I would love to say we nailed the bass......

• ......but we didn't !! Andy and I managed to get out over the high water and back yesterday afternoon, and I reckon the conditions looked spot on. OK, so a bigger tide would have been nicer for where we were fishing (Andy's mark, somewhere new to me), but the water clarity and general sea conditions were ideal. Just enough "life" to the water, loads of very inviting looking ground for the bass to hunt over, but sadly the fish forgot to turn up !! We both blanked in quite spectacular style. I sincerely hope you lot had a bank holiday weekend filled with a few more fish.

• Back to the drawing board on this one. What a stunning looking mark to fish though, I fancy this place to throw up some nice bass this year. That is if I haven't gone and emigrated over to Ireland. Enjoy the close season lads !! Will be thinking of you.......

• Not even a hit or a follow, and we tried different lures, different retrieves, you name it, but not a sniff. I would like to be out fishing a lot more than I am currently, but it is just not possible at the moment. I am going to be in the Isles of Scilly this coming weekend, principally to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary, but if the weather behaves then of course I will get out and do a bit of fishing and photography with Del. Can't wait to get back over there. Still one of the most special places on earth, and it's only just off our coastline.

• How do you choose a lure from this lot ? They all look so nice !! Andy has got it as bad as the next man, and we laughed about the fact that it is very tough to make a phone call to somebody like Mick at his tackle shop here and not come away with a bruised bank account. I am trying to hard to exercise some decent self-control at the moment and resist buying the Tenryu Super Mix 240, a fishing rod that I really, really want. The Red Dragon Express that I have is still the ultimate (hard lure) plugging rod I reckon (ok, the Rod Bar 270 comes a very close second), but I could do with a little more "feel" for using soft plastics. Give me a while and I reckon I could talk myself into one......

• I spent a few hours on Saturday up at Nick Hart's Open Day, and it was fantastic. Lots of people there, loads of anglers fly fishing on the lakes, and some monster trout being caught, including one of over 17lbs that morning. Plus another over 14lbs. Those are some fish. It is great to see so many people out and about doing something connected with fishing, especially in the current climate. Roll on the summer.

• Still, who really gives a damn about blanking for bass when you can click here and watch the new video to the immense "Guardians of Asgard" song off Amon Amarth's latest album - the monstrously mighty Twilight of the Thunder God (see my original review here). As I have said before, who says music doesn't influence you ? And then you could weep tears of metal emotion to the video of arguably my favourite ever Amon Amarth song, "Cry of the Blackbirds", see here for the video. I should have been a Viking - time to grow the hair again, get on a horse (gonna need a strong one to carry me), grab my sword and dream of what could have been. Back to work........!!

Off up to Alnwick for a meeting

• I trust you all had a good weekend - I was out all day today shooting some photos with Nick Hart, and then first thing tomorrow I have to fly up to Newcastle airport for a meeting with Hardy Greys at their base in Alnwick. Meetings aren't really my thing (would rather be out bass fishing), but they have to happen from time to time.

• I am hearing reports of more and more guys catching a few bass - see the comment from Steve on my post from the end of last week. I love seeing comments like that and I am really grateful that people take the time to do so. When work calms down for me, there are some bass out there with my name on. Your time is up.

• I met a couple of really nice anglers down on the Isle of Wight on Saturday morning - I was walking the dogs out across the beach at Bembridge and I got speaking to the two local lads who had just been out bass fishing (was it Nick and Ben ?, sorry, I am terrible with names). These two have really got into their lure fishing recently (and they read this blog, thanks guys), so it was great to stop and talk all things bass fishing for a while, and even better to hear that they had caught one on a lure that very morning. I also saw a couple of guys who were fly fishing for the bass, but I don't know how they got on. I was taking a couple of days off with my family, but next time I am down in the Isle of Wight my rods are coming with me. There are some tidy mullet around there as well which need catching.

• Things will get back to normal on the blog later in the week, but for now I had better go and pack my stuff up for the 7am flight out of Plymouth (international airport !!) tomorrow morning. First class of course - or perhaps not.....

Have a good Easter weekend

• I hope all of you have a fantastic, long Easter weekend - may the fish bite big time !! Perhaps this bit of weather we have got down here at the moment might kick start the bass fishing off properly, especially with the larger tides.........

• Talking of bass (not that I have a problem or anything), a friend of mine over in south east Ireland emailed me the other day to give me a report of some more good fish they have nailed recently. Patrick and Cian had a number of fish, with one he estimated around 9 to 10lbs. That's another awesome bass for these guys. Honestly, I don't know how much longer I can take NOT living over there.

