Big soft plastics article out now

• Check out the latest issue of Sea Angler magazine for a big feature of mine on catching proper bass on soft plastic lures - look on pages 4, 5, 6, 7 and, 8 for my words and photos. All credit due to the guys at Sea Angler for making the stuff look so good, and for giving over so much space to this continual explosion of interest in a more "modern" style of bass fishing that so many of us as addicted to.

• It is my photo of the head of a bass that is on the front cover of the latest Sea Angler, and when I get hold of a copy of it I will post it up here. As always, I never get a say in the choice of covers, but I really like this one - ok, so perhaps I am a bit biased 'cos it's my photo on there !!

• There's a couple of photos here from that epic day in south east Ireland late last year, when Tom Hollyhock put on a MegaBass XLayer soft plastic lure, mounted on a small jig head, and then proceeded to blow his mind with the quality of the bass he nailed. Those few days of fishing and photography play on my mind a lot when I can't get out fishing or the weather is rubbish. Check out a load of photos from that particular trip right here. If I see many more days like that then I will be a lucky man..............

• I got back from my meetings at Hardy Greys up in Alnwick late yesterday morning. We got plenty done, but it's always good to get out of an office environment and back to what I do day to day. I have the utmost respect for anybody who works within the sport fishing industry, and I suppose so much of what makes it so interesting is that there are so many different niches where people can fit into and make a go of it. And there is so much more to do.

• I am going to do my utmost to start getting out bass fishing a proper amount now - work and weather allowing. There are some tiny tides this weekend, but I reckon the conditions look ok for various parts of the south west, and I keep hearing of more and more bass being taken on lures and baits. A lot of people want to know just how "big" bass fishing is in the UK, for various different reasons, but I can't see any way of measuring what is a kind of cult way of fishing that in my mind seems to be getting more and more popular all the time. So many people want to know about catching bass these days, on lures especially, and I reckon there are some exciting times ahead. If we have a decent season on the bass then I will be extremely interested to see where all this stuff goes.............

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.

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.

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.

Today is the last day of the show

• Yesterday was another really interesting day out here - it is not much use to spend all my time wandering around the show looking open-mouthed at all the kit on display. Granted, you could do this, and I did myself for the first few hours on Friday, but in truth I need to learn as much as possible.

• I have talked at length with one of the most respected and highly successful specialist shore anglers out here, and he is completely obsessed with fishing for bass. Kinda sounds like plenty of us does it not ? This particular person is using a rod no longer than about 8' for all his shore fishing, and very specifically the Tenryu Super Mix 240. I wanted to know why.....

• An angler like this guy wants a rod that can very easily switch from fishing more "conventional" hard plastic lures over to various soft plastics on either jig heads and or free swimming. Then he might go and put on a tiny 25g vertical jig, rigged with 1/0 assist hooks, and cast it close to one hundred metres and really search out huge areas of water by making this shiny piece of metal sink and flutter all the way in.

• So are there rods out here that can do this ? And bear in mind that they are very different bits of kit to the ultra-fast action rods that the French love to use for fishing with hard plastic lures - essentially the things we are most used to using. I am seeing a lot of companies out here who are launching lots of specialist "do it all very efficiently" bass rods that are used for both hard and soft plastics, and might stretch to a little bit of very light vertical jigging if required. You can easily buy individual rods that are designed purely for what I would now term the three different bass fishing methods out here (hard lures, soft plastics, and vertical jigging), but it is interesting to see the "crossover" rods.

• Tenryu without doubt is top of the three out here - the distinctly red rods are drawing big crowds all the time, and I see lots of guys walking around with red Tenryu rod bags that they have just bought. The Tenryu range is massive, and I want them all !! Dream on perhaps......

• The Tenryu Super Mix 210 (say 7'), 240' (8') and the 270 (9') are the all round, "cope with it all very well" rods, and they feel stunning to pick up and waggle. I already know of a fair few bass anglers from Jersey who are using these particular rods, and if there is one rod I would now buy to really get me into fishing with the mountain of soft plastics available, it is going to be the Super Mix 240. Better get saving !! The shore guy was talking me through the reasons behind the Super Mix 240 specifically, and I could really see exactly what he was getting at.

