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.

Back from holiday

• It's always good getting home after a bit of time away, especially when the time you have had away has been fantastic. My wife and I love Spain, it is an incredible country and there is so much to see and do. We went north of Barcelona and just stayed in really pretty looking places that had great walking along the stunning coastline. A lot of the Costa Brava is totally ruined through catering to mass tourism, but if you speak Spanish (my wife does) and are prepared to get off the beaten track then you will find that parts of the coastline are simply breathtaking. It always strikes me as daft that so few people are prepared to explore and get away from the crowds.

• Talking of walking, I reckon over the years that I have walked most of the south Devon coastline for my fishing. Many non-anglers believe that fishing is a "sport" where you do nothing but sit there for hours on end, but mobile rock fishing is nothing of the sort, indeed it can be great exercise. Above are the guys I went plaice fishing with just before I left for Spain. Fishing far from the beaten track is what it is all about in my view. My sheepdog Jess loves these kinds of fishing trips.

• Although we were on holiday and I had not taken any fishing gear, a few of the places my wife and I stayed looked very interesting for bass fishing. I found some lovely shallow, rocky and weedy ground that I reckon would fish well on the lures, so when we go back I am going to sneak a travel-style plugging rod in my bag and get up really early for a bit of fishing. My wife need never know !! A rod like the 20-50g Greys Missionary 6 Spin would work a treat - six piece rods like this are the way forward for travelling.

• I note from the Aardvark McLeod blog that Pete McLeod is working hard out in Los Roques off the coast of Venezuela !! Awesome bonefish by the way, and well done for managing to do a bit of fishing amongst all that hard work I am sure that you have to do out there. I was out in Los Roques last year to photograph the awesome bonefishing and it is a perfectly magical place. Check here for a load of photos I shot. Talk to Aardvark McLeod about a trip out there - those famous pancake flats are incredible.

• And seriously well done to James Warbrick-Smith - he called me yesterday to tell me all about his trip out to the Bahamas that he has just got back from. James nailed his first ever permit on the fly, and that is a seriously hard thing to do, so huge congratulations to the man. I know how much it means to James. He is an awesome fly fisherman and we have done some very cool trips together in the past - here is to a load more. Check here for a load of photos I shot on the same remote island a few years ago with Nick Hart and James. Most people simply do not realise how wild it is possible to get in the Bahamas, but the huge island of Inagua is far from the beaten track - I would imagine that you are getting the point here. I love fishing and photographing where there is a distinct lack of people. What can beat wild open spaces ?

• Check out the new In Flames album, called "A Sense of Purpose" - listen to some tracks here. Their output has been a bit up and down over the last few years, but this release is growing on me. I like it when melodic death metal is done well, and In Flames tend to be pretty good at it.