• I have put a bunch of photos up here from a Trout Fisherman shoot I did the other day with Nick Hart - the weather remained nearly perfect all day (perfect for me and my photos, perhaps not so perfect for the actual fishing), but the fish did not really switch on right until the end. When we are shooting a fishing feature, if no fish are caught then it's a day we can't use, so this puts a lot of pressure on Nick. But he can live with it !! Not that I ever remind him of the stakes during a shoot or anything like that. Nice one.

• I am spending the long weekend with my family, no fishing for me this time. Please catch a few for me and have a complete blast doing so. I have a feeling that this year might just be a decent one, there seem to be plenty of reports of pockets of good fish around. The launce are turning up on the reefs down here off Plymouth, and the pollack are feeding hard. This is such a fantastic way to go boat fishing - light gear, shallower water, fresh, scrappy fish, a perfect day out. Get hold of one of Plymouth's best charter skippers right here - Malcolm always works his socks off to give his clients a great day out and I can not recommend him highly enough.

It's all about the light.....

• When you need to go and photograph long distance fly casting like Nick Hart and I did yesterday, it doesn't half help to have some decent light for it. We lucked out big time. The forecast was for a bright start to the day, but that it would rapidly cloud over and possibly rain. Guess how correct this forecast was ? Hint - look at the big blue skies in the photos here. I am sure that forecasts are actually getting worse, or is that possible ?

• All that light bouncing around lets me do so much with the photos, and with Nick bending the hell out of these fly rods, it's brilliant to be able to put him against the sky and let rip on the motordrive at ten frames per second. You need this kind of camera speed when a proper caster like Nick is double-hauling and ripping the rod and line through at near-warp speed.

• We were shooting this casting feature for Trout Fisherman magazine up at the stunning Clatworthy reservoir - it looked spectacular yesterday, and there were plenty of people out trout fishing. There can be no more perfect escape from all this economic doom and gloom than going fishing. Too many people are all doom and gloom when it comes to fishing - by no means is anything easy at the moment, but a positive outlook goes a hell of a long way for starters.

• Anybody who saw the two of us doing our stuff at Clatworthy must have thought we were mad - there's Nick going through cast after cast, with me either kneeling down in the water in front or to the side of him and stuffing a wide-angle lens in his face, or otherwise I'm perched somewhat precariously on top of a small step ladder out in the water, trying for a different angle on the pictures. I know that Nick would never collapse laughing if I had fallen off the ladder into the lovely cold water !! And then the one time I turn around to have a pee without checking, a couple of walkers come right down the path in front of me. What can you do but say "Afternoon, lovely day isn't it ?", and hope you haven't ruined their walk !! Nice thought.

• We basically walked the whole way around the reservoir yesterday - me with my camera gear, Gitzo tripod and stepladder, and Nick with all the tackle needed to shoot a casting feature. What I hate though is that there all these signs up saying "No dogs", when yesterday would have been such a great day out for my sheepdog Jess. What harm can there possibly be when a well behaved dog wanders around the reservoir with her owner ? The world's going mad......

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.

Brand new look Trout Fisherman - out soon

• It fascinates me to see such a well known and well established fishing magazine like Trout Fisherman being completely overhauled and then relaunched. On March 26th you will be able to see the results of the new look Trout Fisherman magazine when it hits the shops, and here is a sneak preview. I know I work for them, but I have to say that I am hugely impressed by what has been going on, as you can see here. Magazines have to overhauled from time to time, and it takes a lot of hard work and vision to ring these changes. Sea Angler had the same thing a little while ago (see here), and the magazine looks better and better to me every month.

• What makes me even happier is that the powers that be have chosen one of my photos to go on the cover of the relaunch issue. Nice one !! OK, so I might be a bit biased towards their choice, but I really like what has been done with the photo of Nick Hart you can see on the forthcoming cover above. What a strong way to launch this brand new fly casting series we have been shooting recently - with words from Nick of course.

• The whole style of the magazine looks that bit "cleaner" to me, and personally I believe that is a good thing. So much information has to be crammed into these kinds of publications, and the trick is to make sure this info is put across in a way that can appeal to fishermen of very different skill levels. Plus you want a big dollop of inspiration in there. I reckon they have done this here, and the proof will be on the shelves at the end of this month.