• But there are also plenty of awesome cheaper bass rods out here that will do the crossover style really well - I have talked a lot with the guys over at Sakura and Hart specifically, and there are some outstanding bits of kit for sensible money. The popular lengths for a rod that can do it all are without doubt 7', 8' and 9'. Bearing in mind of course that a lot of the bass anglers are fishing from boats of course, but around 8' seems to be the most popular length for this kind of rod, for both shore and boat work.

• There are also loads of more regular spinning rods out here, but what in the UK I would now term "specialist bass plugging", the French anglers call spinning for bass - this is using more regular hard plastic lures like the ones we all love. Surface, sub surface, stick baits, wanderers, you name it, bass love 'em. So a "more regular spinning rods" out here is generally lightening quick to use.

• Spinning (or plugging) rods out here are virtually all very fast action and seriously light. Gorgeous bits of kit at plenty of different price ranges, but you can see how the French bass anglers have so wholeheartedly embraced the fact that fast rods are far more efficient at working hard plastic lures from boat and shore. The length of rods range from 10' down to 7', and I have not seen a lure rod for bass yet that is over 10' long, and you can see that guys are more than happy to fish with the shorter rods. My own Tenryu Red Dragon Express is close to 10', and it is the most incredible rod to fish with, but I have to say that I would fish with a 9' specialist plugging rod off the shore with no worries at all. The Rod Bar 270 comes to mind.

• Anyway, lots more to think about. Time now to go and get some coffee and wake Trevor up who is sleeping (and snoring) in the bed next to me - nice !! I am flying back to the UK tonight, and I am so glad I came out here. It is the lads from Jersey that I know who first told me that I had to come to this show, and I owe them another debt of thanks for switching me on to this stuff.

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......

This is a different world of fishing out here

• This Nantes fishing show out here in France is simply staggering - I have been to lots of different fishing shows all over the world over the last few years, but never have I seen so much stuff that I know so comparatively little about. The French bass anglers especially are so technically advanced in what they are doing that my head is still spinning.

• I have learnt so much new stuff about lure fishing for bass in just one day that my head feels ready to explode, but I can not tell you how exciting it is to almost "discover" a market that is thriving on the driving forward of technology and fishing methods. I have learnt a lot about French bass fishing over the last couple of years, but today was a real wake-up call as to how far down the line they actually are.

• Now it's not to say that we are doing anything wrong with our bass fishing in the UK, because we are not. We catch some good fish from time to time with a variety of methods, but I now can not wait to start trying some of what I am learning about over here on "our" bass. I had no idea that you could successfully lure fish for bass in so many different ways, but bear in mind that it is only around ten years ago that this technological explosion in bass fishing methods and tackle began happening in France.

• The actual fishing gear out here is off the scale - far too many stunning rods that are often designed to fish very specific methods, plus more soft and hard lures that you could ever dream of using in a lifetime. It is a tackle tart's heaven out here. It's been a long day though and we are about to go and grab something to eat. More tomorrow. My head is hurting with all this information and I am loving every minute of it.

Going to the Nantes fishing show

• Like a kid in a candy store - I am in a high state of excitement about heading over to France later this week for the huge "Salon Europeen des Peches en Mer" show (see here). This will be the first time I have ever gone to this major sea fishing show, and with the emphasis being on bass fishing you can now understand my "mild" excitement at going. On the serious side, an event like this is work for me, and on a less serious note, hell, it's a chance to feed my (lure) addiction even more !! Soft plastic heaven here we come.....

• I am flying from Stansted to Nantes on Thursday and will be spending Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the show and then coming back home at the end of the weekend. My role there is to quite simply learn as much as possible about the rapidly expanding bass fishing market - I have various reasons for heading down there. If you have followed this blog for a while now, you will know how much I value what the switched-on French bass anglers are doing, and how much we are learning and still have to learn from them.

• Take the bass you can see above - this is one of the largest bass I have ever seen caught, and it was nailed on a peeler crab bait over in south east Ireland a couple of years ago. I love my bait fishing for most things that swim, but the more I learn about the increasingly modern ways of fishing with lures, the more I am convinced that bass like this one can be more regularly taken on hard and soft lures. Go to the right places at the right time, use the right tactics and mix it all up with a big dollop of luck and you might just see a magnificent fish like this on the end of your line.

