Blog - Henry Gilbey

I wasn’t sure whether to write this blog post because if there one thing I despise in life it’s any form of boasting, and not for one second did I want to boast about the fact that yesterday afternoon I hooked and landed a bass that was 79cms long, in fantastic condition as you can see from the various photos here, and in my mind was therefore my first 10lb+ bass that I have landed from the shore. But damn I am one happy angler and I trust that you kind people will take this blog post exactly as it’s meant to be……………

I need to say a serious thanks to my mate Mark for so kindly holding the fish for a few photos, and before anybody asks where the photos are of me with this fish, well there are none. I don’t need photos of me with fish and it’s not why I go fishing or shoot photos of fishing. I am obviously over the moon at catching a bass like that, and I am so glad we were fishing together yesterday because to me it’s so much more fun to share something special like this with a mate rather than on my own.

I caught this bass off the top in a bit of current, and it was one of those big, lazy swirls on my surface lure that I reckon tends to mean it’s at least a decent fish. I was still berating myself after fishing like a complete tit the day before and literally pulling my surface lure right out of the mouth of a bass before it could properly take it, so you can imagine how determined I was to wait for my rod to properly bang over this time around! I knew the fish was big the moment I bent into, but I can’t pretend that I had any idea it was a double.

Now I know that I am prone to banging on about fishing with a properly tight drag, fighting fish hard, and of course using barbless hooks, but I do at least practise what I preach - and thankfully it worked yesterday! The barbs were crushed flat on the two treble hooks on my surface lure and because I have fished completely barbless for bass for so long now, well I just don’t worry about it when I am into a fish. As I said, we were fishing in a bit of current and my drag was set so that the bass could have taken line if it really needed to - I pulled the living hell out of the fish to get it away from a bit of structure and not one inch of line came off my spinning reel during the short but intense fight. I trust my gear and I am confident with how hard I can pull fish on the sort of lure gear that so many of us fish with.

Anyway, I got the fish in quickly and then secured my fish-grip thing to its bottom jaw so that I could turn the bass over to Mark while I grabbed my camera. We kept it in the water while Mark got his BASS tape out and took a measurement for me at 79cms. I don’t carry scales so I will never know the exact weight - and to be perfectly honest I couldn’t care less - but at 79cms long and in outstanding condition, as per the title of this blog post I am entirely confident that I had just landed my first 10lb+ plus bass from the shore. As much as I love Ireland with a passion, I am kinda chuffed that I caught this fish in UK waters, and also for a number of other reasons that I won’t divulge to protect where we were fishing.

As for the gear I caught the fish on, well the successful surface lure was this increasingly lethal Whiplash Factory Spittin’ Wire (95mm, 15.5g) in the S06PLG Ayu Ghost as per the photo above. I obviously can’t say whether this bass would have taken another surface lure or not because I can only fish with one lure at a time, but I have had enough nice bass on this Spittin’ Wire now to firmly believe that is is something seriously special - and I owe a big thanks to this Spanish angler here for so kindly putting me onto it. They are not cheap lures and they are not easy to track down, but I have got mine from here if that helps at all.

I was fishing with what is by a margin the best 9’ lure rod I have ever used, this outrageously good Shimano Exsence Infinity S900ML/RF 9’ 5-32g - review here, and whilst it’s not a cheap rod at all, I have found a place in Europe that is now listing them. From day one with this rod I have used a Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG spinning reel on it (review here), and it was loaded up with the consistently brilliant and has never, ever let me down Sufix 832 braid in the 20lb/0.15mm breaking strain. My leader was 16lb YGK Nitlon DFC fluorocarbon, of course secured to my braid by an FG knot, and on the end of all this was a little Breakaway Mini Link lure clip. So simple, but utterly reliable. I have caught plenty of bass on this Shimano Exsence Infinity S900ML/RF 9’ 5-32g lure rod now, but it did feel good to horse a properly big bass on it and see it bend properly in the most delightful curve.

So there you go. I am seriously happy and I know what a bass like this means to those of us who obsess about these fine fish so much. I am doubly glad that Mark and I were fishing together yesterday, because I know what I’m like - if I had been on my own I’d have slipped the hooks out of that bass and eased her back without measuring or weighing or photographing her. I have zero interest in setting up self-timer shots of me with fish, I won’t photograph bass lying flat on tape measures and out of the water like that, and for the most part I don’t carry scales but probably should when I am fishing on my own come to think of it! Perhaps things are simply meant to be sometimes? That bass could just as easily have taken Mark’s lure yesterday afternoon, but for whatever reason it hit mine, and that’s it really. Right place, right time and all that, but luck plays such a big part in a fish like that - and for whatever reason lady luck was on my side yesterday………...

By far my favourite moment of the whole experience yesterday

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I find myself becoming a bit of a fan boy when it comes to the Shimano Japan lure fishing gear that I have fished with so far, so it’s even more frustrating that Shimano Europe in all their “in touch with what’s going on in modern bass fishing” wisdom are making so little of it available to us lure anglers. I am currently fishing with two Shimano Japan bass lure rods that are by a distance the two best 9’ and 9’6’’ weapons that I have ever used (reviews here and here), many of us here fish with Shimano spinning reels, I am currently fishing with a Shimano Japan braid that is utterly sublime, and I have even bought a small selection of Shimano Japan hard lures for bass fishing that are incredibly well made and the components on them just aren’t rusting.

So whilst Shimano Europe are now making a selection of four rods from the new Shimano Dialuna S range of lure rods available to our marketplace (and I’d love to know more about who chooses which four rods to offer and why), for whatever reason they haven’t included this new Shimano Dialuna S90L 9' 5-25g lure rod in there - check here for a company over in Ireland that is now selling this particular rod (there are more Dialuna S rods on their website here), and it’s thanks to them for kindly letting me to have a proper play with this rod. I don’t know the people at JDM Fishing Tackle in Ireland, but damn they are listing some fishing tackle on their website that I am doing my best to pretend I haven’t seen! I am not aware of anybody else selling these stupidly good Shimano Exsence Infinity lure rods for example - not cheap, but as per those reviews of mine, for me they are the ultimate lure rods.

I got to fish with a 9’ rod from the previous and now discontinued Shimano Dialuna range and I thought it was a lot of rod for the money (review here), so I was really interested to see how this slightly lighter 5-25g rod from their new JDM Dialuna S range might or might not work for me and how I tend to go about my bass fishing - which I might add continues to vary the more I learn and the more locations I fish. As much as I tend to err towards the one “do it all” lure rod, in reality I can’t do it all with the one rod because of where and how I am increasingly bass fishing these days. A rod that I might use on a bouncy north Cornwall day isn’t the same rod as I’d want to use for stealthily fishing a local estuary and so on, and some years ago I never would have even looked at a 9’ long lure rod which was rated to cast “only” 5-25g. How things have changed though…………

And this 5-25g is an interesting rating to me - it’s neither an out and out lighter lure rod, yet it’s not quite a say 7-28g or 10-30g rod that I would guess a lot of us use. If the bigger Xorus Patchinko is one of your go-to hard lures then yes this rod will cast it, although you can’t exactly lash into the cast but it doesn’t really matter because if you need to regularly use that lure then you’d be fishing with a slightly more powerful lure rod anyway. Put the new and smaller Patchinko 125 on this Shimano Dialuna S90L 9' 5-25g lure rod though and it’s about as sweet a casting and fishing experience as I can imagine - a smooth cast and good timing proves yet again me just how impressively the smaller Patchinko 125 goes out on a good rod like this. Of course a rod rated this relatively light isn’t going to be a poker, so yes it bends, but I don’t like sloppy, slow lure rods and I am happy to report that this Dialuna S is rather lovely indeed.

I happen to think that with how increasingly important that soft plastics are becoming to so many of us these days that a light and crisp lure rod like this which is rated 5-25g is in fact a rather useful weapon - there’s enough there to push things a bit yet you can also go nice and light and touchy/feely with ease. I would hope that this Shimano Dialuna S90L 9' 5-25g is a bit of a peach with a soft plastics like the 6’’ or indeed 4.5’’ OSP DoLive Stick - and it is. I have been fishing with a 3000 size Shimano spinning reel on the rod and in my hand it just feels right. I absolutely love the handle design and would cheerfully have this exact design on any lure rod because it’s that nice to fish with. As good as a lure rod might be, we won’t be drawn to it if it doesn’t sit right when you pick it up, and from the off this rod felt right in my hands. I don’t have enough experience of Shimano Japan lure rods to be able to say definitively, but the four I have fished with so far leads me to believe that they are making rods that for various reasons seriously suit how I like my lure rods to be.