• Those Irish bass keep on coming. Keven Brain emailed me from Kerry to tell me of more bass up to 8lbs over the weekend, all returned. I would hazard a guess that he has the spots all to himself as well.

• And from south east Ireland, I hear that my mates Graham, Pat and Cian had a ball over the weekend, with numerous bass coming to lures and baits - the biggest going a cracking 10lbs (on a soft plastic lure), to the efforts of Mr. Hill himself. Check out the full report on Graham's blog here. That is some fishing, and again it proves two points to me - there is no better shore fishing for bass that I know of than over in Ireland, and that they can have awesome fishing all year round for them if the conditions play ball. I can't wait to start "discovering" a bit of the French bass fishing, but it is going to have to go a long way to match the fishing I know of in Ireland. Outstanding stuff indeed. The urge to emigrate has never been stronger !!

• How about the rugby on Sunday ? A day to warm the heart. The first half of England v France had me jumping up and down in delight, and I can't help but feel that those forty odd minutes had been coming for a while now. We just had to let go and play rugby if that makes any sense. It had to happen sometime, and perhaps it was just good timing that it happened against the French at Twickenham, and in perfect spring weather as well. The second half could never live up to the first, but what a fantastic game. I reckon England were almost so shocked at what they had achieved in the first half that they went back into their shells somewhat. Still, we won properly, and the big test now is to see how we perform against Scotland on Saturday. If we play well and win properly, I reckon we are allowed to hope again. Perhaps even dream again. But we shall see............

• While my website is undergoing a rebuild, I have come across a great way of putting up really good looking web-based galleries of my photos, and I have put a few up recently. Check out a load of black and white photos here for starters. For more, check out the links on the right hand side page of this blog, under the "My Photos - various galleries" heading. There is plenty of bass stuff up there if that floats your boat.

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.........

Shore fishing for bass in France ?

• Although the photo you can see above was shot in Jersey, in truth it could just as easily be over in France - a huge amount of French bass fishermen are fishing from fast, open boats with spinning rods and reels, doing the exact same thing you can see here. Tide, features, more tide, more features, bass love them all. Note the red Tenryu rod - these things are turning up everywhere, and this has to say something about how good they are. Starting to save up now for my Tenryu Super Mix 240..........

• Therefore a lot of the development we see with "their" fishing is related to catching bass off a boat. Of course there is a lot of crossover between this more modern style light tackle bass fishing, but you also need to bear in mind that a rod and lure that has been developed for fishing say twenty to forty metres down in a fast tide is most likely going to be of little use to us for our shore fishing.

• But I did spend a fair bit of time talking to various people at the Nantes show about the shore fishing opportunities in France. My spoken French is not nearly as strong as it once was, but I can get by. I love fishing from boats, and I hope to do plenty more of it in the future, but at heart I am most contented when I have to get out and walk serious miles. And I think I have come across some awesome shore fishing potential over in France for smashing proper numbers of bass and also wrasse on lures - I presume pollack as well, and those three species keep me more than happy.

• When I asked one of the French guys whether they caught any wrasse off the shore on soft plastics, he laughed !! They catch stacks of them (100 in two days last year), and some monsters as well - wrasse to over 8lbs from the shore, on lures. Bring it on. Plus when conditions are right, big numbers of bass on hard and soft plastic lures. One angler was describing a particular technique to me where he was working a very small, 25g vertical jig rigged with assist hooks to fish a particular area of the shoreline in a very precise way, and in three consecutive casts he landed three bass over 9lbs. Insanity prevails. The exact places they are fishing are of course not heavily publicised, especially with the pressure the French fish receive from so many mad-keen anglers, but it seems that you can have some decent shore sport if you look around. We shall see......

• As soon as time allows, I am going to try and head over to the west coast of France and begin to try and unravel more of what these guys are doing over there - and I really want to do a mixture of shore and boat fishing. It's perfect for me as I can just jump on the Plymouth-Roscoff ferry that departs about ten minutes from my front door. Seems to me that the open-minded, adventurous bass angler can find world class fishing in a lot of different places. Sure, it takes time, effort and money, but if you want to find the best fishing, it certainly ain't going to come to you. There is a part of me forever lost to the deserted coastlines of Ireland.