• Allow these rabid mongrels into your life - you have to check out the new album from the British stalwarts Napalm Death, called "Time Waits for No Slave" - it is what I would term the second monster metal release of the year so far, right after this one here. A lot of people think that Napalm Death are just a load of noise, but you need to listen to them to hear just how downright groovy they are - yes, you heard it, groovy !! Heavy as hell, faster than a bolt of lightening frying your brain, but always willing to slow it down a tad and abuse your senses in the most proper of ways. Check out some tracks from the new album right here. If this does not get any self-respecting metal fan jumping up and down like a cat on a hot tin roof then you need to see somebody about it. Monday is getting better and better.

• And onto the Six Nations rugby - a glimmer of hope is how I would term the England performance on Saturday. OK, so the Welsh beat us (grudging respect to you lot over the border), but we actually stood up and showed some proper guts. We played some decent rugby and we began to look like a team who can think for themselves a bit under proper pressure. If we had not given away so many stupid penalties and lost two players to the sin bin we might have actually been able to win the game (ok, maybe I am dreaming). It always hurts to get beaten by the Welsh, but they were by far the better side and even then they have had much better days. They are growing into an awesome team (it hurts to have to type that) Is this the first sign of an English revival though ? Should I start getting excited again about England rugby ? Time will tell, but at least we saw a glimmer........

Winter bass fishing - what do we do ?

• Now that we are properly into winter, what does the bass junkie do ? On a personal level, I used to spend virtually all my fishing time in the winter chasing cod - collecting bait, fishing, surviving on very little sleep, fishing again, crabbing at strange hours, and trying a few rigs up. And then fishing again - a lot !! Times have changed though. But what are our options if we want to carry on chasing bass through the colder months ?

• Well, to be perfectly honest, I am not completely sure of all our options - there always seem to be bass around somewhere in the south west, and especially up the estuaries (bear in mind I am talking about shore fishing here). We used to sometimes catch schoolie bass in almost plague proportions when we were cod fishing in very rough seas just inside the Camel estuary (and especially off Flat Rock and Stepper Point), and I know of some really big bass caught when guys are flounder fishing. So it is not as if every single bass does a disappearing act until later on in the spring !!

• So we know that bass are a distinct possibility when fishing with baits, and I know guys who love this time of year for going after big bass. But what about on the lures ? A tougher time without question, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is worth a few attempts with these soft plastics that you can fish on jigs, bouncing them along the bottom. It is not going to be a bumper time of year on them, but I would guess that a few of us might get the odd surprise from time to time.............

• The most famous place for "depths of winter" bass fishing has to be the south west of Ireland (and specifically Kerry and Dingle), where the local bass freaks can experience some staggeringly good fishing on the right conditions. All the tourists and visiting anglers have long gone home, but when they get the correct onshore conditions into January and February especially, I know of a few guys who do really well when bait fishing for the bass - the Irish strands are of course the stuff of bass fishing legend, and sometime soon I simply have to get myself over to the south west to experience it. I reckon that classic fishing could look very cool in black and white as well.

• It is a real punt to go that far for winter bass fishing, for you are gambling with the weather in a big way, but it has to be worth it just for the chance to stand thigh deep in surf, waiting for a bite, and with nobody else around. If you are interested, the person I would contact can be found right here - Kevin is a professional shore fishing guide in Kerry, and he just happens to be a serious bass junkie. Check out some photos of him fishing right here. We never hear about a lot of their Irish winter bass fishing, but it can be very good.

• As for the south east coast of Ireland that I am head over heels in love with (the country as whole in fact), well it does seem that they can catch bass all year round, depending on conditions of course - on baits and on lures. I am sure you can sense from this post that I have a lifetime of information still to absorb on bass fishing, and then I could probably live again and still be left with more to learn. But isn't that what makes fishing such a profoundly absorbing sport ? I stand by what I have always said - walk away from the angler who professes to know it all.......

• I hope you like the two black and white bass photos here - they are such a magnificent species and in my view they deserve to be shown off in glorious colour. But I have stumbled on the odd shot in my (vast and ever growing !!) photo library that has jumped at me with my black and white eyes on. The tail shot especially is one I really like far more in black and white than in colour.

