OK, so I gave in...........

• I felt almost no confidence, but I simply could not resist getting out on the coastline yesterday late afternoon and early evening to chuck a few lures. The expectation of actually catching a bass was about zero, but this stunning weather has got to me. Me, my red rod, a few lures (ok, quite a few lures), and my sheepdog Jess. It felt a little like summer until the sun dropped further in the sky, but I have been promising myself not to head out lure fishing for bass until at least April. Are we not eternal optimists though ? And yes, I was right, I saw not a sniff of a fish.

• To be perfectly honest, it was not really a proper fishing session as such - I wanted to get a few photos of the coastline as the sun dropped low, and I also wanted to have a really good walk/scramble around to check out where I reckon the fish might be hanging around when they are in. My feelings are that where I was fishing is going to be a back tide mark, with acres of rocks and weed shallowing out nicely as the tide clears. Yesterday was deliberately timed to be over the low water period so that I could see the lie of the land properly.

• The light yesterday evening did not end up as impressive as I thought it might, but I took a few photos I was fairly happy with. Just sitting there with my camera on a tripod and watching the sun dip over south Devon kind of does it for me really. Nobody else was around, and more's the pity that no bass were around either !! To be fair, the water was about as clear as possible and bigger tides are going to help. But as I said, how can you resist going plugging when the weather is so good ?

• In years gone by I would now be chasing bull huss in a big way around south Devon, with regular trips thrown in to the shallow reefs up in the Bristol Channel (Hinkley, Lilstock etc.) for the thornback ray and spring codling, but I tend not to spend much time these days with beachasters in tripods. It's awesome fishing, and it always will be, but I am restless person by nature and I live for different experiences. And I simply do not have as much time as I used to.

• My feeling is that it won't be long until we connect with a few bass around here. Reports of bass turning up in various places are increasingly frequent - and I don't include Ireland here, that place is a (bountiful) freak of nature. Jealous, me ? I have a feeling that certain methods might work in very specific places around here (cryptic eh ?), and much as these east winds are blowing in lovely blue skies and relatively warm day time temperatures, I am going to feel a whole bit more confident when we get a nice set of spring tides and more onshore conditions to inject a bit of "life" to the sea. We shall see.....

• I would imagine that a few of you watched that mightily impressive Yellowstone programme on BBC2 on Sunday night ? I made myself wait until it was on in HD last night, and I have to admit to sitting there open mouthed in complete astonishment at such awesome programme making. Some of the shots in there were breathtaking. What a place, what a brutal winter. If you missed it, watch it here on the BBC iPlayer. Nick Hart and I spent a day in Yellowstone last summer when we were out doing a job in Montana, and just that brief glimpse of the place left a lasting impression on me. The mighty Yellowstone river was still blown out with snow melt in late June when we were there. It continues to stagger me at how impressive this world can look. Too much to see, too little time.

Montana photo gallery online

Canon 1D MK111, 70-200mm f4L IS lens (at 70mm), ISO 400, f8, 1/200, polarising filter

• Check out an online gallery I have just created of some of the photos I took out in Montana last week - click here to have a look, or alternatively, look at the Links section on the right hand side of this page and get to it from there. I hope you like them - what a place.

• Nick Hart and I arrived back in the UK after lunch on Monday, and I got back home just in time to see my two girls before they went to bed. Going away for work is a blast, but nothing ever beats getting home and seeing my family - obviously I could not resist showing my daughters the clothes that I had got for them in Bozeman, and they insisted on wearing their new dresses down to breakfast the next morning. I never thought I would say this, but shopping for clothes for my girls is more fun than buying fishing gear or CDs - mad I know, but it's true.

• The trip to Montana was simply out of this world, indeed the place was everything that I hoped it would be and more. Where we were was without doubt one of the most stunning places that I have ever been lucky enough to see, and Nick and I are already planning a return trip to try and nail the Yellowstone river when it is firing properly. Talk to Aardvark McLeod about getting yourself out there sometime soon - it really is that special.

