The jacks have saved us

• The fact that the jacks have been obligingly hitting the flies have saved us big time - there is nothing you can do when you get the kind of weather we have been getting out here in Belize, but you might as well go and nail a few hard fighting jacks when the tarpon and permit are keeping their heads down. It has been that (comparatively) cold here today that any self-respecting flats fish has long run for deeper water.

• The weather we have been getting out here sounds like nothing when compared to all the snow and cold I keep reading about back home, but for a place like this it has been pretty extreme. Wednesday was really bright, perfect for photography, but the wind was literally hurtling down the coast and causing the flats to go all milky and cold. Tarpon, bones and permit hate this !! We tried really hard but could not find the fish, so on the way back to the lodge we stopped to smash a few jacks - they were somewhat obliging. Nothing huge, but a blast. I even picked up a fly rod and (very badly) cast a Clouser Minnow out and nailed a few fish. James and I had a competition to see who could give the least amount of line to a hooked fish, and I am proud to say that I won - not one jack took a single millimetre of line off me. Very silly, but great fun.

• The wind was pumping even harder this morning, so our guide elected to run us miles south to try and find clearer water and the fish, but by the time we got there the rain was lashing down in a huge way - not great for flats fishing !! In fact I have never felt so cold in the tropics, and although that might be hard to believe, put a howling wind and lashing rain together and it was feeling more like fishing back at home. Granted, there was no snow, but with our luck I would not have been that surprised if James and I had got a dumping of the first ever snow they have had here !! This place chucks up some seriously good fish, but we have just been dealt a bum hand with the weather. In the bar there is a photo of a 197lb tarpon taken on the fly in 2002 - that is how good it can be here, and when the weather behaves, anglers get multiple shots at tarpon, permit and bonefish. I will be coming back to nail this stuff properly on camera......

• James and I are flying back to the UK tomorrow and if all goes to plan we should be landing at Heathrow just after 9am on Saturday morning. I am really hoping that the adverse weather at home does not prevent me getting back home to see my girls and of course make the 3pm kick-off for England v Italy in the opening match of the Six Nations rugby. With Saturday being my birthday, surely a good result might be on the cards ?

Tough day yesterday

• It feels a bit stupid to be talking about problems with the weather out here in Belize when back home in the UK they are having the worst snow for ages - but yesterday morning especially out here were some of the toughest flats fishing conditions that I have seen for a while. Howling winds and scudding grey skies make it really difficult, so the big jack you can see above was even more of an accomplishment by James. Targeting either permit or tarpon yesterday was never going to happen. We saw a few nice snook lying very close to some mangroves, and James landed a small one, but the bigger ones don't get big by being stupid. We were told of some snook landed on the fly the other day out here to over 20lbs.

• Above you can see James's jack being landed by our guide - this place is an awesome location. El Pescador lodge where we are staying is simply fantastic, and when the weather is kinder they have some outstanding fishing here for serious numbers of tarpon (some truly huge fish as well) and permit, plus stacks of mainly small to medium sized bonefish. Some fly anglers never look twice at big jack crevalle, but there are lots out here -anybody who ignores the chance to fish for them needs their heads examined. Belize is a country that is really growing on me, and the more you speak to the locals, the more you realise just what an incredible fishery there is out here. There are big numbers of resident tarpon around all year that do not migrate, but during July, August and September there are a scary amount of migrating tarpon moving through here, and it is not uncommon to land numbers of them every day. All we need is some half-tidy weather and we have got a decent chance........and the forecast is giving it to be a lot better for today.

• The moment James and I got back in off the boat yesterday, we jumped straight in the kayaks and paddled out into the backcountry behind the lodge. We found some shelter from the wind and James smashed a few bones on a deserted flat, including this one above. Nothing very big, but proper fun - I saw one shoal of decent bonefish moving around, but they were not in a feeding mode. We did see a few tailing fish, and James also saw a spooky permit.

• Messing around on the kayaks is a blast, even though we got lost for a bit and could not work out where to go in the maze of mangrove channels out here !! With the sun rapidly going down, I did not fancy getting stuck out in the backcountry when the mozzies came out to play. It's before first light as I am typing this and we have two full days left to get this properly nailed - if the weather plays ball then I hope we can show just how good it can be out here.

• As regards some fishing that is more in keeping with all the snow I keep hearing about back home, check out this mad Norwegian ice fishing at this link right here. Scroll down the page a bit and you will see my mate Cato and a friend of his with some proper pollack and coalfish that they nailed through a tiny hole in the ice - check out the size of the fishing rod !! This looks like class fishing, and Cato tells me they had pollack to 12lbs through the ice, mainly on various soft plastics fished on jigs.

Tricky fishing conditions

• OK, so it's not snowing out here in Belize like it is back home, but at first light this morning the wind was really pumping the clouds through - if there is one thing you need for flats fishing, it's decent light to help spot the fish. James nailed this nice mutton snapper early on, but it was tough fishing for most of the day. We saw a few nice permit tailing, plus some spooky tarpon and bonefish, but it was not easy to see fish moving.