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.

Front cover in Germany

• I have been working on a freelance basis for the big German fishing magazine Blinker for some time now, and above is my first front cover with them - it is of Nick Hart holding a well-conditioned rainbow trout. I reckon the photo works well on the cover and I am always over the moon to get a cover. Blinker has a huge circulation throughout parts of Europe and it is always full of really good looking articles - I wish I could understand them as I reckon I could learn a lot, but my German is seriously non-existent !!

• This shore fishing for bass with soft plastics has got me really intrigued, and I have already been looking around for different lures and jig heads. Just how easy is it to spend too much money on our fishing ? I reckon Graham, Patrick and Cian are going to land some truly monster bass right through the winter if they get the right conditions over in Ireland, and I would bet that the majority are going to come on the plastics. Not that hard lures are suddenly not lethally effective (of course they can be), more that a couple of locations they are fishing demand some different tactics. I truly believe that they have the potential for awesome bass fishing right through the year, taking into account the Irish close season of course.

• Sometime next week I will do my best to get a couple of photo galleries up here from my September and November Irish bass trips - I came away with plenty of photos that I need to illustrate my articles etc. Fishing can be such a visually stunning thing to do, and most times I consider what I do to be the best job in the world - ok, so not every day is going to go great, but just having the chance to work around the best sport in the world is a privilege, and my focus is on making it look better and better all the time.

• Have a good weekend all, I am off over to north Cornwall with my family to spend a weekend walking, golfing (yes !!) and messing around on the beach - whatever the weather, we don't care, my two girls have got full waterproofs and they love being out and about. Jess can chase seagulls for hours on end. I might also get the chance to check out a couple of potential bass marks I have been thinking about, under the pretext of "let's walk this way, it looks nice" sort of thing. You always need that fishing head on.....

Irish bass fishing - some thoughts

• I continue to be amazed at the overall quality of the shore fishing over in Ireland - but perhaps what amazes me the most is that I still meet fishermen who almost don't want to believe how good it can be. Nowhere on earth offers good fishing all the time, but if you get the conditions close to right and do your research, then Ireland can offer some truly outstanding shore fishing for a huge variety of species. And you will catch a lot more if you are prepared to work hard and walk/hike a lot.

• I am aware of some very good bass fishing in certain areas of Europe, such as the Channel Islands (awesome, go there), France and Spain, but I can only speak from personal experience when I say that so far I have yet come across anywhere that offers such consistently incredible shore fishing for bass as Ireland's somewhat "secret" and little-known south east corner. Ireland overall is an incredible place to visit, and in my mind the bass fishing is the pinnacle of it all.

• Above is a shot of my mate Graham Hill with another quality bass that we caught the other day - the sun was just creeping over the hills to our right, and I used a large aperture on my 16-35mm lens to really make the head of the fish stand out in the frame. It's the kind of shot that a magazine could easily use over two pages, with the text running down the right side....

• Using direct flash is something you can't really avoid when photographing fish in the pitch black, but you always run the slight risk with a reflective fish like the bass of losing a bit of detail in the flanks. Direct flash is a very harsh light, but when an incredible fish like Tom's 11lb monster comes out on the first morning, I'll use all the flash I need to try and make a half-decent shot. What a perfect start it was to another outstanding trip over there. I would hazard a guess that Tom is still in a state of shock back home in Frankfurt !!

• Barely a cloud in the November sky as Patrick Gallagher fishes for bass with modern soft plastic lures - without a doubt it is the French bass anglers who are the most experienced at fishing these methods, and we have a lot to learn about it, but the guys I know are doing extremely well already. Fishing keeps me hooked because I am forced to learn new things all the time, and this drives me forward. We have all used soft plastics for years to nail fish like cod, pollack and coalfish, but using them for bass in very specific locations and ways is a new thing to me, and I can't wait to see how it keeps developing.

Tough last day, but what a trip......