• I shot a feature yesterday with Nick Hart, for Trout Fisherman magazine. We never saw the sun all day, but we had a fantastic time with some stunning rainbow trout in great surroundings. There was not a breath of wind and this allowed me to shoot the kind of photo that you can see above - Nick casting a perfect line with that awesome looking tree perfectly reflected on the flat calm surface of the lake. A modern digital camera tends to want to try and slightly over-expose a scene like this, and as a result a lot of the contrast and "punch" can be lost. In a situation like this I have deliberately dialled in a bit of minus exposure compensation to try and retain the overall look.

• The trout that Nick caught were in fantastic condition, and this monster was the last one of the day. I lined this up as a cover-style photo, and in my head I could see the layout of the page already, but you never quite know what is going to actually end up on the front cover. We shall see what happens, but perhaps it is too far removed from "man plus fish" to make on to the front page. I really like how the guys at Trout Fisherman are making the magazine look, and I know how much hard work goes into it.

Winter rainbow trout

• Nick Hart and I did a feature yesterday at the pristine Blakewell trout fishery close to Barnstaple in North Devon - it is a fantastically well maintained place to go and fish, and even with all the rain we had on Monday, Nick still managed to nail a couple of stunning looking rainbow trout for my cameras. We even got big blue skies for the first couple of hours as well. Check the photo above for proof !! These skies look awesome in the winter.

• Conditions were fantastically tough for the actual fishing, so I take my hat off to Nick for getting a decent fish so quickly, almost to order in fact. The water had gone really murky with all that rain, yet I'm still there hoping that a fish was going to get caught quickly so that I could make full use of those blue skies - and come to order it did. Nice one Nick.

• I just saw a good friend of mine who happens to run a charter boat out of my home port of Plymouth - you could not hope to fish with a nicer or better skipper than Malcolm Jones, and it always gives me a real boost when I know the guy running the boat is also a mad keen angler. Malcolm has just got his boat Sea Angler II back in the water after its yearly dry-dock visit, and he nipped over to the mouth of the River Tamar for a quick session over the weekend. Five thornback ray to around 12lbs were caught, all on prawn baits, and Malc said he had one on before he had even managed to set up his second rod. Class fishing. If you want an awesome day at sea, book Malcolm up as soon as you can.

It's getting very hard.......

• .....to keep watching England play rugby. James and I got back into Heathrow on time on Saturday morning, and I made it back to Plymouth in plenty of time to watch England take on Italy in the opening match of the Six Nations. My wife and two daughters had made me a birthday cake, so I did the decent thing and Sky +ed the second half of the rugby......

• How bad can a game of rugby get ? I am a fanatical England rugby supporter, but I am finding it increasingly tough to keep watching the turgid rubbish that they keep playing. OK, so we essentially thrashed a very weak Italian side, and a win is a win, but it's just such boring, depressing stuff to watch. I am not one of those people who demands that England play expansive rugby all the time, but the stuff they are churning out at the moment would test the most hardy of souls. What on earth is going on ? England's greatest ever skipper (Martin Johnson is GOD) is in charge of the team, yet even he can't seem to get the team playing with any intelligence or "think on your feet" attitude. I am dreading the Wales game next weekend, and how often do you say that ? November 2003 seems like a lifetime ago.

• One bit of good news is the release of the first great metal album of the year - the mighty Kreator keep on churning out the classics, and their latest CD is a ferocious thrash metal assault that will make any morose rugby fan smile. I keep reading about the "rebirth of thrash metal", but as far as I can tell it has never gone away - how about The Haunted, Death Angel, Slayer, Kreator etc ? The new bands I have heard are not remotely fit to even polish the shoes of classic bands like these who are still releasing monstrous albums. Listen to a few tracks of Kreator's latest release "Hordes of Chaos" right here. The sweet sounds of anger pouring forth from my speakers have put a smile back on my face, and that takes some doing after the grim rugby and the even grimmer weather that has greeted me on my return from Belize. I have taken Jess for a walk twice today, and both times I have been dressed in full waterproofs - nice !! Thoughts of fishing are not in the forefront of my mind at the moment....

• If the weather lets us, Nick Hart and I will be out tomorrow to photograph a feature for Trout Fisherman magazine. A little different from photographing out in Belize, but considering the up and down weather we had out there I'll gladly get into my waders and photograph the entire day under a big golfing umbrella if I have to. I do not like being beaten by the conditions.

Off to Belize

• I am frantically trying to clear a load of work before packing my stuff and heading off to Belize tomorrow - I have to leave early tomorrow morning to drive up to Heathrow, fly to Miami, spend the night there, and then fly down to Belize on Sunday morning US time. With the weather outside my window right now, I have to say that the chance of some big blue skies and a bit of heat sure is going to be more than welcome..........