• The weather gradually improved all day though, and this allowed me to start nailing some proper photos - I do really love photographing flats based fishing when the sun gets high in the sky and starts lighting the sand up. There is hardly a breath of wind at the moment, so we are hoping that it stays like this for tomorrow, and then we are in with a proper chance of nailing tarpon and possibly permit. It's lovely and warm out here, but a part of me wished I could see all that snow that is falling in the UK - we see it so rarely and it is a bit of a shame to be away when it is all happening.

• Isn't fly fishing awesome ? Isn't fishing in general just plain awesome ? I love photographing fly fishing virtually anywhere, but it really works well for casting shots when the light allows me to frame the angler against big blue skies and try for something that little bit different. James happens to be a seriously good fly angler, and he can chuck a proper line.

• We finished the day off by drifting a channel that lay between a couple of small islands, and James smashed the jacks in a big way. We could see hundreds and hundreds of jacks of all sizes swimming around below the boat, and a fair few were taken on fast sinking lines and a Clouser Minnow. Both James and I are big fans of the jacks, and they never cease to amaze me at just how insanely hard they fight. Pound for pound I reckon they are one of the hardest fighting fish there is. Anyway, time to hit the sack and recharge the batteries for another day tomorrow.

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 ?

Not the finest fishing session

• Three of us headed up to the rugged north Cornwall coast on Saturday evening to try for a ray or two, but we ended up with virtually nothing - James landed one miserable dogfish to show for all out efforts. I am hearing of some good ray fishing around the south west, but I guess we picked the wrong spot !! Above you can see James blasting out another bait.

• We left Plymouth in the pouring rain, and it then cleared up around Bodmin. But when we got to the north coast, it was shrouded in a dense fog that never lifted the whole time we were there. Conditions seemed to be excellent, with a nice swell rolling in and a good tide as well, but for some reason the rays were staying away from our sandeel baits.

• But just how good are those Daiwa Saltist reels ? I first put them on this blog back in January, see here for my review. I am seeing more and more shore anglers using them to great effect, and at the moment I know of no better 7000 size shore multiplier that we can get our hands on. Mine are loaded up with 20lb yellow Sufix Tritanium, with my current favourite shockleader, rig and trace material - the staggeringly good Sufix Zippy that is now available in the UK. Check here for details. You have to use this line to understand how good it is.

• I hear that more and more forward thinking bass anglers are starting to get hold of the Tenryu plugging rods that have so grabbed me. Reassuringly expensive, but worth all of it, these rods are where it's at right now for me. Whilst I am using the Red Dragon Express and can't find one single fault with it, arguably the most popular model is turning out to be the Rod Bar Model 270, see here. Think I might start saving up again !!

• Well done to Nick Hart for grabbing a few hours before work and landing a nice westcountry salmon, see here for the report. I have yet to photograph salmon in the UK, but they are such special fish to be around. My only experience of them was over on the Gaspe peninsular on the east coast of Canada, an experience that totally blew me away. Check out some photos here, and then book yourself a trip of a lifetime with Aardvark McLeod. Read Pete's report of a monster permit on the fly out in Cuba the other day - what a fish !! Just how badly do I want to photograph that saltwater fly fishing ?

• My mate Cato Bekkevold over in Norway has just emailed me to tell me about some great zander fishing they have just had, for fish up to 20lbs !! Together with a few nice pike on surface lures, this convinces me more and more that Norway has some of the best fishing around. I also hear that they guys are doing really well up at Rost for the halibut, cod and coalfish. See here for some reports. Reports are also excellent for the start of their salmon season.

• Anyway, enough about fishing for today - onto my other obsession in life, extreme metal. I can't believe that any metal fan does not listen to the awesome band Opeth - I know of no other group which so successfully blends such far out, progressive elements into their own brand of crushing death metal. The lead singer can seamlessly switch between stunning clean vocals and one of the world's most brutal death metal roars as naturally as I can switch between fishing and metal !!, and it makes for a seriously good band. I have just got hold of their new CD, called Watershed, and it is a hell of an album - spin it over and over and you'll start to lose yourself in this stuff, it's that good. The kind of CD you really need to sit down and listen to the whole way through. Listen to some tracks here. I photographed these guys in London a while ago, check through this lot here for some very cool photos of them, a few of which appeared in Metal Hammer magazine.

Bow to the silver king

• Around first light this morning, John hooked a steam train of a tarpon on a live crab. I reckon the fish jumped six feet out of the air within seconds of being hooked - every single time I see these fish I am reminded of just how seriously awesome they are. The silver king kicks you hard from time to time, but to see one close to the boat is something you can never forget. Rodney managed to grab the leader and I was just about to rattle off a few frames when the line broke and the huge fish powered away. It counts as a caught fish over here, but I didn't get the photos I was after. But I got a very cool wide shot of John playing his fish, with the tarpon jumping clear of the water as the sun was rising - see above. Rodney put the tarpon at around 150lbs, so it was a proper fish. John played it perfectly. What a result after yesterday's kicking.