• It has been eyes down here since I got back, trying to process all the photos I took out in Montana in time to take up to Hardy Greys - I fly up to Newcastle tonight and then go through what I got up there tomorrow for their catalogues etc. On Thursday night I fly back down here and then go away on Friday for a few days with my family over to Cornwall. Yes, of course, the bassing gear is packed and ready to go - what on earth are early mornings and evenings for ?

• Above is one of the photos that I really like - moody light over the mountains, a really pretty little spring creek, and a fly angler looking carefully into the water for some willing trout. I deliberately under-exposed this image slightly, to accentuate the sky and retain the different colours in the sky and the grass, and I think it's worked pretty well. This is the sort of photo that I would really like a magazine designer to pick up on and run it across two pages, but you never quite know what your features will come out like. That is the nature of the business. You take the photos, hand them over, and then see what the various designers end up doing with your material.

Canon 1D MK111, 70-200mm f4L IS lens (at 75mm), ISO 200, f11, 1/400

• Above is the last photo I shot out in Montana, of Nick getting out of his waders and slinging the fishing gear in the back of the car for the last time before heading home. The sun behind is rising on another perfect Montana day, and I grabbed the shot just before it became impossible to place the glare behind the car and create a silhouette. These kinds of photos are not planned, for I like to shoot as much as possible "as it happens" - I tend to think that fishing never looks any good when things are set up and staged.

• I am really looking forward to getting back out and slinging some lures for bass. The weather seems a bit up and down, but it looks ok to me for a bit of plugging - reports are a bit sketchy it seems, but I know of a few fish showing. I really can't wait now to head over to Ireland in July to fish and photograph, especially after that huge 72cms bass the other day that I heard about. To get a bass that size on a lure would be something very special indeed......

• On the metal front, it is also very cool to get back home and find a new CD or two waiting for you - take it from me on this one, you need to go and buy "Kolossus" by the Norwegian band Keep of Kalessin. You can see a video of one of the new tracks here. Their last album "Armada" was immense, but this new one is off the scale it is so good - fantastic levels of brutality mixed with insane melodies that get you right between the eyes. The drummer is off another planet he is so good. This is without doubt one of the great extreme metal releases of the year so far. What on earth do they put in the water over in Norway to keep producing such immense metal ? I put it on yesterday while my daughters were having their tea, and they loved it (and my wife hated it) - that is all the recommendation you need !!

• Both Nick and I bought the most incredible book just before we left Montana on Sunday - it is not a fishing book, but it is without doubt one of the most awesome publications I have ever seen. Called "Yellowstone to Yukon - Freedom to Roam", it is a series of breathtaking photographs and short essays on this amazing part of the world - scenery and wildlife. The photographer is called Florian Schulz, and you can see more of his incredible work here. Some more details on the book can be found here, and you can buy it here for not very much at all. This kind of publication really inspires me to keep working on trying to improve my photography all the time.

• A friend of mine up in Scotland has just emailed to tell me about a 17lb rainbow trout he caught the other day on a size 16 fly, from a float tube !! Stuart is one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet, and he is an excellent fly fisherman into the bargain - I bet the fish towed him around for a fair while. He also tells me about some really big salmon coming off the Dee very recently........

Thirteen miles of fishing heaven - the Bighorn

Canon 1D MK111, 16-35mm f2.8L lens (at 16mm), ISO 320, f8, 1/100, polarising filter

• Yesterday Nick Hart and I were lucky enough to fish and photograph on one of the world's most famous trout rivers, the Bighorn. There is no way to do this river proper justice in one single day, but we gave it a real go. There are 9000 trout per mile on the upper stretches of the Bighorn (!!), and since the waters are crystal clear, you can see hundreds of trout moving around all the time, plus whitefish and the odd big carp. This is driftboat fishing heaven, and as you can see above, there are plenty of places to get out and wade fish. This is surely some of the finest trout fishing on this earth.