I’m not sure that there’s a whole lot more to say here. I’m not going to take a rod like this up to the north coast of Cornwall when conditions are bouncing and I am not going to buy it if all I was going to do was whack out a bunch of bigger hard lures and crank them back in. Nope, to me this stunner of a lure rod is asking to be used beyond simply whacking and cranking - work soft plastics with it, let the rod sit loosely in your hand as a DoLive tumbles about in a bit of white water, twitch various surface lures back, night fish with it, and grin like a gimp because to bass fish with a rod like this is quite simply a pleasure. It frustrates me how seriously Shimano Europe and UK could go at the growing bass lure fishing market, because if a rod as good as this Dialuna S90L 9' 5-25g can be had for what I think is pretty reasonable money, and then with their high-end rods like these two almost stupidly good Shimano Exsence Infinity lure rods I own and fish with, with the name Shimano and all that this brand implies, surely there are plenty of anglers out there who would want to see more of their specialist lure gear in our tackle shops? All credit to JDM Fishing Tackle over in Ireland then………..

I am off to Ireland today for a week of fishing and photography around Dungarvan, so as per usual I will do my best to keep this blog updated when possible.

Do many of us here actually need any new lures? Come on, am I the right person to answer that?! It’s an addiction, plain and simple, but as mad as march hares a lot of us might be with this whole lure fishing thing, as and when a lure comes along that I think (or convince myself?) is doing something a bit different for me when compared to (boxes and boxes of) other lures I have then I tend to be all ears……….

A very kind person very kindly sent me an interesting looking new lure the other day, a Samson Lures Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait. Made from what looks like the same material as those GT Ice Cream lures designed and handmade by a serious bass nut who I have seen on video landing some donkey bass in some hectic conditions down in Portugal as per below, I kinda liked that this Samson Lures Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait is a tough as hell, long-casting and very much non-flashy “buy me” lure that is designed to be walked and twitched just under the surface in all kinds of conditions. So I put it in box as I really enjoy playing around with new gear.

I managed to get out fishing just before I came over here to Ireland and of course I couldn’t help but make my way to where I was lucky enough to land that big bass the other day. A few small fish were intent on impaling themselves on my surface lure (obviously that Whiplash Factory Spittin’ Wire because how could I not be fishing with it after my experiences with it?) but to be honest things were a little quiet - so why not I thought, and on goes that 30g Samson Lures Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait. I had watched the video above before I went out fishing to get an idea of how the lure is meant to be worked, so I whacked it out and did exactly that.

Blow me down with a lovely pair of compression tights if a 6.5lb bass didn’t go and absolutely smash the lure on my very first cast with it, and I know it was a 6.5lb bass because I was fishing on my own and had deliberately taken a set of scales and a lightweight weigh sling to see what it was like weighing bass on my own - and it’s a pain in the backside! I estimated the bass at 6lbs when it came in and it went 6lbs 8oz on the scales, but of far more importance to me was the fact that a hard-scrapping bass had jumped on the end of my new lure on my very first cast with it. If lure fishing is hugely about confidence then that’s the big time shot of it I need with this new Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait lure!

So we had our first day fishing out here in Ireland yesterday and things were pretty quiet until the tide started to flood where we were. At one point I looked around to see Steve bent into what looked like a good fish, so I started to make my way over to get ready to shoot a few photos if he got the fish in - which he did, and the sneaky bastard had only gone and clipped on his very own Samson Lures Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait! But Steve had let the side down and had caught the roughly 6lb bass on his third cast with his brand new lure - bad angling if you ask me………..

I shot a few photos as you can see here and then because I had made sure to put my own Samson Lures Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait in my lure box as I am obviously full of confidence with it after the other day and where we were fishing here in Ireland I kinda fancied it could be useful, well I went and clipped my one on.

Holy frigging cow if about four casts later I don’t go and hook a good bass. For a split second I actually thought a sea trout had jumped in front of me, but in fact it was the tail of the bass obviously slapping the water as it absolutely smashed my lure while I was kinda twitching/walking it sub-surface. I had removed the front treble after I caught that nice bass at home on the lure and I had also put another split ring on the back to the size 2 treble hook - and yes, I’d be perfectly comfortable with a big barbless single hook on the lure but the ones I have ordered hadn’t arrived before I left home on Wednesday.

I landed this bass and estimated it at around 6lbs and then I got to thinking that after about ten casts between Steve and I with this Samson Lures Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait we’re looking at three 6lb or so bass, and however many monsters you yourself may catch and put those fish to shame, to me that’s some pretty good bass fishing. Would those same fish have jumped on another lure? Well that surely is the beauty here - we will never know, and because we are addicts with an affliction that knows no bounds, well obviously I am now praying that the one Samson Lures Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait I have out here doesn’t find a snag! I also note that there’s a 50g version of this lure that now I am obsessing about for a bit of surf fishing back home - and so on. Does it ever end?!

I have linked to a tackle shop in this blog post where I know you can buy this lure, plus various others from the Samson Lures company. It’s not an affiliate link hence me not putting a disclaimer down the bottom as I usually would, and Danny the owner of the shop was so kind the other day in asking me if I would like to try one of these Samson Lures Enticer Sub Surface Tweak Bait lures - thank you kind sir.

I still pinch myself at how much fun lure fishing for bass is, and sometimes when I wake up early I like to think about the many different ways we can go about it and what is my favourite way to do so - which doesn’t remotely matter of course, but as an early-riser I can assure you that the brain works in mysterious ways!

We’ve had some nice surf conditions out here in Ireland and we have been lucky enough to find a fair few bass mooching around - and I absolutely love fishing like this. Standing in the surf as those tables of water move around is hypnotic, and I have a huge amount to learn about it back home especially. A big part of it that I really like is that the lures can be so simple and uncomplicated, indeed most of the bass we have caught have come on these ultra long casting Savage Gear Seeker lures in the 28g size especially. I am sure there are a million different ways to work a metal like this, but whacking them out into a decent bit of surf and simply winding them in seems to work just great - right time and right place of course……….

This bass of mine above which Steve put at about 8lbs absolutely smashed my Savage Gear Seeker - you know that feeling when it’s like you have hit a snag with the lure, but then the snag bangs back hard? Damn I love it.

I kept a note of the fact that I bought this Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG spinning reel in early August 2017 and it has been used pretty solidly ever since. I wrote a blog review of this reel in early November 2017 (check here) and I thought it would be interesting to give you my thoughts on this spinning reel after more than one year of owning and using it. It has been my go-to spinning reel on any lure rods around 9’ I have used since then (and especially the stupidly good Shimano Exsence Infinity S900ML/RF 9’ 5-32g lure rod, review here), it has been loaded up with a few different braids, and from time to time I have oiled and greased the various parts of the reel that I can easily get to. When I get back from fishing I tend to wind the drag down tight, hose my rod and reel down outside, slacken the drag off, and then let it stand until dry…………….

Now perhaps I am lucky here and I got a particularly good reel, but for the life of me I can’t recall using a spinning reel this much and for this long and it remaining genuinely as smooth and easy to wind as when I first lifted it from its box. Damn right it’s not a cheap spinning reel and you could say this is to be expected, but I have usually found that a year of use around a saltwater environment tends to do some kind of harm to a spinning reel. Perhaps it’s a little grindy or there’s some sort of “rasping” sound coming from a bearing somewhere in the reel that’s on the way out and needs to be replaced, and so on, but not in the slightest with this little Twin Power XD.

This is without a doubt my favourite spinning reel of this size that I have ever lure fished with. The line lay was perfect out of the box, I love how a lightweight 3000 size Shimano reel sits so nicely on lure rods around that say 8’6’’-9’3’’ mark (and this one sits particularly nicely on that awesome HTO 9’3’’ Shore Game rod, review here), the drag is great albeit how much do we really need a serious drag system for our bass, the reel handle does it for me, you don’t get a spare spool which obviously niggles me but then we never seem to anymore (I blame Brexit!), and overall this Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG spinning reel is about as good as it gets to me.

I keep expecting something to go wrong with this spinning reel because we are so conditioned to saltwater harming our fishing tackle, but so far I can’t find a single thing that’s in any way iffy about this Twin Power. Via regular checking/oiling I found some small traces of saltwater that had got into the line roller area (white residue which I believe is salt), but I’d expect that on any spinning reel save for a sealed Van Staal and I would always argue that whatever a tackle company says about so-called sealing you should be regularly checking the line roller area especially - and then cleaning and oiling up as required. Think about how you wind your wet braid in and now see how it’s always driving saltwater into that line roller area. If I ever end up hearing any “raspiness” at all on this Twin Power, it will be the line roller bearing that I check first.

The old Shimano Rarenium that I wish I had bought a few of!

Try as I might I can’t report back with anything that is or has been niggling me with this spinning reel over the course of the last year plus with it. I guess that in due course Shimano in all their wisdom will upgrade/replace this particular Twin Power XD range of spinning reels, but I like this 3000 much that if money were no object I’d be tempted to buy a bunch of them just because I can’t really imagine how a spinning reel for my roughly 9’ long lure rods can get much better than this one. Things obviously move on, but it’s interesting how some reels seriously get the love whereas others don’t - why for example did those old Rareniums get so much love and respect whereas the next generation of them for whatever reasons didn’t seem to achieve that status here in the UK?

