Saw some bass, but couldn't catch them (plus a truly monster pike)

• I went out for a few hours over the high water yesterday morning, to have another look around and see if I could find some bass. I had timed it to fish the last of the flood tide, and the moment the tide turned I waded out onto a sandbank to fish with soft plastics in amongst the tumbling water and deeper channels. As I waded out I saw perhaps ten to fifteen bass laid up on the sand, right next to the main channel, but the moment they saw me moving towards them they quite rightly spooked !! They weren't big fish, but at least they were bass. I also saw a lone sandeel swimming around - bizarre.

• To see fish always raises the heartbeat, and pretty quickly I got hit hard once on the soft plastic lure you can see above, but the fish did not connect - a MegaBass XLayer fished on an 18g Storm jig head (see here for the lures). But then nothing else happened. Typical !! I fished a few hours of the drop and then had to head back home. What a stunning morning when those clouds cleared, and pretty as it was, it had to have been too bright for the fish to switch on properly. That's my excuse anyway. Just me, Jess my sheepdog and a few seagulls - perfect peace, but rest assured that true Norwegian black metal in the shape of Gorgoroth was blasting out in my car on the way back. Peace when fishing, metal when not. Life is a series of opposites.

• I also messed around with this lure above, and in the water it looks incredible - it's a 6.5 inch Hart Gummy Leech on a 22g articulated Storm jig head that I picked up in France. Why on earth can you not get hold of these particular articulated jig heads in the UK ? (a big hint to Shimano !!) I have a feeling that this lure set up might do some proper damage later in the season, and I reckon night time is going to work well where I was fishing......

Photo courtesy Danny Parkins

31lb 14oz pike - 01.04.09

• But my brief efforts yesterday were certainly put into context when Danny Parkins rang me up and told me all about this huge pike he caught yesterday on the Exeter canal. Take a look at the size of that thing !! 31lb 14oz of killing machine, and Danny took this beast on a lure. I have met few guys who know their predator fishing as much as this guy, in fact he is an all round fishing junkie with a serious lure problem. Danny reckons this huge pike is a new Exeter canal record, so what can I say but seriously well done, that is a hell of a fish to catch on a lure and I take my hat off to the guy. I have been hectic with work too much over the winter, and I feel daft for not having got into this pike fishing properly - I have to make time for this, it's world class fishing. Nice one Danny.

• Please take a look at Nick Hart's blog here - I could not agree more with him about this Robson Green bloke talking rubbish on the (primetime) box about the fact that nine out of ten fish that are caught and released then go and die. This proves to me once again that the whole celebrity culture is something to be avoided at all costs. Another nail in the "image of fishing" coffin, this time banged home by a bloke who is meant to be a keen angler. I am not about to post what I really feel here, it ain't printable.

Bass fishing - the future ?

• How on earth can such a seemingly simple bit of soft plastic like you can see above create such wanton desire among so many bass anglers ? A modern soft plastic lure like the MegaBass XLayer is to the untrained eye probably no more than a slightly dubious looking ribbed bit of strange rubber, but in the hands of a decent bass fisherman this thing comes alive. Watching the French guys demonstrating various hard and soft lures in the tanks was a real eye-opener. The XLayer for example is designed to be worked in slower tides, with a jig head roughly the shape of the one you can see above. You then literally make it jump and twitch up and down as you retrieve it. Kind of like the guys were using them when I was last over in Ireland in fact - and the bass were nailed big time. See the photos here.

• You need to be able to impart such subtle movements and twitches to these things, and the more information that is literally transmitted down the rod and through your hand and arm will mean more bass caught. Might sound like rubbish, but it's true. That is why I a starting to save up for the red Tenryu Super Mix 240. The right tool for the job.

• By no means am I am now saying that the only people who really know how to catch bass are the French, because that's rubbish. I know some pretty good bass anglers myself who can smash the fish big time. But on a personal level I like to learn all the time. I don't like standing still. The French are doing a lot of different things to us, and it fascinates me.

