and I can't go. Light onshore winds, building spring tides, it's been settled all week, this is the time to get out and smash some decent fish. But I am babysitting my two young girls as my wife is has not been well at all and needs to be in bed to rest up - don't let anybody ever tell you that changing nappies is easy, because it isn't. Take it from me, I've got first hand experience at the moment. Changing nappies takes great strength of character, plus something to wrap around your nose to kill the smell and stop the gagging. My wife is on the mend thankfully. Fishing is naturally out of the window at the moment. I reckon a certain mark I know of would have worked incredibly well today for a bit of plugging for bass...........oh well, another day. I'd far rather be changing nappies on my youngest ?

• I took a few photos on Thursday afternoon of some light tackle freelining for bass just outside of the stunning Erme estuary here in south Devon. We spend lots of time on the beach down here with the family when the sun is out, but to head out of the shallow estuary on a boat was a real treat. If I could have a house overlooking this place I would never leave, it is that special, and it is rare to see many people around here. Above are the guys loading up the tender before heading out.

• Here's bass fanatic Nick Oatway freelining with live sandeel for bass - you can see how close to shore we were fishing, and it was a perfect afternoon's fishing. We had plenty of fish, including a fair few bass to around 3lbs, and lots of pollack that hit the eels hard and stayed typically deep. The guys have had some big bass around here in the past and the fishing just gets better as the year goes on - we have plans to do this again closer to winter when they fish in a very particular way for some big bass. If I get to do it, you'll see the results here in due course.

• This is Fraser Sanderson with one of the bass that was caught on live sandeel - I am going to have to admit here to catching plenty of pollack myself, but not one bass to my rod. There's always next time though. Light tackle fishing is the way forward in my book - you simply can not beat a balanced fishing outfit being put through its paces by fighting fish.

• Anyway, my sheepdog Jess had her stitches out on Friday morning, and we are allowed to give her progressively more exercise until her paw is fully healed. So, this morning I'm walking Jess and my two girls in the park when my mobile goes - it's Rob Yorke ringing to tell me about some fantastic ray fishing they had last night off some undisclosed rock mark. Rob caught and released a 16lb plus blonde ray, and was done properly by a bigger fish, and James Langdon caught some double figure small-eyed rays in the same session. Did I want to head out tonight to see if the rays were still around ? Perfect weather and tides, they've got loads of bait, what about meeting up at around 8pm ? Yeah, I'd love to Rob, but I've got a slight problem this end - I'm babysitting. What was that snigger I heard ? Gutted ? No, never, you go right ahead and smash a load more for me, I'd hate to get photos of big blondes off the shore !! No worries Rob, I'm changing nappies this end, seriously, it's a blast - I know you were really good at them in the past !!

• I'm off to the east coast of Canada early on Tuesday morning, so while the kids are asleep I had better get myself sorted for this one. I will be taking a load of camera gear to get as many different shots as I can - it could be a really special few days. I'll do my best to keep the blog updated as we go along, hopefully with some photos of some decent Atlantic salmon and awesome locations.

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.

My new fishing book in Germany

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

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

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

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

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

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

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