Over in Ireland the other day I propped my rod and reel up against a rock while I was taking some photos and the wind then blew the setup over and into a rockpool. This was the first time this reel has been completely submerged in saltwater and it was only a brief dunking to be fair, but when we finished fishing and got back to the house I tightened the drag up, filled a sink up with warm water, and then put the reel underwater and turned the handle for a while. I then slackened the drag off, left it to drip dry, oiled the various bearings I can easily get to, put a bit of that blue Penn reel grease on a few areas, and to be honest the reel’s as good as it ever was. And regardless, with the amount of saltwater that washes over and into a spinning reel when you’re surf fishing, there is no way I am taking a high-end Japanese spinning reel into the surf zone with me - that’s a job for this increasingly impressive Penn Slammer III 3500 (review here).

So there you go. In my review of this reel I said I’d report back in due course and I have. Because this thing continues to perform so flawlessly I can’t exactly tell you much else about it save for the fact that I absolutely love this Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG, and I can only hope that it continues to perform like this for a long time to come…………….

How on earth does a lure rod company go about replacing the Skyroad range of lure rods? I don’t pretend to be a businessman who knows about this sort of stuff, but I do recognise that product ranges need to be refreshed from time to time. Various Skyroad rods were in my opinion so damn good that I wish they could have been made forever, but product life cycles and all that I presume brought about them being discontinued - and then this new Major Craft Triple Cross range appeared.………...

The discontinued 9’ 10-30g Skyroad in action

Fishing tackle is of course a very personal thing, but if there was one lure rod that forever changed my thoughts and opinions on what could be done for the money it was the Major Craft 9’ 10-30g Skyroad, and then some more rods from that range as I got to try them out. We still have an 8’6’’ and a 9’ Skyroad over in Kerry that have been used and abused like you would not believe yet they carry on without a whimper whilst I “gently” ask our clients not to go overloading them with Bass Bullets etc. when fish fever takes hold!

The (non-EU custom) Major Craft Triple Cross 9’6’’ 10-30g going through the gears out in Ireland

Anyway, so the rather nice people at Chesil Bait’n’Tackle kindly sent me a Major Craft Triple Cross 9’6’’ 10-30g rod as soon as they got them (note - NOT the brand new EU Custom version), and because I was so excited to see what Major Craft had done with this new range I took it out bass fishing as soon as I could - but try as I might I just didn’t fall for it like I was so hoping I might. It’s a bloody good rod that will catch a lot of anglers a lot of fish, but for me there just wasn’t that overall “crispness” as there is on the (discontinued) Skyroad Surf 9’6’’ for example. As ever though, fishing rods are incredibly personal things and my mate Mark for example really enjoyed fishing with it, and we had a client in Ireland back in July for example who had bought one of these Triple Cross 9’6’’ 10-30g lure rods and he was getting on with it brilliantly - which yet again proves that we simply can’t all love the same fishing rods.

Because I review fishing rods like this on my own time, I fished with this new rod a couple of times and then left it alone to move onto something else. Naturally I rang the nice people at Chesil Bait’n’Tackle to tell them what I thought - which let’s be honest is only my opinion and what the hell do I know anyway? - and to say thanks very much but it made me mourn for the Skyroad rods even more.

What Major Craft and the people at Chesil Bait’n’Tackle (who are now fully responsible for importing a growing range of Major Craft gear into the UK) do is of course none of my business, but blow me down if a while later I don’t get the news that together they have come up with a brand new “EU Custom” range of Triple Cross lure rods that would be sitting alongside this current Triple Cross range and would I like to try one of these new ones? Apparently these “EU Custom” rods are that bit faster and steelier and damn right I am starting to get excited all over again, and in due course this Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’ 10-30g lure rod which I am reviewing here arrives. There are four rods in total in this brand new Triple Cross EU Custom range:

TCX-902L/EU Custom – 9ft – 7-23g (I have this one here at home for some proper testing this autumn)

TCX-902ML/EU Custom – 9ft –10-30g (the rod I am reviewing here)

TCX-962ML/EU Custom – 9ft 6in – 10-30g (so, so want to see this one)

TCX-962M/EU Custom – 9ft 6in – 15-42g

Okay, so I have given you the build up and story behind this new rod, and because you have got this far I’m going to make this nice and easy for you - take the (discontinued) Skyroad 9’ 10-30g, add let’s say something like 20% more steeliness/crispness, and you’ve got this rather bloody brilliant Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’ 10-30g lure rod.

As much as I am happy to fish with cork handles like on most of the Skyroad rods, at the end of the day I do prefer a duplon grip long term, and we’ve got them on all the Triple Cross rods. I also like the fact that this particular Triple Cross EU Custom rod has a slightly shorter handle length than on the comparable Skyroad. I have fished a lot with this rod and I have also handed it to various anglers I know plus a few of our clients over in Ireland as well, and praise for it has been universal. It’s just a really, really good 9’ lure fishing rod that in my opinion works so well for how so many of us fish for bass here in the UK and Ireland.

Joe hitting the Patchinko II properly hard on the Triple Cross EU Custom 9’ 10-30g

I would fish the bigger Patchinko on the Skyroad 9’ 10-30g rod, but you knew you were getting towards the top end of the rod in the “how much more is there to give” stakes when you really started to wind a lure like this up. Not on this new Triple Cross EU Custom rod though. Holy cow does this 10-30g rod animalise a lure like the Patchinko and keep on going. I very much agree with the 10-30g rating on this rod if that helps - twitching a 6’’ DoLive Stick around is great, the Patchinko 125 goes out like a dream, fishing any number of hard lures is as good as you’d expect, but then say I need to work along a reefy bottom with the 120mm/18g Search Head Black Minnow combination which comes in at a shade over 28g and this Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’ 10-30g lure rod doesn’t break a sweat.

So yet again I have to hand it to Major Craft here, plus of course the bods at Chesil Bait’n’Tackle. We’ve got a 9’ 10-30g lure fishing rod for just under that £200 price bracket which is an absolute peach for how so many of us go about our bass fishing. I know a lad who has been fishing extensively with a sample of the Triple Cross EU Custom 9’6’’ 10-30g rod and he is raving about it. He has landed bass to over 10lbs on this rod from the shore, and if he ever parts company with it for a while then it’s going to come down to me for another thrashing around various parts of Cornwall.

But I guess you want to know if I think that this new Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’ 10-30g lure rod is a better rod than the discontinued 9’ 10-30g Skyroad? Bearing in mind that I have fished with a hell of a lot of lure rods at all kinds of prices since I first got my mitts on that 9’ Skyroad, and then as much as I don’t really like trying to compare lure rods, well yes, I’d take this new Triple Cross EU Custom over the Skyroad. I like that extra dollop of steeliness, I prefer the duplon grips and the overall handle design plus the fact that it’s shorter, and what floats my boat a lot here is that we are still looking at a hell of a lot of proper lure fishing rod for for a penny under £200. Hail the new Skyroad then!

I am heading back out to Ireland tomorrow for a couple of weeks of co-guiding work in Kerry, so I will update the blog when possible. I’ve got a 500 mile drive on my own tomorrow with a 3.5hr ferry crossing in the middle, talking to myself about all things lure fishing all the way and listening to various rugby, cricket and serial killer podcasts, plus some new episodes of Season 4 of the “My Dad Wrote a Porno” podcast which cracks me up no end.

Crumbs! To be fair yesterday was not an easy day of bass fishing, but about an hour before we were going to head off for supper, one of our lads Richard hooked and landed his first ever bass from the shore. We were fishing a serious run of current and he was bashing one of those killer little Apia Dover 99F hard lures out and across - result!

As I was photographing Richard’s bass above, Paul hooked a fish just below where we were. I managed to turn around and snap a few shots of him fighting his bass, but to be honest my priority at the time was to record Richard’s first bass on camera, and especially as I could see that Paul’s fish was still a long way out and in no hurry to come in.

To be fair I don’t think any of us expected to see a bass quite that big popping up at the side of the current though! Paul did every single thing right and didn’t rush the fight or remotely panic. He kept a nice tight line throughout the scrap (barbless hooks don’t lose fish), I got a fish-grip secured to the bottom jaw, and then it began to sink in that we were looking at a serious donkey of an Irish bass! John measured the fish at 82cms long, and he even managed to take a few scale samples and stick a tag in the fish. As ever the bass was really well looked after and she swam off so strongly.

Now it’s not every day that one of our clients goes and lands a bass this big, but yet again it goes and proves to me just what can happen out here in Ireland when things come together. A bass of a lifetime and I can’t tell you how much it floats my boat to see one of our lads land a fish like this out here in Kerry where as ever we are seeing virtually no other anglers. You can guess what the main topic of conversation was over supper last night! Isn’t it amazing how a tough day’s fishing can suddenly turn out so special? If you are interested in coming on one of our co-guided Ireland fishing trips, please contact me here - bass like this are not remotely common, but isn’t it wonderful to know that there’s always a chance of connecting with a fish like this?