• The lure you can see above is one of the best looking hard plastic lures I have ever seen - the picture of it does no justice to the overall shape and appeal of this thing, but when I saw this IMA Imagene 130 sitting in a glass stand at the Nantes show, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. This is a shallow diving lure that is designed to worked fairly fast, much like the Maria Chase BW, the Tackle House Feed Shallow and the various Duo Tide Minnow lures, the IMA Imagene will soon be in my tackle box, and specifically in the colour you can see above. A top-end Japanese lure like this does not come cheap, and they can be really hard to get hold of, but I know that in a while you will be able to get them right here. Ask and ye shall receive !! (after abusing your credit card of course) I have heard such good reports about IMA lures, and there is also a slightly smaller 110 model of this one that swims even shallower. Not that I like lures or anything.......

• I had an email from my mate Cato over in Norway, and he caught a 17lb coalfish the other day when he was out ice fishing. That is some fish to catch off the shore !! A guy he knows was ice fishing last week and caught an 80lb ling - yes, you read it right, eighty pounds. Not off the boat, off the shore. OK, off the ice then. Wow. They have got some incredible fishing up in Norway. Cold but insane. Check out Cato's awesome drumming on this life-changing metal album here.

Can't sleep - some more French bass thoughts

• My head is swimming with an information overload out here, and with all that going on I woke up at silly o'clock again. Kinda feels like being out on repeated night fishing sessions again. Only a few hours now until the Nantes show starts again, and today I am going to try and learn a whole load more than I did yesterday.

• I wanted to try and find a principal reason why French bass fishing has become so technically advanced. Fishing trends and markets are driven by different things, but there had to be a reason to explain the explosion out here in fishing modern soft plastic lures generally close to or on the bottom, plus the increasing acceptance of vertical jgging as a killer method for the bass in deeper water.

• The main reason I have found for all this modernisation is that there are literally so many French bass anglers continuously casting "conventional" hard plastic surface and sub-surface lures at the fish that the bass are basically getting spooked and moving out from inshore and are congregating more and more in the deeper, often very turbulent water. Fishing for bass is huge out here, indeed I was quoted figures yesterday that at least 50% of French sea anglers are active bass anglers. And bear in mind that sea fishing is really big out here.

• Of course there can be some excellent shore fishing out here if you know where to look and can get away from the crowds (the same the world over with all kinds of fishing), but it is far more of a boat-based bass culture in France than it is in England. The guys are using these generally smaller, faster boats (loads of RIBs, perfect for fishing close to rocks and rips) to access the deeper water often way offshore - but bear in mind that a lot of the west coast of France is littered with islands and rocks that give so much varied bass water for the boat angler. Many of these offshore islands are where the keen shore fishermen go as well.

• So the French anglers have had no choice but to keep developing more and more refined techniques and gear to catch these fish. The guys seem very happy with the actual numbers of bass or stock levels that they have around here, but they are being forced to literally "adapt or die". Either learn new methods or suffer a drastic reduction in your fishing returns. This is a very interesting philosophy to find so close to home on the saltwater fishing side.

• It goes almost without saying that the range of what we would call hard plastic lures is about as refined as I have ever come across - more "please buy me" shallow diving and surface lures than you could believe, and I want to own them all, in all the different colours as well !! There is some stunning new stuff from brands such as Sebile, IMA, Tackle House, Duo, ILLEX etc. I watched a new Duo lure being demonstrated yesterday and had to stop my mouth opening all the time in a really intelligent "hang dog" look - the lure was insane, and the guy working it simply made it come alive. I was gobsmacked at how slowly and deliberately the guys fish some of their hard plastic lures. OK, so there is plenty of stuff that likes to be cranked hard and fast, but there is some really interesting stuff that likes to be worked closer to how you might work a soft plastic lure like the MegasBass XLayer or the Slug-Go.

• And on the soft plastics front, this is what I find most staggering out here. I said earlier that the bass are tending to vacate the more pressurised inshore areas, and the guys are often having to fish deeper water to catch them. It is how they might fish say twenty to forty metres down that is really opening my eyes. The amount of different kinds of soft plastics (worms, shads, minnows etc.) and the variation in jig head weights, shapes and patterns is what has got into my head big time. Watching these soft lures being properly demonstrated in the tanks is blowing my mind. The lures look better than the real thing, seriously. I know we can use a lot of these methods in our waters, from boat and shore.