• The photos here are from a photo job I did yesterday with Nick Hart, for another piece in an upcoming series on casting in Trout Fisherman magazine (check out the current edition on pages 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 for our latest feature). Yesterday was a tough shoot, with fairly appalling light levels, but we worked hard and nailed a good looking set of photos - I had to shoot most of the day on anywhere up to ISO 800 to get fast enough shutter speeds, but with modern digital cameras the files are so clean that it's not much of a problem. Yesterday was the kind of day when I really would have been struggling on ISO 100 slide film...............ah, the good old days of Provia !!

• I am pretty sure that I am going to have proper internet access when we are in Belize, so I will do my best to keep this blog updated as regularly as possible, hopefully with some very cool stuff. The long range forecast for the UK seems to give it getting really cold again early next week, so I guess a quick "in and out" photographic trip to warmer climes ain't too bad. All joking aside, it's going to be great to work it really hard and look for lots of cool material - we touch back down in the UK next Saturday, and it just happens to be my birthday (nearer 40 than 30), so I reckon a wicked present would be England starting the Six Nations rugby really well. But nothing ever beats getting home and seeing my four girls again - wife, two daughters and of course Jess my sheepdog. Perhaps a big England win though......................................?

• Make sure to check out the brand new Hardy, Greys and Chub websites, just launched this week I believe.

This weather has been due......

• If you have got the weather we have at the moment then welcome to the club - mist, grey skies, drizzle and generally a complete lack of sunshine is all I can see out of my office window right now. But we can't really complain that much with the (relative) amount of sunshine we've had so far this winter, in fact it's been pretty good. If I could be sent a little bit more of the giant golden orb for a photography job with Nick Hart on Thursday, that would be great - but the forecast says otherwise at the moment.......

• I have put a few photos up from the ultra remote atolls of the Seychelles to see what you think of them in black and white - photographing those huge blue skies on pristine flats is as close to somebody like me is ever going to get to paradise, and I hope you notice that I am not complaining (too much) about our current weather. That's because on Saturday I am heading off to photograph some flats fishing out in Belize. Bring it on !!

• I am convinced my end that huge blue skies can work well in various shades of black and white, if there is enough detail from the clouds to provide a load of depth and contrast. Don't get me wrong, I love the extremes of colour that flats based photography can provide, and I am really hoping for endless blue skies out in Belize, but I will also be looking out for any black and white opportunities that I see out there. On these kinds of work trips (might as well try and work in some cool places) I have to try to nail as wide a range of material as possible.

• I am travelling out to Belize with a friend of mine called James, and he just happens to be one of the most awesome fly fishermen I have ever worked with. The guy is extremely modest and would never acknowledge this, but he has got a serious talent for smashing serious numbers of fish on the fly, indeed I believe James has landed over 100 different species of fish on the fly so far. Now that takes some doing. I have worked with enough talented fly fishermen on this earth to know how well James can fish.

• The target species in Belize are going to be (weather depending) tarpon, permit and possibly snook, but we will wait until we get there and take into account our guides' advice. James and I are travelling via the international fly fishing travel company Aardvark McLeod - I do a lot of work with these guys and they always impress me in a big way. Not all fishing overseas has to cost an arm and a leg.....

• On Saturday, James and I are flying out to Miami, overnight there, and then we head down to Belize the next morning. We have four and a half days' for fishing and photography (sleep is not an option, that's for the flights home), and then we arrive back in the UK just in time for the first match in the Six Nations. English rugby worries the hell out of me at the moment, but surely a massive revival is just about due ?

Technology can be great

• I was walking my dog Jess early this morning and I got to thinking about how modern technology helps so many us in our working lives, plus also with our fishing. I seriously doubt whether I would be making a living in fishing right now if it was not for digital photography, the internet, computers, and the advantages they gives somebody like me who works on their own. This has been really banged home to me this week in fact, for various different reasons.

• There are also a couple more black and white photos below that I have been playing around with - the first is of a flounder from a shoot the other day, and the second is from the east coast of Canada last autumn. I gotta see where I can take this kind of thing, I am really liking it.........

• Take this photo shoot I did with Nick Hart on Tuesday - I am there to make it look as good as I can via the medium of photography, but it is vital that the technical side of the fly casting is correct, and that is down to Nick's expertise. With digital photography I can shoot away, try plenty of different things, and then at the end of the day I can dump the photos to my laptop and review them with Nick, before I head off home. He can instantly tell me what photos are technically incorrect from a casting point of view, and this then allows us to get rid of the dross and get the right images to Trout Fisherman magazine as fast as possible.