Paul landed this donkey on the ever-killer IMA Hound 125F Glide lure, a hard lure that I have so regularly turned to over the years both for my own fishing and as a lure for our clients. The Hound Glide just works in so many different situations. I love it, but for whatever reason I am think IMA in their infinite wisdom have stopped making it! Damn, damn, damn! Paul was using his trusted HTO Nebula 9’ 12-42g lure rod and I have lent him one of these awesome Penn Slammer III 3500 spinning reels loaded up with a fantastic 8-strand braid that seems to fly under the radar, SpiderWire Stealth Smooth 8 braid in the 20lb breaking strain.

Whilst I find it increasingly difficult to review these modern 8-strand braids when firstly we already have what to me are four awesome braids for what I would term a “more than friendly price” - Daiwa J-Braid, Sufix 832, Sufix Performance Pro 8, and SpiderWire Stealth Smooth 8 (just as good as the others but for some reason seems to fly under the radar) - and secondly these four braids which I have used a hell of a lot now are so damn good I can’t help but wonder why there could be any need to spend much more on a mainline…………….

But then a high-end braid like this Shimano Pitbull 8 comes along and I can understand why it’s that bit more expensive than the four braids I mentioned above - and by no means am I saying you need to spend more, but more expensive stuff will always exist and some people will always pay more. If the figures on the spool of Pitbull 8 braid I am using are to be believed (PE1/22.4lbs) then it’s a very thin 8-strand braid, and I can’t get away from how uber-smooth and round it feels - from the very first cast with this stuff I am literally purring. I can’t tell you whether this Pitbull 8 really is 22.4lbs strong, but when I tie an FG knot between this braid and a leader it takes all the pulling I can possibly give it when tightening the knot down - and yes, I got one of those braid cuts on one of my fingers when trying unsuccessfully to break it.

So it’s smooth and it seems to be very strong. I love this Lime Green colour although it’s also available in a Blue colour here. I like to think I know a really good braid when I fish with it, and whilst I haven’t spent nearly enough time with this Shimano Pitbull 8 to feel comfortable putting it in the same category as the high-end Varivas braids that I have used loads and loads, I do have a feeling that this Shimano braid is easily as good as the Varivas ones. By no means am I going to sit here and tell you that you need to spend €39.95 on a 200m spool of 8-strand braid when the “more than friendly priced” braids I mentioned in the first paragraph are all outstanding, but this Shimano Pitbull 8 is relatively new, it’s out there, it’s done really well for me, and some anglers want to spend that bit more for any number of reasons.

Perhaps I do have a slightly different take on this Shimano Pitbull 8 braid, and it’s based around the fact that if you buy it you are getting 200m of braid as opposed to the more usual 150m or less. I assume that many of you here reverse your braid when you feel it’s warranted, but of course if you’ve been using whatever 150m or less spool of braid for a fair amount of time you’ve been trying multiple leaders and no doubt cutting back the line a bit when you find the odd bit of damage etc. It sure ain’t 150m or so when you eventually come to reverse it.

Now I’ve never had an issue changing my braid around to get at the unused stuff underneath, and to be honest I don’t always do it, but I would argue that having 200m of braid on your reel as opposed to 150m or less means you really are going to be getting at what is brand new braid when you reverse it. I don’t know anybody who is putting bass lures out over 100m, and even if you cast as far as you can and a big bass hits you, if that fish ends up over 100m out then I would suggest you need to locate that great big drag knob on the front of your spinning reel and tighten it the hell up. Twisted logic this may be, but all of a sudden that €39.95 for a 200m spool of what is so obviously a serious quality mainline makes a bit more sense……………...

As much as I can’t get enough of spending time here in Ireland, having spent more than three weeks out of four away from home in September it’s going to be great to get home and properly see my family. I am leaving Kerry this morning and heading home to Cornwall, and if all goes to plan I should be crawling into bed around 3am or so, to then get up at 6am for a walk with Storm our sheepdog plus my wife and youngest daughter before they head off for work and school respectively.

And yes, I have obviously checked the tides and weather conditions for when I get home. I haven’t fished for nearly two weeks now, and as much as helping people catch fish is some of the most enjoyable work I have ever done, damn right I need to get out there and connect with a few bass for myself!

It has to be that monster 82cms bass that stands out on the fish front from this Kerry co-guiding trip, but as ever what really bangs home to me is how much fun it is to get these groups of anglers together here in Kerry and then help them catch a few fish, learn plenty, get plenty of confidence for their own fishing, and have a hell of a good time in such a special part of the world.

We’ve had some good fishing and we’ve had some tough fishing out here, but what I take away from these trips is the people and how much we laugh whatever the weather and whatever the fish are or are not doing. Thanks as ever to those kind people who come on these trips, and I can’t wait to come back out here in 2019. I had best get packed up and on the road and I’ll catch you later in the week……...

It was my friend Cian who used to run the outstanding Absolute Fishing tackle shop over in Ireland who put me onto these little Breakaway Mini Link lure clips, and at the time I was using the Delalande Agrafe Rapide lure clips in the 35lbs size. Some friends had recently had a few of the smaller 29lb Delalande clips opening up on bigger bass so I switched to the slightly larger and stronger 35lb ones, but with soft plastics rigged weedless/weightless becoming more and more relevant to my fishing it was starting to niggle me how some of the bigger weedless hooks didn’t seem to sit quite right on the Delalande clips…………….

And then into my lure fishing life comes this wonderfully simple and easy to use Breakaway Mini Link lure clip. I had used the larger, bait fishing size Breakaway Fastlink clips a hell of a lot already for my shore fishing, so I knew how the design of the clip worked and therefore clipping various items on and then taking them off the clip was second nature before I gave their smaller Breakaway Mini Link lure clips a go for my lure fishing.

Between when Cian put me onto these ingenious and not remotely expensive little Breakaway Mini Link lure clips and the present day, and aside from trying a couple of other lure clips more out of interest more than anything else, I haven’t meaningfully fished with another lure clip. I have seen some clever looking designs out there and I also lost a beloved cotton candy Salt Skimmer when one particular clip failed on me - check here. I have also fished a bit with those stunning little (and not cheap) Owner Hyper Welded Quick Snap lure clips that as per my blog post here I found I could not use them “blind” at night.

This is how my rods sit here on my rack here at home and then how they go on the Vac-Rac racks on my car

So here we are about three years down the line with the most perfect lure fishing clip for our UK and Irish saltwater lure fishing I have ever found, and hand on heart I have not had a single issue with them. I put John Quinlan onto them a couple of years ago and he has gone through I dread to think how many packets of them for his clients - and he hasn’t had a single issue either. As a professional fishing guide who relies on his skills at putting clients on fish, this says a lot to me, indeed when John and I are working together and our clients arrive and we set up the gear ready for fishing the next morning, if our clients haven’t got any Breakaway Mini Link lure clips themselves then we put them on the end of their leaders because John and I both completely and utterly trust these ingenious little contraptions.

Plus of course they are so bloody easy to use - on and off with hard and soft lures, no trying to open up some snap-style lure clip with wet/cold hands or in the dark when you’re trying to be all ninja on the fish, they are nice and small, they don’t cost very much, and I can’t think of any way in which I could improve upon the brilliant design of them. I reckon three years is long enough for me to hail the Breakaway Mini Link as by miles the best lure clip I have fished with, and whilst I will no doubt try the odd other lure clip to see if they might work for me, I will be amazed if in another three years time you don’t see me shouting about the same Breakaway lure clip on here.

And yes, before anybody goes suggesting a loop knot to me - I always lure fish with a lure clip because I hate the idea of having to retie a loop knot every single time I want to change my lure and then having to endlessly put new leaders on because they are now too short, and I have never, ever got the impression that fishing for bass with a lure clip as light and perfect as the Breakaway Mini Link has ever caught me less fish. Simple!

After two weeks of co-guiding work over in Ireland and obviously not fishing (because guides do not fish with their clients, end of), believe me, the need to go fishing for myself is serious! As much as I absolutely love helping people to catch fish, I am obviously an obsessed angler - and I got back home the other day with a burning need to get out fishing and see if I could hook a fish or two for myself…………

Now I wouldn’t usually choose to fish on the open coast when it’s as flat and clear as it is right now down here in south east Cornwall, but around the kids and school and all that they do outside of it, plus my wife’s job as a teacher, sometimes you just gotta go when you can fit it in. For sure these are night fishing conditions at the moment, but I thought what the hell and headed out just before first light this morning. Damn it was calm!

And it was very obvious very quickly that there were a lot of bass around! I’d love to say that they were monsters on the hunt for my lure, but when my first bass came in at around a pound or so, and then I had multiple fish chasing my surface lure, you kinda know what’s going to happen. In some respects I could have walked away and fished somewhere else, but I can’t help coming back to when I had my big bass the other day and in the same session I caught a bass that wasn’t a whole heap bigger than my Spittin’ Wire surface lure - so you never quite know I guess.