• I was talking with a really well respected bass angler out here yesterday, and he was talking me through a specific soft plastic lure that was being demonstrated. It was a kind of worm, fished on a tungsten weighted jig head. The best results they get from this particular lure is to let it sink to the bottom in a bit of tide and literally allow it to sit there, nose down, while the body of the soft worm literally shivers and flutters in the tide. From time to time they will move it a bit, and these movements practically had me jumping into the tank to grab the lure myself. Even in a tank with no current you could see what was going on when the lure sat nose down, and the angler said the hits off the bass could be off the scale savage on the static worm. I am often guilty of cranking my lures too fast (too overexcited half the time), but these methods the French are using often require huge finesse, patience and skill.

• I have been showing a few prints of my bass photographs to various people out here, and the reactions are fantastically positive. We might be lagging behind the French when it comes to modern bass fishing techniques (and we are, there is no point trying to stick one's chest out and deny it), but they really like the way we photograph and film our fishing. Interesting. Time to go and find some coffee......

My favourite bass lure of 2008

• As we move swiftly into a chilly 2009, here are some thoughts on my stand out favourite bass lure of 2008. Anybody who has been following this blog will know that I have a bit of a problem when it comes to (shiny new) bass lures, but there was without doubt one single lure that stood out for me last year. Bear in mind that I am talking about a combination of what I saw caught, plus what I caught myself, for most of the time I tend to put my fishing gear down and take photos when the fish come on the feed.

• So my top bass lure of 2008 has to be the Tackle House Feed Shallow, as you can see in these photos. I saw a huge amount of good bass taken on these lures last year, and I actually managed a few myself as well !! Lures like this are not easy to track down, but you can get them from Mick at Mr. Fish. No, they are not cheap, and yes, you would be well advised to replace the (rubbish) trebles with some decent ones, but the lure kills, plain and simple. But why on earth does a company like Tackle House put such awful hooks on such a good lure ?

• There are of course many outstanding bass lures out there, and some need not cost a bomb. The continuously outstanding Maria Chase BW in holographic silver is going to keep on catching plenty of fish (get them here), and last year I really learnt a hell of a lot about modern bass fishing, and some of the tools we can use to improve our catch rates. Lures such as the various and outstanding Duo Tide Minnow and Terrif range, the Xorus Patchinko, of course the excellent Lucky Craft Flash Minnow, GunFish and Sammy (see here) are always in my lure box now, together with an expanding range of soft plastics such as the Slug-Go and the MegaBass XLayer. If you want to see a load of decent bass taken on various lures last year, there are loads of my photos here, here, here and here.

• But it was the Tackle House Feed Shallow that I saw the most bass caught on - bear in mind of course that a lot of the guys I fished with were using it a lot of the time, but there is obviously something about it. The lure casts well and fishes just below the surface at a fairly fast rate, with a stunning "side to side kind of slightly slashing" action, and this suits a lot of the bass marks I fish very well. The silvery/reflective colours are my favourites as I remain convinced that bass switch on to these colours both in bright and dull conditions. I remember one flat calm morning we fished in Ireland when nothing was happening - the sea was like glass and the clarity was almost too good, but eventually a nice fish obviously could not resist roaring out from behind a rock and smashing into my Feed Shallow. That was the only bass of the morning.

• If you have any interest in sharks and the sea, I really hope you watched the recent Natural World programme on the BBC - this was some of the most impressive great white footage that I have ever been fortunate enough to see, and the South African guy involved in the story has my utmost respect. This seriously was a hugely inspirational and stunning programme that every single person with any saltwater interest should make sure they watch. Great white sharks have always fascinated me, and they will continue to do so. If you live in the UK and missed this programme, you can watch it on the BBC iPlayer service right here. Immense in every way.

• Anyway, back at work and 2009 stretches out in front of us all - here's to the best possible year in what we all know are going to be some turbulent times. But if there is one thing to get us all through whatever happens, it has to be fishing. What else can provide such a release and a rush at the same time ? What else forces us to keep learning new stuff all the time ? Here is to a successful fishing year for us all, whatever you choose to fish for, and wherever you do it.

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.

Fantastic bass session on soft plastics

• This morning was one of the coldest mornings I have ever fished (yes, I know your hearts are bleeding for me), but as soon as the sun came up and the tide turned, the bass came on the feed in a proper way. But those couple of hours before sun up were bitter - a biting north wind, a frost so heavy that the sand was frozen, and as many clothes on as I could wear and still fish effectively. Above is Graham kindly holding a 7lb bass of mine that I nailed on a MegaBass Xlayer soft plastic lure. Where we are fishing is working really well on these soft plastics.