• I then very quickly get these photos ready for publication my end, but instead of then copying the images to a CD or DVD and trundling off the Post Office in my car (none local to me anymore, it closed down), I zip the images into one compressed file and upload them over the internet. While that is going on in the background on my second computer, I can carry on with other work.

• When I go away on a job, overseas for example, I go basically as a self-contained unit - I can photograph all day, edit photos at night, and write words in airports, on trains and planes (ok, not so easy in steerage class where I always am !!), plus, depending on where I am, I can often keep communicating with clients etc. It's far better for me to work my proverbial socks off when I am way from home, and modern technology allows me to do far more than I was ever able to.

• One reason this technology thing really means so much to me is the ease with which somebody like me can move images all around the world. Putting good looking imagery in front of clients has never been faster or easier. Technology has made the world a far smaller place, and while I agree that on the one hand this can have its downfalls, on the other hand I see so many benefits. It got me thinking this week because I have uploaded different batches of photos to people in the UK, South Africa, America, Denmark, Argentina and Norway, all via the internet. Putting both low-res sample and high-res publishable photos and material in clients' faces (or Inboxes) very quickly and efficiently is the name of the game in my business. I am sure the same applies to a number of you.

• And on the fishing front, I am continually amazed at how much international fishing information now buzzes around the internet especially, via various websites, forums and blogs. Take a forum like the one at WorldSeaFishing.com, see here - so it might major on UK style sea fishing, but there are anglers from all over the place both viewing and posting all the time, and information is scattering far and wide as a result. Check out a US fly fishing news website like MidCurrent (see here) - before the internet, where on earth were you going to see this kind of up to date information and news from across the pond ? Granted, fishing around the world might hold no interest for some of you, but in my job I have to really keep my ears close to the grapevine, and modern technology allows me to do that extremely efficiently. Plus I am fascinated in all kinds of fishing all over the place anyway, regardless of whether I am ever going to do it or see it. We can all but dream about various things......

• Please make sure to check out Paul's comments on my post from yesterday about scrapping Article 47 - Paul has very kindly put some details up there of more people to contact to register your protest, plus a reply he got back. Doing nothing is not an option when it comes to the future of our sport -sticking your head on the sand and hoping that any "future of fishing problems" simply go away ain't going to do any good at all. Modern technology makes it easier for us little guys to get seen and heard.

Precision casting

• I started work yesterday on a new series of casting features with Nick Hart - these will come out in Trout Fisherman in due course. Nick is working on putting the technical aspects of fly casting into regular fishing scenes, so that the fisherman can take the various casts and learn more about when to actually use them to catch more fish. Casting is obviously a hugely important part of fly fishing, we all know that, but the aim in my mind is always to learn how to smash a few more fish in a given situation. The same could be said of sea fishing could it not ?

• To start the process off, we needed to try and find a "look at this" opening photo to run across a couple of pages (DPS), and by pure luck the weather was with us from the off. There are lots of different ways to shoot casting, and a lot of them are set by the weather and background you have, but the moment I saw the light and situation I could "see" these photos in my head as strong opening shots- the photos above and below are a couple of examples. I made a really contrasty black and white version to see what it looked like, and I really like it, but it is up to the designers at Trout Fisherman as to what they use from yesterday's shoot. Nick is a complete pro at what he does and he is an incredibly easy guy to photograph.

• The photo above is a more "regular" casting shot of Nick roll-casting a line along the margins, but even then these things take a lot of thought and pre-planning. I am always on the lookout for different angles and views, and I thought this photo worked pretty well with the orange line coming down through the frame. The aim is to provide a photo that can say a lot in regards to the words that Nick writes, and this kind of thing does that.

• With a more technical shoot like this, it is vital that my creative attempts marry up properly with what Nick knows is technically right and wrong in a cast. This is the beauty of digital photography. On a shoot like this we can photograph a load of stuff and then check everything on my laptop to make sure any glaringly wrong stuff is deleted. Not that Nick would ever make a bad cast !! Imagine me doing the fly casting ?!!

• As I have said before, working in fishing is never what it seems. This job of mine really gives me a huge kick, and I love almost every part of it (except for paying taxes especially), but my own fishing time now compared to pre-kids and pre-fishing work is somewhat of a scary reduction. In all honesty though I have never loved fishing more than I do now, and just getting to be around it all the time does me just fine. The world's a fascinating place. I am off to Belize at the end of next week on a photo job and I can't wait.......more details in due course.