I do though tend to start playing around a bit when I know I’ve got a bunch of small to smallish bass in front of me. I have little interest in numbers of fish and to me it’s a license to try something a bit different and give yourself a jolt of confidence if it goes and catches. If small bass respond to these changes then I see no reason why bigger bass will not, and so on.

It’s no secret on here that I have fallen head over heels for this Whiplash Factory Spittin’ Wire surface lure, and I sincerely hope that if any of you have invested in these (not cheap) lures that you are loving them as much as I am. I have tended to fish them with a fairly splashy walk the dog kind of action, indeed it seriously made my day when I persuaded Dave over in Ireland last week to change from his beloved baby Patchinko over to his brand new Spittin’ Wire and fish it like I have been doing - and he went and caught a bass.

So first cast this morning and I’ve got small bass trying to inhale my white coloured Spittin’ Wire, as per above. The Spanish lad who kindly put me onto this lure and began my (not cheap) obsession with the lure told me from the off to really play around with different retrieves and ways of working it, so this morning to me was exactly the time to give this a go. On several occasions when a bass came at the lure and missed it I would stop it dead, wait a couple of seconds, and then twitch it - bang! A couple of times bass hit a static lure after they had swirled on it, and so on.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly hard to hook a bunch of small bass up this morning, but if all the small ones are coming up for surface lures, how about changing to something sub-surface? I have seriously loved the “Honey Flash” 6’’ DoLive Stick from the first time I ever used one in very clear water and a bass around 5lbs hit the thing so hard it hooked itself but the lure ripped clean off the hook and hitchhiker. I obviously can’t prove if the shimmery yellow sort of colour makes a difference, but my one packet of this particular colour DoLive Stick has been uncanny how well they have worked when the water is particularly clear - which it was this morning.

Does this count as a selfie?!

So you can imagine how I sat here in my office and nearly cried tears of joy when I found that I could finally buy this particular DoLive Stick here in the UK instead of having to trawl the internet and find the odd pack over in Japan. If there was ever a time to get one out there it was this morning, and I bet you can guess what happens next - no word of a lie my first cast with a “Honey Flash” 6’’ DoLive Stick and the best bass of the brief session absolutely smashes it. As ever I’m not trying to tell you that it was the lure or the colour or whatever, not when I am fishing on my own and I can’t come close to proving anything. Nope, all I can do is go on what happened this morning, and when trying something a bit different to what had been nailing a heap of schoolie bass goes and produces a fish around 4lbs which was by a long away the biggest one I caught this morning, well for me that’s all the “proof” I need. You all have a good weekend.

When I was over in Kerry the other day, on two or three occasions we had a bloke from IFI (Inland Fisheries Ireland) walk out to where we were fishing with our clients. We were also checked up on back in July as well. Now it’s not as if these blokes demanded to see inside our rucksacks or whatever - and to be honest I don’t actually know how far the IFI powers stretch in these situations - but the simple fact that somebody from the (Ireland) state agency that’s responsible for “the protection, management and conservation of Ireland's inland fisheries and sea angling resources” was checking up on what we were up to from a sport fishing point of view is a good thing if you ask me………….

When compared to what seems to (not) be going on here in the UK. I got yapping with the IFI guys on a couple of occasions and I said to them how impressive it was that they were out and about checking up on anglers - and I told the guys that I had never, ever been checked up on for anything over here in the UK. I know it’s now legal to take one legal size bass per day (why oh why don’t we at least have slot sizes?), but if you think about it, it kinda changes nothing - if as an angler you have wanted to catch and kill as many bass or indeed other fish, is there really any kind of shore based deterrent especially out there?

Please note that I am not having a go at the powers that be, rather I am a bit in the dark here as to who might actually be out there on our extensive coastline to keep an eye on anglers and whether they are fishing legally as such. You can of course head out there and kill as many rays for example as you want, but bass as a species have been subject to different rules and regulations for a while now - and what’s to stop so called “anglers” taking as many as they want, and of any size? Are there actually officials out there checking but I for whatever reason just happen never to have come across any of them here in the UK?

John tagging a bass over in Kerry

Having IFI people come out to check up on us over in Ireland naturally puts this into stark contrast for me. By no means am I saying that just because you’ve got IFI officials out and about around Ireland that nobody is doing anything illegal on the fishing or netting front, but contrast us getting at least checked up on and knowing that the powers that be are at least out there somewhere against me never, ever getting checked up on here in the UK and I’ve lived down here in the south west for twenty five years now.

I don’t personally want to kill bass, but I completely respect the fact that many anglers go fishing and want to come home with something to eat - which is of course where fishing comes from - but what was ever in place to prevent unscrupulous anglers killing as many bass as they want to when a law is in place but from my own experiences admittedly there has never been any fear or worry of being caught behaving illegally? Are my non-experiences unique to the south west or have you as a shore based anglers been checked up on here in the UK?

Here’s a bit of free advice for you - if you are currently a die hard bait angler but are just starting to dabble in this world of saltwater lure fishing, stop right now. Do yourself a big favour and put the lure gear down, get back to the rods in tripods, and I guarantee you won’t end up like me - a 45 year old “grown up?” father of two “more mature than me” girls who has been fishing since I was seven years old but because of lure fishing for bass especially I am more obsessed and consumed than I ever was, and it just doesn’t seem to be getting any better…………

It goes without saying that going fishing is about catching fish, but for me it’s always been the whole thing that fascinates me - the why, the where, the how, and of course the unknowns that some experts seem to know but the rest of mortals don’t and seem happy to accept that we’re never going to get that consistent one up over nature. Damn we try our best though, and yet again I come back to how could I possibly have ever known how eternally varied and fascinating this whole lure fishing thing could be?

And it’s an obsession, plain and simple. It’s also an obsession that continues to get worse the more I get into it, and just when I think that’s surely it and I’m kinda comfortable with moving around and at least making a half-decent fist at trying to catch bass from a bunch of different locations and conditions, along comes another side to it all that for whatever reason I simply don’t understand starts to creep up on me until it’s consuming me like I suppose a casino might consume a gambling addict.

You all know that surf fishing for bass is as old as the hills, indeed my basic knowledge of UK and Irish bass fishing history is based around those (black and white) days of standing in a tumbling surf with a bait rod in hand. I guess also that chucking various lures out in these conditions has been around as long as anglers have sport fished for bass. I have done a fair bit of bait based surf fishing for bass thanks largely to a kind soul in south east Ireland when I first really started getting into it all, and I have done a bit of chucking lures out into surf conditions as well.

If there is one thing that I have realised with this whole lure fishing, it’s that at various times in the learning curve that we are all on, a certain style as such will for some reason begin to resonate that bit more - and you then begin to obsess about it. It may be opening up to soft plastics or night fishing, or it could be bumping lures down an estuary etc., but for me at the moment it’s this whole banging lures out into surf conditions that is consuming my thoughts. Obviously I continue to fish for bass as much as I can with whatever techniques and methods the locations and conditions dictate, but for whatever reasons I can’t explain I currently wake up thinking about longer, more powerful lure rods and different metal lures especially that want to be launched out there into a tumbling mass of fizzed up white water where the bass fight like they are on steroids and you can’t help but literally shake with excitement because fishing like this is so damn exciting.

Ragot Hareng 35g metal lure

Metal lures are of course nothing remotely new, but now go looking deep into it and there as many and varied metals out there as hard lures for sure. I am currently fishing with the best 9’ and 9’6’’ lure rods I have ever used, yet I am actively looking at lure rods around 9’6’’ to say 10’6’’ that are rated to around the 50g mark for banging some of those metals out, plus of course whatever other types of bass lure that might work in a bit of surf and/or when it might just pay off to reach the bit of water that your regular lures simply can’t. Does it ever get any easier?

Williamson 40g Thunder Jig rigged with a VMC single hook

We took a bit of a punt yesterday afternoon on some surf fishing, and whilst we came away from a session that in theory was hardly electric, for me it was about as good as I could have hoped for. I am as obsessed about photographing fishing as I am about actually fishing, and as much as I need to shoot certain images for work reasons, when you give me the conditions and light and a mass of tumbling, sparkling water such as we had yesterday, well the fact that only two bass were caught for me means little when compared to how much I loved the photography side of that session………..

As a photographer and an angler, I just love moving water. I have photographed loads of fly fishing features on lakes for example, but give me a river or the sea and creatively I am always happier. Water that moves either via flow or tides or current or like yesterday via a stunning bit of swell seriously does it for me, and of course if we get light like we had up on the north coast as the sun dropped away plus I’ve got a few good anglers to shoot who also happen to be winding up their new APIA Grandage rods with some long-casting metals, well that’s me done really.