• Note that Graham is wearing a hat and gloves to fish in, tendrils of mist are coming off the water, and the hills behind are covered in a hard frost. Smashing good bass in the depths of winter is not bad at all, but to be perfectly honest, not much surprises me about the bass fishing over here in Ireland any more - it is that good. When it is firing, it is off the scale. I know how good it is, and I learn a huge amount more every single day I am here fishing with these guys. I am head over in heels in love with Ireland and its fishing - as you can probably guess from this blog.......

• Above is Patrick bringing another nice bass in to the shore. Look at those huge blue skies !! This is the end of November and I have rarely seen weather this good at any time of year. It might be very cold, but who cares when the bass are feeding so hard.

• Another perfect Irish bass, once again taken on a MegaBass XLayer soft plastic lure - these things work so well, and the guys over here that I fish with regularly are really getting into the ins and outs of fishing for bass with soft plastics. They have their time and place, and I have masses to learn, but they have given us the chance to smash fish when most of the open coast at the moment is flat calm, gin clear and hardly conducive to conventional lure fishing.

• Here is Tom Hollyhock with another cracking Irish bass, to go with the two stunners he had yesterday, including that monster 11lb fish. This one above weighed 9lb 8oz, and you can guess the successful lure by now I am sure. We worked out that Tom has had three bass for a total of about 27lbs - that is some average size of fish, and I think the guy is completely blown away by what he has seen over the last couple of days. Tom flies back to Germany tomorrow, no doubt planning a return trip already.

• This is the size and colour of MegaBass Xlayer that Tom had his 9lb 8oz bass on this morning, rigged to fish behind a jig head. They might look like a lump of fancy plastic, but there must be something about them that the bass can not resist. Anyway, I need to get ready for another go tomorrow. Awesome.

Ireland still firing for huge bass.....

• There were a lot of bass moving around when we got to our fishing spot before first light this morning, and Tom above nailed this 11lb bass on his second cast ever in Ireland !! Well done sir, that is some fishing. You can see the joy a fish like this brings us, just check out Graham and Tom celebrating in the photo above. A fantastic bass in outstanding condition, it was hooked within twenty yards of the shoreline on a soft plastic lure. A MegaBass XLayer to be precise, fished on a jig. Second cast of the morning !!

• Above is Tom with the same 11lb bass prior to a safe release of the fish - I watched it swim out into the main current in my headlamp. What a sight. There were some seriously big fish swirling around early this morning, but they were no pushover at all. All credit to Tom for fishing so well. I had a couple of crocodiles chase my lure with a big bow wave and then turn away at the last moment. Heart stopping stuff.

• There was a hard frost this morning, and barely a cloud in the sky all day as you can see above. What a stunning day for the end of November. Graham, Patrick and I weighed in with a few small bass, but today was Tom's day without a doubt. I love coming to Ireland more and more. What a place. Guess how many other anglers we saw today ? Yes, you are right - none !! I reckon we walked close to 10 miles today on the hunt for bass, and we are up early again tomorrow morning to see if we can nail a few more.

• Above is the product of Tom's third cast in Ireland - another cracking bass, again taken on a MegaBass XLayer soft plastic lure. They can be hard to track down, but you can get them from here. You can see one of the lures rigged on a jig in the photo below. The guys out here are really switching on to using soft plastic lures for their bass fishing, and they are a blast to use in the right places. I have a huge amount to learn about using soft plastics for bass fishing.

Back home from South Africa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The final irony - the weather became too good

• Would you believe it ? After the dire summer we have had in the UK, and we then go and get perhaps the flattest, clearest, least lively and sunniest two days I have seen so far for the end of my Ireland trip. Awesome for photos, lovely to fish in, but hardly the best for serious bass fishing. You can't win with us anglers - when it's terrible we want it better, and when it's flat and warm we want some movement !! As we walked back to the car after yesterday morning's last session, I tell you, south east Ireland has never looked so pretty. Deserted, hazy calm and always calling me back. Above is a photo of some misty conditions we had just after first light - stunning for photos.

• Here is Patrick Gallagher with a fine bass from earlier in the week, taken from a stunning part of the Irish coastline that again seems to receive no serious fishing pressure at all. Patrick is a fantastic guy and has got bass fishing seriously bad - he is a pleasure to fish with, as is his good friend Cian. Thanks again guys, what a fantastic few days. Graham Hill is a true gentleman. The greatest thing about working in fishing is getting to meet so many awesome people in such interesting parts of the world, and I feel truly privileged to know people like this.