That makes it four......

• I have just found out that a photo of mine is on the front of the forthcoming Hardy UK and Europe 2009 catalogue, as you can see above. That just about makes my day, for I have no say in any of their catalogue covers - I just submit my photos when asked, and then wait to see what happens. Getting my photos on the cover of something like the Hardy catalogue gives me a real kick, and once again I am really pleased with the shot they have used.

• The photograph is of their commercial director Martin Kelly doing rather nicely with a double-handed fly rod (I think he was using a Hardy ??!!) out in Norway last year. It's the kind of thing you shoot with a front cover in mind, but Martin never knew I was taking the photo. The trick with this particular photo was to dial in some minus exposure compensation to make sure not to blow the highlights out when they are set against the relative dark of the water and tree branches. That light blue Hardy shirt looks great, but when it is around any kind of bright light, a camera tends to want to blow it out. Cameras are great, but it is vital to know exactly when not to trust them and instead rely on what you know.

• It is this kind of "eyes in the back of your head, be prepared to shoot wherever and whenever" attitude that you need to get anywhere close to succeeding in working in fishing. Am I anywhere close to getting to where I want to get in fishing ? Not yet, but I'm working hard to get there......

• With this latest cover shot, that makes four for me - four of the Hardy & Greys 2009 catalogue covers have my photographs on them. That is what you could refer to as a result in my book. Above is the Greys 2009 Game cover with a photo of a decent steelhead taken in the wilds of British Columbia. I am somewhat pleased !!

• Above is the Hardy 2009 Game catalogue that is out in the US. I shot this photo in Montana last summer, and I so badly want to go back and photograph a load more US trout fishing. In fact there are an increasing number of fishing related things that I want to do out in America. Check out a load of photos I shot in Montana right here.

• And above is the new Greys 2009 Sea catalogue. There are stacks of my photos inside as well. The light in the photo really reminds me of a typical winter's day of sunshine and showers, but in fact I took this photo up in north Cornwall in July. You can't beat an English summer !!

• You have to check out this insane saltwater fly fishing, see the video right here - these are the outstanding South African based FlyCastaway guides that I have worked with on numerous occasions, and without a doubt they are some of the most talented fly fishermen on this earth. This video is all about fly fishing for the world's largest tarpon off the coast of Angola. I remember sitting on the beach there some years ago, watching the tarpon and threadfin rolling around, knowing that we were not kitted out to fish for them, and vowing one day to get back there. These guys catch monsters on the fly, plain and simple, and you can fish with them by talking to Aardvark McLeod right here. Stuff like this does not come cheap, but the FlyCastaway consistently put their clients over some of the best fly fishing on this planet.

• Nick Hart and I are out tomorrow to shoot some new casting stuff for Trout Fisherman magazine, so we will see what the weather brings and take it from there. I really like doing this kind of stuff with Nick, he is so easy to work with, and the fact that he can cast like a dream kind of helps. He is without doubt one of the busiest and best-respected fly fishing guides and instructors around, so make sure to get in early and book him up. I guarantee that your fly fishing will come in leaps and bounds - I guess I need to take my own advice and book Nick up myself, as anybody who has seen my cast a fly rod can attest to !!

First front cover of 2009

• I am not completely sure when the current issue of Trout Fisherman hit the shops, but since it's a new year, I'll claim the above as my first front cover of 2009 - the photo is of Nick Hart at Blakewell trout fishery, and I have got to hand to the powers that be at the magazine. I really like the way they have used this particular photo.

• Check out the feature inside, on pages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 - the photo that runs across pages 6 and 7 is one that I remember shooting specifically for this kind of use, and all credit to their designer for picking up on this. It's hardly an award winning photograph that will be gracing London galleries, but in my job you have to keep thinking all the time to make fishing look different and exciting. Sometimes the weather and light allows you to really go a little creatively crazy, and sometimes you are more restricted. Whatever happens, you have to nail the job, and I thrive on the challenge this presents.

• I am flying up to Newcastle early tomorrow morning, to spend the day up at Hardy Greys in Alnwick, and then I fly back down to Plymouth on Tuesday morning. On this blog next week I will talk a bit about my rods and reels of 2008 - I am not really into the ins and outs of fishing tackle (believe it or not !!), but last year it really hit home to me that here in the UK we have a long way to go on the tackle front when it comes to making effective, modern bass fishing gear. It is not a criticism at all, simply a fact. Modern, high-tech bass fishing is rapidly growing in interest in the UK, and the anglers that are really interested in it are increasingly looking to Japanese, French and US designed and built products.