For sure I was there to fish, but in reality I couldn’t not strap my own lure rod to my side (fast flooding tide, nowhere to put rod or rucksack down) and fire away with my camera gear. Just moving around where the anglers were standing gave me a bunch of different lighting options, and like a pig in the proverbial I fired away! Not only do I clean my fishing gear down when I get home from a surf session like that, but then I need to dump all the photos, have a quick scan through them, back them up, and then start the editing, keywording, and outputting process. What are early mornings for if you’re not out fishing?!

Mark and I have never deliberately targeted “proper” surf conditions where we were yesterday afternoon, so when our mate Andy nailed a couple of bass within about half an hour of being there, well that was my day made on the fishing front - and that was before I started to hyperventilate because the light was going off so well with the surf conditions and where the guys were standing to fish etc. As much as I’d love to have smashed a heap of bass, the punt paid off with those two fish, and then I can’t help but weigh up in my head how a load of bass could actually have impacted on my photography and so on. Believe me, my head works in mysterious ways!

Mark and his new Apia Grandage 100M 10' 12-42g lure rod at 20 frames per second

Mark was using his new Apia Grandage 100M 10' 12-42g rod and Andy was out for the first time with his brand new Apia Grandage 106MH 10'6'' 14-50g rod. I have briefly cast them both and I’d happily take either - holy cow they are some rods, they don’t remotely feel their length, and to me they are a big step up from the previous generation and now discontinued APIA Foojin’R Grand Swell 96MH 9’6’’ 7-42g that I have fished with so much. These new APIA Grandage rods are far easier to work with, indeed I have already reviewed and seriously loved the Apia Grandage 96ML 9’6’’ 7-28g - see here. These new Grandage rods feel a lot more versatile, you can get at the power without having to work too hard, I’d fancy them for all kinds of lures, and when you go for it with say a 40g metal on these longer, more powerful rods, it’s about as sweet a casting and fishing experience as I can imagine. I know the Art of Fishing who do APIA rods here in the UK got a bit of a shock when they sold these new rods out almost the moment they got them in, so if you fancy one then give them a shout and put your name down for the next batch coming in - behind me of course!

Andy and his new Apia Grandage 106MH 10'6'' 14-50g at 20 frames per second

We had some stunning surf (and light) conditions yesterday afternoon, but we didn’t have any hectic onshore winds, so it was interesting how Andy was very able to work some metals/jigs, instead of having to simply crank them in because the wind dictates it. He caught both his bass on metals that he was (shore) jigging at range - and both fish hit him on the drop. I believe me that his bass came on a Daiwa Shore Rifle Casting Jig that he (the tart) picked up over in France the other day. I have owned and used a fair few casting jigs over the years now, but I do like how Andy’s one had a larger profile than the much smaller ones I have tended to play around with. Anyway, there you go. Nothing hectic on the fishing front, but from my photography point of view I hope you get a sense of just why those few hours floated my boat so much - and let’s be honest, I can’t see how any lure angler out there couldn’t get buzzed up from punching lures out into a stunning bit of surf.

I know little about this angler related incident from that storm we had the other day save for what I have read online, but it sounds to me like the person concerned is seriously lucky to be alive. I don’t know Porth and it’s not for me to pass judgement upon whether what sounds like a couple of anglers should have been fishing where they were during that storm, but that aside you have to once again take your hat off to the relevant emergency services for getting this guy out of the water before he died.

This is NOT the angler who went in! It’s my photo of a day with the RNLI from the summer…….

This is what I know happened via an article I was alerted to online: “A man who went angling on the Cornwall coast during the stormiest weekend of the year so far had to be rescued by helicopter when he was washed off the rocks. The RNLI and Coastguard were called at 6pm on Sunday after a man was washed into the sea while fishing from rocks at Porth. The man's partner called 999 and asked for the coastguard and a helicopter was launched. Coastguards say the man followed 'float to live' advice and floated on his back rather than struggling against the current. A Newquay Coastguard spokesman said: "Just after 6pm on Sunday evening our team along with Newquay RNLI lifeboats, RNLI Lifeguards Newquay and Rescue924 were alerted to an angler having been washed off of rocks at Porth. "The angler followed the advice given to anyone who inadvertently enters the water, #FloatToLive getting on his back and not struggling. "The helicopter was quickly on scene and plucked him from the sea. He was extremely lucky, he followed advice #FloatToLive and his partner raised the alert immediately by dialing 999 and asking for HMCoastguard. "We wish him a speedy recovery."

How hard is it to wear a modern lifejacket for shore based fishing like this?

The angler who ended up in the water was not wearing a lifejacket, and with what I now know and have come to realise it would be of course be easy to sit here and pass judgement on that fact, but in reality I would bet that most anglers out there who are rock fishing especially are not wearing lifejackets. Why? For any number of reasons, with ignorance and simply not knowing being at the top of the list I would bet, plus the simple fact that as anglers we are predominantly a bunch of blokes who for some daft reason reckon we are invincible - and you can take me as an example here. I didn’t know about lifejackets, I didn’t want to know about them, then when it was suggested to me that they could be useful I purposefully ignored them, until as has been documented on here I came around to how they are quite simply a no-brainer for a lot of the saltwater fishing we might do.

I have put that RNLI Float to Live video on here as it’s so worth a watch, but above all I would implore you please to think about the fishing you do and how you could so easily wear a lifejacket and do a few small things to maximise your chances of having a heap of fun whilst fishing and then going safely home at the end of it. I am sure that in due course I will learn more about what went on with this incident from the other day, but initially it sounds to me like a lot of luck was involved to have this particular angler live to fish another day. What would have happened if the “man’s partner” wasn’t around to call the emergency services? “The helicopter was quickly on scene and plucked him from the sea”. As the article says, you can but with the angler concerned a speedy recovery and hope that this incident might get a few more anglers thinking about their own safety…………….

I wanted to alert you to the fact that my account of the 79cms long bass that I caught in early September is in this month’s new edition of Sea Angler magazine, and as ever I take my hat off to the powers that be for running with my story, and also for publishing it so quickly. When I submitted the words and photos I did get an email back asking me if there were any photos of me with my biggest shore caught bass ever - to which I replied no. I explained the reasons why, the editor understood completely, I explain my reasoning in the article, so I hope you enjoy reading about it in the new issue…………

And it may be many years and many front covers down the line now, but the thrill at seeing a photograph I shot on the cover of a magazine never diminishes. It most likely means little to an angler who picks the magazine up out of a rack in a shop, but damn right it tickles me pink that the first thing they see is a great big photograph that I shot and that the Sea Angler grownups picked it out as a cover shot - please remember that I am completely self-taught at this photography thing so as ever I can’t help but feel a bit like a fraud!

Have a good weekend and next week - it’s half-term week and for the first time in a few years I am heading away with my family and I can’t wait. I will be keeping in touch with work stuff but I am going to leave the blog alone for the week save for okaying comments and replying to some when I can. I love doing this blog and I love the fact that so many of you read it and interact with me - thank you as ever and may some big autumn bass smash your lures and indeed baits sometime soon. Catch you after half-term………….

This coming Saturday and Sunday is the second ever European Sport Fishing Show in Bristol and I must admit that I can’t wait, plus of course I am rather proud to be going there for the two days to do some work with the rather awesome RNLI. I will be based around their stand and I will also be doing some talks based around increased angler safety and all that I have been learning about it - please come along and make sure I don’t end up talking to myself for half an hour or so!

My talks will be also be an opportunity for me to show a brand new short film from the filming that a bunch of us did with the RNLI back in the summer, so if my technical abilities are good enough and I am able to insert this video into my presentation then it should all work okay. I believe that the nice people at the Art of Fishing and Lure Heaven tackle shops are going to have various lifejackets for sale at the show, and I also believe that any profits from lifejacket sales will be donated directly to the RNLI.

You can find all the details of the show here, and I very much hope to see a bunch of you there. I for one will be drooling over all the new gear that I know the Art of Fishing and Lure Heaven especially are going to have there, and I am really hoping that me being based around the RNLI stand gives me the opportunity to yap with anglers about how we can make what we so love doing that bit safer. I don’t remotely pretend to be some sort of expert about all this, but I am far better informed than I ever was and I am passionate about doing what I can about trying to help prevent anglers from not coming home to their families.

I have also just found out that the serious world fishing junkie and writer and photographer that is Dave Lewis will have his own stand at this European Sport Fishing Show. Make sure to talk to him about fishing almost anywhere on this earth (holy cow this guy gets around!), and he will also have his new book “Destination Angler II” on sale at the show. I have a copy here and will review it in due course, but in short it’s another blinding read that fills me with longing to get out there and see more of this amazing world. Dave is a thoroughly nice bloke, he is also a consultant for Shimano, and he’s also doing some talks/presentations over the weekend.

Anyway, I hope you all had a good week. I was away on holiday with my family but still managed to walk up and around an old volcano nearly every single morning before breakfast because my youngest girl can’t understand why anybody would go on holiday and not want to train their running socks off and push themselves as hard as they physically can. Oh for the energy of youth! There’s me walking up to the top of the volcano and then around the rim, loving it for the exercise and the being out there, but very much behind my youngest girl who’s way ahead and quite literally running laps around me.