• The guys are starting to do serious damage with modern soft-plastic lures like this Megabass XLayer you can see above, fished on an articulated jig head. Set ups like this work really well when you can enticingly bounce and flutter then along estuary bottoms and big sand patches, or even up and over a mass of weed covered boulders. These particular lures can be really hard to get hold of, but they are really nailing some big bass over in Ireland at the moment. I know that Mick sells them right here. The French bass anglers are heavily into using soft-plastics, and I would imagine that we will be getting our heads around them properly in due course. They slay big time when conditions are right.

• As you might have guessed, I rather like photographing bass !! I could spend far more time around these magnificent fish than I already do, and at the moment my heart is telling me to move over to south east Ireland and simply immerse myself in the finest shore fishing for bass that I know of. What a place. I took my mate Andy Bignell over with me this time, and I think he has come back a changed man - I know he is struggling to come to terms with the place, and I can't wait to get him back out there. We had some up and down fishing, but the times when it was firing were simply off the scale.

• Don't do this at home, part 3 : this is what it takes sometimes to access the best bits of coastline. Andy Bignell is using a rope here purely because the ground is a bit slippery and steep, and wading boots do not offer the best grip on wet grass and loose rocks. The photo makes it look more extreme than it really is, for the other day I got down here just fine without a rope, and I am not into taking unnecessary risks for my fishing. Well, not too many......

• I finally got home at about 4am this morning - all was going too well. The Stena Line ferry crossing from Rosslare back to Fishguard was perfect as always, and we pulled into Swansea services to get a bite to eat at about 7pm. Andy noticed smoke coming from my engine as we drove in and I stopped the car straight away. Luckily Andy trained as a mechanic many years ago, and straight away he noticed that my fan belt had gone - if I had been on my own, I would have thrashed the car to within an inch of its life, I know nothing about them at all, and like an idiot I had forgotten to renew my old AA membership. I had promised my eldest daughter that I would be back today for her 4th birthday, and I was not about to let a broken down car get in the way. Eventually an AA tow truck got us back to Plymouth just before 4am (yes, it cost a fortune to join on the spot and get a tow home, but it was worth every single penny), and I stumbled into bed and was woken by my two very excited daughters at 7am. As I said the other day, nothing beats getting home to the family and seeing those smiles on their faces. I could not do what I do without my wife holding the fort back at home, she is an awesome woman.

Some up and down fishing

• The bass fishing over the last couple of days has been very up and down, (after such a snorting start on our first day), but when it is good, it is really good. Some of the marks have been very quiet though, and this has forced us to really think and work hard to find fish - but things do tend to come right eventually in Ireland. Above is Andy Bignell with a 5lb 4oz bass he took this afternoon on a crab bait fished tight to the rocks. This fish really crashed around the gullies before we could land it.

• Above is Andy bait fishing for bass, right before he hooked the fish above. The bass here are in incredible condition at the moment - full of fight, very well fed, and bristling with intent. You need to see these fish up close and get them on the scales to see just how heavy they are for their size.

• Don't do this at home, part 2 : Here is Graham getting right in amongst it again on a plugging mark here in south east Ireland. We all tend to push it a bit when the fishing is on, but none of us are into taking stupid risks to catch more fish. As I said the other day, Graham knows what he is doing out here. It looks very cool though, and he was well wrapped up in his waterproofs before standing on this rock - great for photos.,

• Proof that it works - Graham with a 5lb bass he took on a soft plastic lure, the Megabass Xlayer, fished tight to the rocks. This lure also accounted for some nice pollack, including the one you can see below. The guys out here are going mad for these soft plastic lures, and we had a few bass this morning on the high water, bouncing the lures up and down along the bottom. When they hit, they hit big time.

• Anyway, I need to get on and charge my camera batteries, sort through the photos from today, and then get some sleep. We are pushing it really hard out here, but the more ground you cover, the more fish you catch when bass fishing - what we are doing here is not for the angler who would prefer to stay in one spot and look at rod tips. This is highly mobile, light tackle fishing, and I love it as much as always. I might be knackered, but you can guarantee that I will wake up before my alarm clock before dawn tomorrow morning, ready to do it all over again. We are mad....