• We design and/or make some great fishing tackle in the UK, of course we do, but at times we could do well to realise that here in the UK we don't know everything about fishing, and it's a big old world out there with lots of different fish, fished for in lots of different ways. Plenty of guys I know are hungry for information from all over the world, and arguably the PC and the internet have become one of the most powerful tools there are for the learning and trading of knowledge.

• And of course there are plenty of anglers who have no interest in anything that is not in their backyard - whatever floats your boat I suppose, but isn't it such fun to learn about how other anglers do their thing elsewhere on this fascinating planet ? So much of it has applications for our own fishing that we do, both home and abroad. Never has so much knowledge and information been so accessible, and this kind of thing really drives me on and on. Learning is what fishing is all about to me, and I reckon I learnt more in 2008 than I have for a long time. For a lot of this I owe huge thanks to many people, and you know who you are without me having to name you. Thanks to you all. Here's to learning even more in 2009.......

Great day fly fishing yesterday

• Just look at those big blue winter skies that greeted Nick Hart and I yesterday as we began shooting a feature for Trout Fisherman magazine up at Exe Valley fishery - wow !! Time to whack on the polarising filter and get weird and wonderful with my 16-35mm lens. Above is a shot of Nick setting up for the fishing with a Hardy Demon rod and reel - the Demon reels are always good to photograph, and I know that Nick really likes using them for a lot of his fishing. Being able to so easily change lines is a real bonus in fly fishing.

• And then we got all kinds of weather, from big blue skies and relatively calm conditions through to torrential rain and driving winds. About the only thing missing for us yesterday was a bit of snow. Challenging for the both of us, but ultimately very rewarding to shoot and fish in such varied and interesting light.

• You can see the rain coming in the photo above, but when you get big black clouds lit up by the sun, it often makes a very cool photo. Nick is bringing another rainbow trout to the net for the obligatory photo call. A few minutes later and I was taking pictures from underneath a big golf umbrella.....

• If you are up that way, make sure to check out not only Exe Valley fishery, but the extremely well stocked and far too tempting Hart Fly Shop that is slap bang next to the lakes. I succumbed and bought myself a fleece in there yesterday. They also have a very good online store here.

• Talking of Trout Fisherman magazine, have a look in the current issue at pages 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 for a winter stillwater feature that Nick and I did - there are also some mighty big blue winter skies in there as well. I know it is tougher for the fishing, but from my point of view I'll take them as much as we are given them.

• I have recently added a way that you can subscribe to this blog via email updates - if this is helpful to you, fill out the "Email Subscriptions" box on the right hand side of this page, and my ramblings will be delivered right to your Inbox. Is this a good thing ? I will let you decide.....

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.

A front cover

• This is my cover photo on the current edition of Trout Fisherman that is in the shops right now. Check out the feature inside on pages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, shot with Nick Hart earlier this year at Burton Springs Fishery up on the north Somerset coast. Very close in fact to a few spots I used to fish a lot for rays and cod. It's Nick that you can see on the cover - one of those fantastic big blue sky winter days when everything is perfect for photography.

• I have had a few front covers with Trout Fisherman this year - see here, here, and here. It's always a kick to get one, and I like to see what the various designers choose to use. A lot of people have no idea that photography is such a huge part of my work in fishing, and it seems to be growing and growing.

• The main thing going on today is obviously the fact that a brand new England rugby team under Martin Johnson (we are definitely not worthy) is playing the first of a series of autumn internationals. Is this the new dawn of English rugby that we have all been waiting for ? I am seriously hopeful................considering that Martin Johnson was our greatest ever skipper, I have high hopes for what he can do with the team. I get the sense that the respect for the man is so great that the players dare not turn up without their A games. We need England to be great again. Bring it on big time.

• I had a text message from a friend over in south east Ireland last night to say that he had caught a 4lb codling on his first "cod cast" of the winter, and that the signs are good. It seems to be a little known fact over here that a lot of the southern Irish coastline chucks up some great cod fishing in winter, from the beaches and the numerous estuaries. I am due to be heading over at the end of this month to photograph some of it, and if the weather plays ball, I am sure we will find time for a bit of bass fishing as well !! How could we not ?

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.