• We drifted thirteen miles of trout fishing heaven yesterday - our guide Clarke Smyth must have thought we were barking mad (you can't help but get excited over this kind of stuff), but he was as good as it gets, and put Nick over a load of fish. Just being able to see so many good fish moving around in that water gets the pulse racing big time. We had to drive a bit to get there, but that is the beauty of where we are staying - there is just so much fishable water in this past of America, so whatever the conditions you are going to be able to find world class fly fishing somewhere fairly nearby. And when the Yellowstone is firing, there is insane trout fishing right beneath Yellowstone Valley Ranch. You could literally fall out of bed here and catch big trout, or do a day somewhere nearby, and fish some more after supper. This is pure trout fishing heaven.

Canon 1D MK111, 70-200mm f4L IS lens (at 200mm), ISO 400, f8, 1/320, polarising filter

• The brown trout on the Bighorn have such powerful looking jaws and are simply a thrill to be around. I was looking for a different kind of fish shot in this lovely wooden net, and this nice brown was the one that played ball. I really love photographing good looking trout fishing, and out here in Montana it is about as good as it is ever going to get. Neither Nick or I can believe how few UK fly fishermen come out here to fish - it's so easy to get here, and the set up at Yellowstone Valley Ranch is perfect. We are looking to try and come back perhaps in late October to fish and photograph the Yellowstone river when it is firing properly.

Canon 1D MK111, 16-35mm f2.8L lens (at 16mm), ISO 320, f8, 1/125, polarising filter

• Above you can see Nick hooked into a really nice trout that he hooked up when we were wade fishing on a section of the Bighorn. I can't really believe that we have been lucky enough to see what we have seen out here, and that is also bearing in mind that the average water conditions at the moment are not good. The story is that from mid-July the fishing is really going to go off big time. This is a freak year though, for usually mid-June is prime time. I am over the moon with the material I have got out here, but I also know that we have seen a mere tiny percentage of what this place can offer. Too much to do, too little time to do it in. That's life.

Canon 1D MK111, 16-35mm f2.8L lens (at 24mm), ISO 250, f9, 1/100, polarising filter

• Here you can see Nick cradling a perfect brown trout, in about the best condition possible. These fish were caught by drifting weighted nymphs along the bottom of the river, either dead drifting with the speed of the boat, or casting and swinging them when wading. When there is a decent hatch, apparently there are scary numbers of trout coming up to dry flies. We wore chest waders to do this fishing yesterday, but our guide Clarke was wet wading - and believe me, that Bighorn water was running cold !! I am not that brave.... (but even Clarke admitted that at one point his toes were totally numb). I was glad of the heavy duty nature of the Hardy EWS waders I was wearing, and they have done me proud this trip.

Canon 1D MK111, 16-35mm f2.8L lens (at 31mm), ISO 250, f9, 1/200, polarising filter

• I couldn't not work on making something of the jaws of these browns - some people would say (rather sadly) that this is just "making the fish look bigger than it is", indeed I have heard this kind of rubbish before. But it is not - this kind of photo is me having a bit of creative fun with a fish, working on getting away from the standard "grip and grin". Why not make the fish look good and different ? Our main priority though is the safety of the fish, so they are never kept out of the water for more than a few seconds at a time, and this one went off really strongly after it's quick modelling shoot.

• Nick and I fly back to the UK today, after a seriously incredible trip. I have been blown away by my first visit to Montana, and I will be back as much as possible. This is some of the world's finest yet accessible fly fishing, and I really hope that more Brits will make the easy journey out here to experience it. There is just so much space out here, and so few people. You could have such fun family holidays in this part of Montana, indeed I will be bringing my girls out here when they are a bit older. Speak to Aardvark McLeod as soon as you can about coming to smash a few of these magnificent trout among the most outrageous scenery you could ever hope to see. What a special week it has been. I also hear that the weather back home has been rubbish !! Back to bass fishing....