A few nice fish around

• There were a few decent fish caught over the weekend down here, so I guess that big southerly wind we had on Friday night did a bit of good. It played havoc though with Del over in the Isles of Scilly, but even so he landed a few mullet up to 5lbs - the bigger fish were there, but with so many maggots coming out of the weed he was unable to bring them larger fish within casting range. Still, a 5lb mullet would do me just fine !!

• A friend of mine landed a 28lb conger eel for a mate of his on a rock mark in South Devon that I used to fish for bull huss a lot, with some success as well - I had them to just under 14lbs off there myself, and I saw them landed to over 15lbs. My mate told me he nearly got washed in landing the eel, and they lost a bigger fish as well. Take it easy on those rocks when a bit swell is running.

• I also heard of a 12lb thornback ray and a 12lb plus cod from the River Tamar - it can be a frustrating and difficult place to fish at times, but the Tamar has a long history of chucking up decent fish. Virtually all my best shore caught cod came from Devil's Point at the mouth of the Tamar, fishing usually an hour and a half either side of low water on all sizes of tide. I never found any kind of pattern to catching cod in the Tamar, and it was more a case of if you could hold your bait out there in the tide, you were in with a shout of a decent fish. Daytime, night time, small tides, big tides, rough weather, flat calm weather, rain sunshine, doesn't matter - peeler crab always worked for me for the cod, with prawns killing for the thornbacks, but the prawns catch the cod as well.

• Flounder fishing has never been my thing, but the guys have been catching some nice fish. A friend of mine has had two flounders of 3lb 12oz already, plus numerous other big ones, and the signs seem to be good for the Kingsbridge estuary especially to switch on sometime very soon. Good to hear that the famous River Teign has been producing so many quality flounder again.

• Below are a few more examples of some black and white photographs that I have been playing around with. Any comments are more than welcome, and please bear in mind that I am not always sure how these low-res JPEGs look on other computer screens - I work on calibrated screens in my office here, and there is always a degree of loss of detail when you down-res an image to put on the internet. They look very good on my screens (but then I would say that !!) at full size, so please bear that in mind when you look at them.

• I photographed this stunning girl in southern India a few years ago, in a local village close to where we were fishing for mahseer (see here for some photos) - I have never seen anybody look through a lens with such ease and confidence.

• The above photo was shot in Zambia when we were chasing the outrageous tigerfish on the fly - what a fish, what a place. A bunch of photos from that trip are here. It's those skies that work for me here.

• This kid was fishing with a dropnet off the local pier on Los Roques, an archipelago off the coast of Venezuela. I tend to obviously major on shooting fishing, but I also like to look around for different photos when I can. See a bunch of stuff from Los Roques here.

• We blew yet another tyre heading back to Kampala in Uganda, after smashing the Nile perch at Murchison Falls in a major way. A bunch of locals gathered around to see what on earth a couple of white guys were doing with a dusty Landrover, a spare tyre and a jack. The kid you see above just looked so serene and calm. See here for more photos.

• I am not completely sure whether fishing gear works in black and white yet, but I do really like the photo above that was shot out in Canada a few months ago. A very simple composition, but something about the angles always worked in my head.

Big shore caught conger eel landed

• I got a text message from one of Plymouth's best shore anglers this morning, telling me that he had finally gone and done it - last night Rob Yorke landed a 43lb conger eel from the River Tamar, and I know how much this fish means to him. Well done Rob, you deserve this fish, I know how hard you have been chasing a 40lb plus eel. They are a hard fish to come by at that size off the shore.

• Conger eels are one of the most powerful fish we can catch off the shore in the UK, and the 40lb mark is a true milestone to get past. Immensely powerful fish that require serious dedication, personally I have never got past 40lb off the shore, and I have spent far too many hours of my life trying. I know how hard it is to land a fish of this size, having lost one over 50lbs on the gaff when I was at university, so my respect for what Rob has done is huge - the monster I lost some years ago gave me nightmares for months afterwards. I also lost a huge eel when we were filming I think it was for my first TV series, but that is another story..............

• Below is Rob Yorke with a nice mullet he caught from the tiny Channel Island of Sark a couple of years ago when we were across there in winter. You will have to go a long way to find a nicer guy or more accomplished angler than Rob, so I could not be more pleased for him - it is one thing to set yourself goals in fishing, but to achieve them is another thing entirely. He has had more good fish off the shore than a lot of us put together, and I know how hard he works at it.

• I have been asked a lot over the years about the people in fishing that I really admire, and I always answer the same - I have no time for "fishing celebrities or experts", or people like that (the word "expert" is one that I have a particular dislike for in fact). But I do have the utmost respect for fishermen who really know their fishing - the fish, the water, the tides, the feeding patterns and times, weather influences, reading the water, etc. The kinds of things that take years of dedication to accumulate - watercraft, one of the most important and often overlooked things in fishing. These are the kind of anglers that I strive to learn from.

Canon 1D MK11, 24-70 f2.8L lens (at 45mm), ISO 320, f4.5, 1/200

• The River Tamar is big fish country - hard to fish unless you know the tides and conditions, and tough because you are going to blank more often than you catch when chasing good fish. But nowhere in the UK has thrown up more big eels over the years, including Martin Larkin's current shore record of just over 68lbs. We all know there are far bigger fish down there, but getting them out is another matter entirely - fish that can swim as fast backwards as they can forwards are somewhat expert at exploiting weaknesses in your gear, and also at getting back into some kind of sanctuary. I hate to think of the number of times these things have smashed me to pieces, with a certain degree of disdain as well !!

• The most famous big fish marks in the Tamar are Devil's Point and Mutton Cove - both spots chuck up big conger eels, plus lots of decent thornback rays and some nice cod in winter, plus anything and everything at times. You have to fish these places to realise just how deep and tidal the water is.

• Rob said he fished for only two hours last night, with Mark Bryce, and the successful bait was mullet, a known big eel bait. He said he hit the fish and literally held it as hard as he could, to stop it diving back down and breaking him up. It must have been some sight to see that thing coming up in the headlights. Mark helped Rob get the eel out of the water. Well done guys - that is a serious fish.

• While those two were out fishing, I was watching one of the most exciting Wimbledon finals I can remember - while I really wanted Federer to get the six titles in a row, I have to say that Nadal deserved his victory. What a match, I could hardly watch for the whole fifth set it was so tense. It must have been amazing to actually have been there and watched it live. It has to have been some of the best men's tennis ever played - you would not find me facing one of those serves, I would be going down fast with a convenient calf injury to get out of the way of those howitzers.

• Is that more rain I can see out of my window ? Surely not...............thoughts of emigrating are becoming all the more frequent.