• Graham and I decided on a bit of a gamble today as regards the bass fishing - we knew we could probably nail a few where we have been fishing over the last few days, but I was after some different photos and we both felt like covering some more locations. Another stunning winter day, hardly a cloud in the sky, very cold, and just about perfect to be out and about it (when you've finally climbed into multiple layers). We had a few small pollack on the lures early this morning, and Graham hooked a good bass that came off, on a soft plastic lure fished right in amongst the rocks. I was fishing away and saw a bass of around 5lbs swim right below me, seemingly oblivious to my good looking Tide Minnow 120 Surf lure that had just gone right by his nose. We then fished another few different locations, but never saw another sniff of a fish - these northerly winds are great for my photos, but they have really cleared the water up and flattened the sea off so much that the bass are momentarily switched off. Who would have thought the seas could get too calm for bass fishing in winter ? Doesn't really make sense....

• Above are a few of the soft plastic lures that we have been messing around with to great effect over the last few days. When the winds swing around, I am fully expecting the bass guys to keep on nailing big fish right through winter - I know the phone will be ringing soon with an excited Mr. Hill and the capture of another prime bunch of oversize Irish bass, and I will be left working out how on earth I can get back over here again as soon as I can. I love heading back to see my family, but I also hate leaving Ireland. Graham Hill is one of the finest blokes you could ever hope to meet and he is a complete pleasure to fish and spend time with. I cherish my fishing/photography days in Ireland more than most people could possibly imagine.

• Our cod fishing last night did not really amount to much, but to be perfectly honest we were both completely knackered and wanted to get our heads down so that we could have another early start on the bass this morning. They do get some fantastic cod fishing around these parts, but again, we could do with some wind and rough seas to get them moving properly. But this is winter !! This morning were some of the most treacherous, icy roads I have ever driven on, but I'll take those big blue skies all day long please. Lots of coffee and thermals and I can face almost anything !!

• Anyway, I thought another couple of different photos of Tom's magnificent 9lb 8oz bass from the other day would be worth putting up here. I know he had a bigger 11lb fish on his first morning, and I got a few nice photos, but you can always make such a special fish look a whole load better in the day time, when you don't have to chuck direct flash on them in the dark. Well done Tom, a cracking couple of days. Catch you next year ?

• I am on the 9am Stena Line ferry back over to Fishguard tomorrow morning, and then it's about a four hour drive back home to Plymouth. I got done for speeding last time I was coming back from Ireland, so I could do without that again. What an awesome few days, but then it always is over here, however the fishing goes.

Bitterly cold, but the bass are still feeding

• It was just Graham and I fishing this morning, and we decided it was worth a go on the crab baits - we took lure rods as well, but with a biting northerly wind and increased colour to the water, both of us felt this morning was the time to put baits down for the fish. On my first cast I had a good bite, but the fish dropped it. A little later, Graham connected with a decent fish on a rod he won in a match the other day - a Greys GRX-S bass rod. Above you can see him beaching the bass. Check out those huge skies that are a serious joy for me to use in my photos - not bad for the last day of November !!

• Here is the result - a cracking bass weighing 8lb 8oz, glinting perfectly in the early morning sunshine. The weather continues to be stunning, and although there was not such a hard frost this morning, a far fresher northerly certainly kept the temperature right down - note the hat and gloves again. The fishing was slower today by Ireland's standards, but how often do you see an 8lb plus bass coming in ? Still pretty awesome fishing to me.

• We did try the soft plastics today, but apart from a couple of bumps we hooked nothing on them. Not completely sure why I have to admit, but there were far less fish moving around this morning. Perhaps the cold has finally got to them a bit.....or perhaps not.

• Above is a nice bass of 5lb that I managed to nail on a small crab bait - a typical knock-back slack, then tap, tap, thump right over kind of bass bite that was essentially unmissable (he says !!), and it gave a good scrap in the tide.

• Here you can see the sort of peeler crab baits we were using this morning - a simple 4/0 pennel rig fished off a Varivas 3-way swivel (the lead is connected via a split-ring I put on the 3-way swivel), a short 35lb fluorocarbon hooklength,and a 4oz plain lead that can roll around in the tide and find its own resting place. Still the best all round shore fishing hooks I can find are the Varivas Big Mouth Extra pattern - get them here. All nice and easy stuff, and the bass like it just fine.

