Winter blue sky front cover

• I was really pleased to get the cover of the latest issue of Trout Fisherman magazine, as you can see above. Check out my photos on pages 14, 18, 19, 20, 21 , 22 and 23 - Nick Hart wrote all the words. The blue skies on the cover were like what we had down here over the weekend, but they are forecasting a decent storm coming in later today. We shall see....

• I am sorting out an exploratory bass fishing trip down to Brittany in north west France - there is a particular area that really interests me, and some of the people I met at the Salon de Peches show the other weekend down at Nantes are helping me out with tides, contacts and dates. I can not tell you how much I am looking forward to the chance of photographing and fishing for bass in France, it is such an awesome country, and I hope that this trip might be the start of another love affair - like I have for Ireland and the fishing over there.

• I told you yesterday about the bass that were caught by my friends over in Ireland over the weekend - check out the photos on Graham Hill's new bass blog. Keep an eye on this one. Over time I fully expect his blog to become a place that I am going to have to avoid looking at too much in case I do what I keep thinking about - dropping out, moving over there to live, and just fishing my socks off until the day I die !! Not very realistic I know, but hard not to think about doing.........

• I have just been sent a PDF of a photo essay of mine that is in the awesome Norwegian fishing magazine Alt om Fiske - I really like getting my work in this publication. Granted, I don't understand a word of it, but it looks fantastic !! The salmon photos of mine were shot out on the Gaspe peninsular over on the east coast of Canada - pure sight fishing for Atlantic salmon in the clearest rivers I have ever seen. What a lot of fly anglers don't know is that most of this east coast Canadian salmon fishing is really cost effective, and it takes hardly any time to get over there. Flights are usually dirt cheap as well. Talk to Pete or Charlotte at Aardvark McLeod about going there.

• I also received a copy of the German fishing magazine Blinker yesterday, and in there is a big feature of mine on the frankly scary-awesome lure and fly fishing for giant golden dorado in Argentina. I am especially pleased with the big double-page spread photo of mine that they used, of a jumping dorado with a popper in its mouth. Heading to this particular location that is in the feature is not cheap, but they are virtually fully booked up because it is THE best place on earth to chase the biggest golden dorado. These magnificent fish are still one of the most impressive freshwater species I have ever come across, and I really want to do a lot more with them. Again, if this kind of fishing floats your boat, talk to Aardvark McLeod. I would never do this kind of thing if it was not an important part of my work, and I never thought for one second that when I started out working in fishing that I would get to see things like this. But as I always say, it ain't ever close to what it seems.........

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fly fishing for giant coalfish in Norway - click here.

Fly fishing for golden dorado in Argentina - click here.

Steelhead fishing in Canada - click here.

Lure fishing for golden dorado - click here.

Sight fishing for Atlantic salmon in Canada - click here.

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

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.

A proper popper

• With the bass season nearly upon us, I wanted to talk about what I believe is one of the best poppers in the business. For those of you who don't know, a popper is a lure that is purposefully designed to be fished on the surface - as you retrieve it, the lure will literally "spit" water (or "pop") in a way that really turns predatory fish on.

• There are various good poppers that can work well for our bass fishing here in the UK, including the Storm Chug Bug, the Yo-Zuri Mag Popper, the Daiwa Saltiga Popper and the Yo-Zuri Hydro Popper. You can get these lures here. No doubt there are a stack more that catch bass as well.....

• But there is one popper that you will rarely hear about over here in the UK, but in my mind it is the best of the lot - check out the Halco poppers here. These awesome lures come from Australia, and it was a friend of mine who first put me onto them. James kindly brought me one back from Oz when he was over there fishing, and from that point on, Halco Roosta Poppers have always had a place in my tackle box, both for bass fishing and for fishing overseas.

• Some poppers you fish with will very occasonally turn over in flight and the treble hooks will tangle up, meaning the lure does not fish properly until you untangle it. Sometimes they tangle up when they hit the water it's just the nature of this kind of lure. But I can safely say that I have never had a Halco lure tangle up on me, meaning that every single cast you make sees your popper working properly.

• The amount of water that these poppers chuck out is incredible. There are a load of tips for fishing them properly, click here to see them. With the great surface fishing they seem to have all over Australia, I take their advice on how to fish these lures very seriously.