“This isn’t a book about how to catch bass. It’s a book about how I catch bass. There’s a difference.” I knew I was going to like this new bass fishing book from about page one, and what continues to fascinate me with how “The Song of the Solitary Bass Fisher” by James “Leakyboots” Batty has wormed its way into my head is that via the author’s wonderfully engaging, to the point, and opinionated writing it became very evident very quickly that I am exactly the kind of angler and/or fishing writer that he holds no truck for at all - and I really like this. Fishing fits us all in and fishing needs people like James Batty to help illuminate what we so love to do in his unique and wonderfully accessible way.

This is categorically not a technical manual about bass fishing but I defy any angler not to pick up a whole heap of useful information and ways to go about your own fishing from this book. I have never met James Batty the author and via his writing I get the impression that we could not be more different, but because fishing is so utterly awesome in the way it allows for so many different kinds of people to lose themselves within it, I can’t help but admire how the author is so absorbed by what is a pretty small area of coastline - and hellfire does he sound like he knows his local patch inside out.

Anglers like this absolutely fascinate me, and in no small part because I just can’t be like this. For sure I love my local area, but it’s not enough for me and I accept that I will most likely never know it as well as James Batty knows his part of Cornwall. I need to go wandering for my fishing because it’s the way I’m made, so when somebody like this author is so obviously connected to where he lives and does his fishing and then chooses to write a wonderfully engaging, amusing and insightful book, well I doff my cap and say a big thanks for giving an angler like me so much pleasure from it. Why the hell not celebrate where you live if it offers you all the fishing you could ever want right on your doorstep?

When you read this book - and I implore you to do so - you always need to bear in mind my quote from the top of this review: “This isn’t a book about how to catch bass. It’s a book about how I catch bass. There’s a difference.” James Batty tell you how it is for him and his fishing, and I love how he seamlessly inserts all manner of anecdotes and opinions into his his writing - and I do love a good opinion! I found myself reading the book and imagining that I was with James on his local beach at about 4am and then I start laughing when he breaks away (in different fonts and/or italics) to either regale you with a story about a particular fishing session or proffer a thought or an opinion.

How about this one for example: “ In the USA I understand the Coast Guard charges fees to people who need to be rescued. It seems like a good idea to me, and something the RNLI should consider, with the tariff on a sliding scale based on the level of stupidity of the folk who call them out. Bad luck or sudden change in the weather: free. Putting to sea in an unreliable boat: five hundred quid. Being cut off by a rising tide: two grand. Jumping off a pier: your wetsuit, car, and house.” Stick that in your pipe and smoke it! Far too many people never say what they think, but let me assure you that the author says it exactly as he sees it all the way through this wonderful book, and I hugely respect him for it.

Bass fishing is bass fishing though, and without a doubt there’s a lot in this book that gets me thinking about my own bass fishing and how I might look at things differently. In some respects you could read this book and come away with the feeling that the author might bang on a bit about cheap fishing tackle being the best and chucking a whole squid no more than a few yards, but that to me would be missing the point. For me “The Song of the Solitary Bass Fisher” by James “Leakyboots” Batty is exactly the kind of book that fishing needs. Fishing needs its characters who say it like it is and who know their fishing inside out yet also have the skills to translate that obsession and knowledge across to us.

I do though have a few minor complaints about the book which in truth don’t remotely take away from how gloriously the book is written. I can’t stand the word “fisher”, but having written a few books myself I would hazard a guess that the author would have originally used words such as “angler” or “fisherman” but the publishers would have insisted upon the word “fisher” because of the way the world increasingly is these days.

From a visual point of view I don’t think the book jumps off the shelf at all, but you must place my opinion here into context. So much of my working life revolves around trying to make fishing look as good as possible, and as such the front cover of this wonderful book just doesn’t inspire me one single bit with either the design or the photos that have been used. Sorry, this might just be me, but the visual side of fishing means so much to me and I don’t think this book has succeeded on that front at all. Does it matter? Most likely not at all these days, but with how good bass fishing can look? A bit of a shame if you ask me.

As an aside, you won’t believe how hard I fought against the truly awful front cover (above) of my first ever book that I wrote and photographed for a publisher called Dorling Kindersley. I had no say over that cover, they were of course entirely free not to use one of my photographs, but the photo they used was plain crap and it always struck me as not quite real anyway (seriously Photoshopped?), and yes, damn right, it still bugs the hell out of me! Sorry, I have digressed…………

Within the book itself there are a number of black and white photographs of big, dead bass, but before those of us who are very interested in bass conservation throw our collective toys from our prams, we need to remember that a lot of people go fishing and want to take fish home to eat and what on earth is wrong with that? Personally I can’t see the point in killing really big bass if you want to take one home to eat, but perhaps the author has a huge family and also I would point out that a lot of the photographs in the book look fairly old. I am not having a pop at James Batty here, but it would be remiss of me not to tell you what I think. To be perfectly honest I think the book would be better off without any of the black and white photographs that have been used anyway, and this stems purely from the fact that they just aren’t any good.

My minor complaints aside, I implore you to buy and read this book. It seems to be available all over the place online (here for example) and I hope they sell the hell out of it. As I said earlier, fishing needs anglers (“fishers”?) and books like this………...

The one rod in the discontinued Major Craft Skyroad range that I never got to spend any meaningful time with was the 9’6’’ 10-30g. I spent a heap of time fishing with their awesome Major Craft Skyroad SKR-962 Surf 9’6’’ 5-28g, but my only experiences with that Skyroad 9’6’’ 10-30g rod was when I came across a few kind anglers who let me have a quick chuck with theirs. So yes, it was rather exciting to get my grubby mitts on this new Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’6’’ 10-30g lure rod. I’m not going to repeat myself here with why we are seeing this new “EU Custom range” of these Triple Cross rods, because you can find that info in my review of the outstanding 9’ rod - check here.

We can get our hands on so much good lure fishing gear these days, and when I come across a rod like this Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’6’’ 10-30g lure rod which to be perfectly honest floated my boat the moment I picked it up and give it a waggle, I do wonder how anybody could not like fishing with a rod like this. For sure you might prefer a longer or shorter or more powerful or whatever lure rod, but as a 9’6’’ long lure fishing rod that is rated to fish with lure in that almost “do it all” 10-30g range, I fail to see how you can’t enjoy using a rod that works as well as this one. It’s a class bit of kit, but yes, obviously I accept completely that we all like different things. I mean hell, some anglers don’t go panic buying DoLive Sticks!

Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9'6'' 10-30g.gif

I like the handle on this rod, I like the build, I like the look of the rod, and I like the price. If a 9’6’’ rod is as light and responsive as this one is then I am perfectly happy lure fishing with a rod this long, and holy cow does it get lures out there. I happen to think the 10-30g rating is spot on - only yesterday morning I was absolutely larruping (technical casting word!) a 30g casting jig with no issues, and managing to fish it properly at serious range as well. How do I know this? Because a bass jumped on the end! Please note that I am not telling you to go overloading the rod just because I have full-blooded a 30g jig, rather that I agree with the 10-30g figures. Putting out a 6’’ DoLive is as effortless as loading the rod up and belting a Patchinko out there, and so on.

It’s all very well putting lures out through, but at the end of the day you’ve got to be able to fish them properly. I can’t stand lure rods that “collapse” into a surface lure like the Patchinko, and when I clip on that 30g casting jig the next cast, I want to be able to work it properly at range. And so on. I liked this rod from the off, but sometimes I really like a rod to start with then over time I might find a few often minor issues that end up grating a little bit. Not at all with this Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’6’’ 10-30g lure rod though, indeed the more I have fished with it, the more I have liked it as locations and conditions have dictated a load of different lures and methods - and the rod does the lot with ease. I kind of enjoy trying to trip a lure rod up, but I’m damned if I can with this one, and it’s a rod I will be very sorry to send back to those nice people at Chesil Bait’n’Tackle.

And if it helps, I know of two very good UK lure anglers who both have this Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’6’’ 10-30g lure rod and have both landed 10lb+ bass on them. One I believe was taken on a metal and the other was taken off the top over in Ireland. All these rods we use are more than capable of landing big bass, but it’s good to know that a new to the UK rod has actually been properly tested out in the real world by some proper anglers who know their onions.

What more can I say? This Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’6’’ 10-30g lure rod is a bloody good 9’6’’ lure fishing for for how so many of us go about our bass fishing, and for a penny under the £200 mark and with the amount of lure rods I have fished with, it’s a bit of a steal in my opinion. I can’t compare it to the discontinued 9’6’’ Skyroad, but as with that shorter Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’ 10-30g lure rod that I reviewed a while back, once more I take my hat off to those Chesil Bait’n’Tackle people for seriously nailing this “EU Custom” range of the Major Triple Cross rods. The discontinued Skyroad rods were a tough act to follow, but these EU Custom rods are all that plus a little bit more.