• I got a couple of half-takes, when the fish hits the crab yet the line does not tighten up enough to go for a proper strike. I did hit one of the bites just as the tarpon let go of the bait, but the moment I did so I realised my mistake.

• And then we went after some permit again - and I broke my duck. Once again we lost a few good fish to sharks and breakages, and I was heartbroken when my 50lb braid suddenly broke right on the tip ring as a nice permit snorted off. Stupid of me really, I should have checked the rings before fishing, as after the breakage I found a damaged tip eye that had caused the line to snap.

• But take a look at Rodney holding my first ever permit below. Over 20lbs of prime Keys permit, taken on a freelined live crab fished behind the boat. This fish ripped off so fast a couple of times during the fight, to the point where I reckon smoke had to be coming from the reel !! Their pace is off the scale - how does this fish move so fast and so powerfully ? I can quite see why some fly fishermen dedicate their lives to nailing these spooky fish on the flats. Permit are such pretty fish and it happened so fast today that I am not really sure I took it all in. Guess I'll have to try and catch a few more.

• There were a couple of sharks landed today as well, including a nice blacktip of around 60lbs that put on a serious turn of speed when it picked up the bait. These blacktips create mayhem close to the boat, but both were successfully unhooked and released. We also saw some proper barracuda around the boat at one point, but they refused the livebaits.

• I hear the weather has been nice and warm back home, so hopefully this might do some good on the bass fishing front. I am having a blast out here, but I can't wait to get back and see my family, plus head out plugging of course. I need to go and use that new Tenryu rod of mine again. I have found a couple of really interesting looking lures out here that I reckon might do nicely for bass, so yet again I have added to my collection.

Chewed up and spat out

• Today was one of those days when fishing decided to show us just who the boss is - we got torn to pieces by big fish all day long. We have returned this evening with bruised bodies and shattered egos. It started at just after 5am when Scott hooked a really big tarpon under Seven Mile bridge, and then for over an hour he played it really well, almost to the point where it was time to grab the leader. You can see Scott playing the fish above. But tarpon are not one of the world's ultimate game species for nothing, and right at the last minute the fish took off on a huge long run and smashed Scott up on the bridge. Gutted. John then had a good bite on live crab but did not connect. Back for breakfast and a regroup. 1-0 to the fish.

• Later on this morning we headed out to a wreck to try for permit and amberjack, and the fish were on the feed. I have never fished for permit and was dying to hook one. I have seen one hooked on the flats on fly, and I have seen the Indo Pacific variety on the flats in the Seychelles refusing flies, but I have never fished for them myself. Down goes a live crab on 50lb braid and a very tight drag. A few minutes later and I get a gentle kind of bite, but after I strike it, all hell lets loose. Within five seconds of hooking this permit I can see what all the fuss is about - they are awesome fish. Their turn of speed is insane, in fact I have rarely seen a fish take off so fast against a seriously tight drag. And of course the fish went and did me like a kipper. OK, so it isn't fly fishing for them, but this way of fishing for them is serious fun. 2-0 to the fish.

• John meanwhile has dropped a live pinfish down to the wreck on 80lb braid and a proper boat rod and reel. Above you can see what happened about five minutes after he put the bait close to the wreck - that drag is wound down as tight as it will go, I could hardly pull line off it myself, but the amberjack ripped him up big time. Look at how much pressure John is putting on the fish, but still he never stood a chance as it powered back to the wreck. The power level of this fish is simply impossible to describe. 3-0 to the fish.

• I then get done by another big permit - I wound my drag up even tighter, but still I could not stop the fish reaching the wreck and cutting me off. I am ashamed at my language when I lost that second permit !! I abused that fish, and still he did me good and proper. 4-0 to the fish and we are starting to wonder what on earth is going on here.

• John is next to be ripped up by a good permit, and by this time his body is suffering a little bit after getting abused so badly by the amberjack. 5-0 to the fish. We are bleeding here.

• We make a move to a different mark, and the permit are there as well. Sometimes you can see them swimming around, and Scott hooks up on a small jig baited with prawn. Things are going really well and the fish eventually begins to tire. This is it, nearly over, time for some photos of a fish I have wanted to see for ages. But then the permit suddenly charges to the surface with a number of sharks in hot pursuit, and then these sharks tear into the unfortunate fish and rip it to pieces in a complete frenzy. Seriously gutted. 6-0 to the fish. Pain time.

• I rush to change over to a little wire trace and a bit of cut fish bait, and within a few seconds one of the smaller sharks hits my bait and I set the hooks. The shark charges off and promptly bites through my wire trace. 7-0 to the fish and we head for home - broken, damaged, sore and humbled. What an incredible day. What else can humble like fishing ?

• The Florida Keys are insane. I know of no more cost effective way to get at this world class fishing than to get in touch with Rodney Goodship of Fish the Dream and book some time out here. We simply have no fish in the UK that fight anywhere close to species such as tarpon, permit and amberjack. Tomorrow is another day.

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.