• Above is a photo my brother Julian holding a nice barracuda I caught out in the Bahamas on a Halco Roosta popper, the original one in fact that James first brought back for me. Note the somewhat chewed popper in the fish's jaws. I swam out to a reef to nail that fish, and then when I had played it out I swam back to shore, with the rod in my teeth and trailing the fish behind me, to ask my brother to hold the fish for a photograph. But when a big shark swam underneath me as I made my way back to shore, I did have second thoughts. Check out a load more photos here.

• These Halco poppers cast like bullets, in fact I have never come across a popper that casts so well. Lures like the Storm Chug Bug might catch bass, but nobody could ever say it goes out there that well. Use the 105 size Halco Roosta Popper and you will be able to cover a load more ground very efficiently.

• But the problem is that I don't know of anywhere in the UK that imports these lures, so you will need to check out various Australian tackle shops online, or contact Halco direct and ask them. It is really worth tracking these poppers down.

• The larger 135 size is a killer for fishing overseas, for species such as jacks, GTs and big golden dorado. The White Redhead 135 worked really well for me out in Argentina the other day, until that is a couple of really big fish decided to smash me up and steal my beloved lures from me. Look carefully through these photos here and you might spot the lure in action.

Fishing lures

• OK, so the above is hardly the greatest fishing photo ever taken, but I wanted to try and show you an example of how simple fishing can be, and how much lure fishing around the globe shares such a similar approach. Please note the lures above - a Storm Thunderstick (left), a Daiwa Saltiga Popper (middle) and a Yo-Zuri Hydro Popper. If you ignore the fact that the lures have had their front treble hooks replaced with much stronger 5/0 ones, what you see here are some of the exact lures that worked really well for the monster golden dorado out in Argentina (see a load of photos here), and these same lures will catch plenty of bass for you as well.

• Think about what in my mind is THE fastest growing branch of UK sea fishing - light tackle lure and bait fishing for bass. All these lures are proven bass catchers. Predators are often remarkably similar the world over, and plenty of them will hit the same lures in the same ways as each other, albeit the size of fish may vary greatly.

• So yes, I grant you, it is very hard to resist buying every single kind of lure going when you see all those shiny new ones winking at you in your local tackle shop, but how many do you really need ? (easy for me to say, I am an avid collector just like the next man)

• Personally, I would not go lure fishing for bass around the kinds of marks I fish without three kinds of lures, and even then I do recognise that I have a lot to learn about fishing soft plastics for bass (more news to come on this through the year, I have some seriously cool products to try here) - I always make sure that I have a few poppers and "walk the dog" lures (for surface fishing) and a variety of shallow diving lures that are going to work at no more than about a metre or preferably less below the surface. Nothing yet has persuaded me to think otherwise about most lure caught bass coming from the upper levels of the water when we are shore fishing.

• And I made a classic mistake when I went over to fish for and photograph these monster golden dorado - I left a lot of lures at home because I thought they would be too small, when in fact most of the lures that really did well were just like the ones I use at home. Thanks to the guys on the trip for coming with such well-stocked lures boxes and for allowing me to trash some of them.

• What really surprised me was how well this new Greys Missionary 6 40-100g spinning rod was able to deal with the lighter lures, in fact it blasted them out with ease, even with the 50lb Sufix Performance Braid that I was using and abusing. This stuff is seriously good braid and the rod has fast become a personal favourite of mine.

• Some of the lures that worked well for the dorado and also work well for our bass were the Storm Chug Bug, the Yo-Zuri Surface Cruiser, the Daiwa Saltiga Popper, the Storm Thunderstick, the Yo-Zuri Hydro Popper, and of course, my all time favourite surface lure, the fantastically successful Halco Roosta Popper. You can by a lot of very successful UK bass lures by clicking here. Do not forget to buy some of the lethal Maria Chase BW lures in holographic silver - this thing smashes bass hard !!

• And forgetting fishing for a second - if you have any serious interest in photography, you owe it to yourself to buy what I believe is the best book on the subject that has been released for a while now. "The Moment it Clicks" by the world-famous photographer Joe McNally is a fascinating and very informal look at how he set up some of his best shots, for he is a true lighting genius. I am in complete awe of a lot of the stuff he has done. I know that you can get the book by clicking here. I took it with me on the way down to Argentina and I could hardly put it down - it is that good.

• And for a bit of culture on this rather dank Friday, below is a shot of some tango dancing that I came across on a street in Beunos Aires. This dancing is just incredible and I only wish I had not had to rush off to the airport so quickly. Another good excuse for going back. A few more tango dancing shots are at the end of this web gallery here.