Hoping to see a bunch of you at the European Sport Fishing Show in Bristol tomorrow and/or Sunday, and I have been told that a whole heap of new Major Craft rods - including this EU Custom range - will be on display at the Todber Manor stand. I am working with the RNLI at the show, but I might also be waggling rods on the Art of Fishing, Lure Heaven, and Todber Manor stands. See you there, and if you by any chance come looking for me from about 2.30pm onwards on the Saturday afternoon and don’t find me, well I’ll have sodded off to (nervously?) watch the England v South Africa rugby!

So the second ever European Sport Fishing Show has been and gone, and as with last year I think the location is perfect and I take my hat off to the organisers for sticking their necks out like they so bravely do and putting this show together. In truth the show seemed busier last year and I am sure that the “getting it out there” to us punters could be done more effectively over time, but to be honest what surprises me the most is some of the lack of support from the fishing tackle trade……….

Bear in mind that I work in fishing but of course don’t make or distribute of sell fishing tackle. For many years now I have had all manner of people within the UK tackle industry banging on at me about the need for a fishing show that encompasses lure and/or fly fishing specifically - and now we’ve got one because a few brave people have decided that enough is enough and we have simply got to have one. So why were far too many key players not at the show? Where the hell are the big boys like Daiwa, Shimano, Hardy, Greys, Penn, Savage Gear, etc.? With the amount of fly and lure guy these companies do you’d have thought they would want to show it off to the fishing public.

And then where were some of the smaller companies? Where was somebody like Veals Mail Order with all their Varivas and Teklon lure gear especially? Where was HTO with their awesome Nebula and Shore Game rods and all their lures and bits and pieces? I hardly saw a Fiiish lure at the show, and so on. I am also surprised that more of the internet based lure fishing companies especially don’t go along to this show and help anglers to put faces to business names and also show off and of course sell a load of the increasingly impressive lure fishing tackle we can get our hands on. Don’t get me wrong, it was an impressive show and in time it could grow into something frigging amazing, so surely parts of the tackle trade are their own worst enemies - moan when there isn’t a show, then don’t go to a new show because their might not yet be quite enough footfall, but how on earth do you grow the footfall if you aren’t in there helping to grow it by showing off and selling fishing tackle and associated gear that anglers can come along to see and buy?

Anyway, I could go on and on about the above. We so need a fishing show like this in the UK and I can’t wait for the 2019 one. From my point of view it was awesome to be there in conjunction with the RNLI, and whilst this is very early days with the whole trying to make our fishing that bit safer so that we do get to come home to our families instead of becoming a tragic statistic, it’s really interesting to get to talk to more and more anglers about all this. I showed a brand new video at the show and I believe and I can put it onto YouTube sometime very soon. Here’s some info from the show that I know will be of interest to lure anglers:

Once again the Art of Fishing tackle shop had a hugely impressive stand, and they have my total respect for sourcing and selling the excellent and seriously good value for money Crewsaver lifejackets on sale at the show, with all profits on the sale of them going to the RNLI. I believe these lifejackets will be on their website this week as well, so keep an eye out - for a smidgen under £80 you can buy a seriously good auto-inflate lifejacket, the Crewsaver Crewfit 165N Sport - check my review of it here. I also got to waggle all the rods in their brand new Tailwalk Borderless “EGinn/do any kind of lure fishing” range - holy frigging cow, and I seriously mean that. I can’t recall waggling a more impressive overall range of lure fishing rods before and I have come away from the show actually wanting to buy and own a 10’+ lure rod for the first time ever. These new Tailwalk EGinn rods are on a scary-good introductory deal at the moment and it’s taking all my will power not to invest. A lot of anglers were quite rightly fawning over the the utterly delightful and lighter lure weight Tailwalk EGinn 86L-R, plus the “do it all” Tailwalk EGinn 96ML-R. I’d happily take them both, plus that longer Tailwalk EGinn 106M-R as I said earlier, but damn the Tailwalk EGinn 88M absolutely blew me away. If you like very light and wonderfully “crisp” lure rods then you have to check out these new rods.

I got to see a lot more rods in the new Major Craft Triple Cross range over on the impressive Todber Manor stand, and thanks to the kind people at Chesil Bait’n’Tackle I took away a hugely impressive feeling Triple Cross TCX-982Surf 9’8’’ 10-45g “Surf Style” lure rod to give it a proper thrashing. Damn this rod feels nice and it’s the perfect time of year for me to get my hands on a lure rod like this. I also saw a very impressive looking wrasse-style lure rod, the new Major Craft Triple Cross Hard Rock TCX-802MH/S 8’ 5-30g, and there is also a slightly longer Major Craft Triple Cross Hard Rock TCX-902H/S 9’ 5-35g - both would make serious wrassing rods, plus they would also work well as bass rods for those of us who like nice fast, very “crisp” actions. I am also becoming more aware of just how many technical metals especially that Major Craft are making, and I really like the prices as well. I have used an IMA lure similar to this Major Craft Jigpara Surf 28 (28g) that absolutely slayed for me on a session over in Ireland last year, so I can’t help but like how this Major Craft one seems to be along similar lines but considerably cheaper! I have also been told that these particular Major Craft slow jigs here and here have been pounding bass for some shore anglers this year. Did I resist at the show? Did I hell!

Great to see a much bigger Sufix lines/VMC hooks stand this year, indeed I am starting to test out some new Sufix lines that will come onto the UK market early next year I believe. If you read my blog then you know how much I like Sufix lines, and these new ones do feel rather special. I was so sorry to hear that the nice people at Lure Heaven could not make the show right at the last minute for family reasons, and I wish them all the best.

Always good to see the Vision fly fishing people, and they were telling me about a few new clothing and wading related products that I can’t wait to get my hands on next year for a proper test. They also assured me that there are no plans anywhere in the future to stop making their consistently brilliant Vision Ikon chest and indeed waist waders (review here) - thank you Vision!

I was so impressed that Aaron Insley the custom rod builder from Cornwall had a stand at the show, and he was showing me some brand new blanks he has got in which were of serious interest. I am not sure how much I can say about these blanks yet, but in due course I am hoping to get my hands on one of them for a bit of a test, and damn it felt impressive as a surf fishing rod. Holy cow can Aaron build fishing rods, indeed I would urge you to connect with him on Facebook or on 07858 478102 to discuss either his new lure blanks or if you’ve got any kind of fishing rods that need a rebuild etc. Aaron told me that he can now get hold of those great feeling Winn Grips rod grips and handles and I am sorely tempted to ask him to put some on a lure rod of mine.

Do I look highly intelligent or slightly confused?!

The more time I spend with the RNLI people, the more I am learning about all manner of fishing safety related stuff, and as much as I am further down the road with lifejackets especially, I still have so much to learn about them. What could be better than getting some one on one lessons from the guys about how to properly rearm a lifejacket and then repack it ready for using again? There will be lots more to come on this and I have come away from the weekend understanding so much more about how to look after and service my own lifejacket. My eternal thanks to the truly awesome RNLI.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for the time being. Great to catch up with a bunch of our clients, great to talk fishing with so many anglers, I always enjoy seeing so many of the fishing trade people I have got to know over the years, and I so hope that next year more of the lure fishing trade especially gets right behind this fantastic new show and helps it to move onwards and upwards so that more of us fishing tackle junkies find ourselves drawn to Bristol because our tackle-addled brains call us there like homing beacons. So well done to the organisers, you deserve so much credit.

At 79cms long and in seriously good condition, I feel entirely confident that yesterday afternoon I landed my first 10lb+ bass from the shore

Shimano Dialuna S90L 9' 5-25g lure rod review - €289.95 (and I am off to Ireland today)

It seriously floats my boat when a brand new lure works so well from literally the first cast

Surf fishing for bass seriously floats my boat

One year down the line with the Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG spinning reel

Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’ 10-30g lure rod review - £199.99 UK price (all hail the new Skyroad!)

82cms of prime Kerry silver landed yesterday on one of our co-guided Ireland trips

Shimano Pitbull 8 braid review - €39.95 for a 200m spool here in Europe

Leaving Kerry and heading home today

Three years now with the Breakaway Mini Link lure clip, and not a single issue to report - can a lure clip get any better?

When there’s obviously a bunch of small bass around, what do you do?

Has anybody official ever checked up on you and what you have caught while you are out fishing?

Does this obsession ever get any easier? Currently it’s metal lures and longer, more powerful lure rods……….

I could shoot surf fishing until the cows come home……….

Sounds to me like this angler was seriously lucky to get out of this alive

My double figure bass feature is in this month’s Sea Angler, and no blog posts next week, away with my family

I’ll be working with the RNLI at the European Sport Fishing Show this weekend in Bristol, hope to see you there

Book review - “The Song of the Solitary Bass Fisher” by James “Leakyboots” Batty

Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom 9’6'' 10-30g lure rod review - £199.99 UK price (and hope to see you at the European Sport Fishing Show tomorrow)

Some thoughts and highlights from the weekend’s European Sport Fishing Show