• Graham and I are heading back out for a few hours' cod fishing over the high water this evening, and then we have made a plan to get out on the rocks tomorrow for some more lure fishing. It might be a bit of a gamble, but we are both itching to fish a certain mark on the back tide that has produced plenty of fish in the past. We shall see....

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.

Was that summer ?

Canon 1D MK11, 16-35mm f2.8L lens (at 31mm), ISO 200, f9, 1/100, polarising filter

• OK, it's a bit premature to start moaning about the end of summer, but it certainly felt like it yesterday. I arrived back from a grey, windy Newcastle into Bristol airport last night (wearing shorts and t-shirt of course, how sensible is that ?), to be met by howling winds and torrential rain. I feel really sorry for all the people at Glastonbury for the weekend, including a good friend of mine - why is it that it seems to always rain there ? There is no way that we can have a summer like last year's is there ?

• To take myself away from the gloom of an overcast morning, above is a photo of a nice big bass that my mate Graham caught last autumn over in Ireland. I wish I could show you a photo of my latest, greatest capture, but with work and travel recently, my own fishing efforts have been zero. That is going to change from this weekend though, for I have a few days over in Cornwall with my family to look forward to. I have packed the alarm clock for a few early morning plugging sessions.........

• I have a few really interesting new bass lures here to try out, including some that I have yet to see anywhere in the UK. Some of them look lethally effective, so I will give them a go and see how they do - watch this space. All in the name of "work related research" I assure you. Not that I like playing with new toys or anything like that.

• I sent a bunch of these US soft plastic Slug-Go lures over to a couple of mates in Ireland recently, and I am hearing sketchy reports that they are working really well for the bass. When I say sketchy, what I really mean is that I think the guys have really begun to nail fish big time on these Slug-Go lures and are trying to keep it quiet from me !! But I have my sources.............you would not believe the action these soft plastic lures have when they are fished properly, indeed I have yet to see a lure like it. Check here for where you can get hold of them in the UK. Don't get me wrong, hard plastic lures are great for bass fishing, but there is a quiet revolution going on with soft plastics - just take a look at the French bass anglers for a start. You are going to hear a lot more about them over the next few years I am sure.

• One thing I really notice about travelling in the US is the welcome you receive - shops, restaurants, hotels, you name it, most of the time you are met with a beaming smile and an offer of help. I really like this attitude. Manners cost nothing in life, and it is something my wife and I are working hard to instill in our two girls. On Wednesday evening, I checked into a hotel just over the road from Newcastle airport at about 11pm, to be met by a surly, sour excuse for a receptionist who hardly had the good grace to look me in the eye and say anything more than a mumble of "this is what you need to pay before you can have your room". Nothing approaching "welcome, how are you ?" or "enjoy your stay" or "what can we do to help ?". Nothing of the sort. I should have said something, but in truth I could not trust myself to remain calm. A lack of manners really winds me up. My rant for Friday morning is now over !!

• If you get The Field magazine, check out a really good looking feature of mine on the insane golden dorado fishing I photographed earlier this year out in Argentina (check here for a stack of photos). Look on pages 86, 87, 88 and 89 - I really like the fact that they have used one of my fish jumping shots as a whole page image on page 87. My thanks to the designer for picking it out.

• Remember to have a look through my Montana photo gallery which I have put online - check here for a selection of photographs from one of the most special places I have ever been on this earth. I am still dreaming about it.

• Gerhard from FlyCastaway emailed to tell me of a 16.5lb tigerfish that one of their clients caught on Monday, on a fly of course, at a new camp they are using in Mozambique. That is some fish on the fly, but then not much surprises me with the FlyCastaway lot - in my mind one of the top guiding outfits on the planet, and I do not say that lightly. Speak to Aardvark McLeod about booking trips to fish with them - and for Argentina and Montana. You can see a bunch of my tigerfish photos here. Tigerfish are deeply impressive fish to be around. It has been too long since I have been to Africa, so I can't wait for my South Africa trip at the end of September. Nowhere feels like Africa.

• Anyway, I am off on holiday for a few days later on today, but I will do my best to keep this blog updated - hopefully with a few reports of a few nice bass. You don't know how much I am looking forward to getting back over to Ireland in July.