Put me on a few specific marks over in Ireland at the right state of tide with some decent conditions and I feel about as confident of catching or at least seeing a mate catch bass as is possible in fishing. By no means am I any kind of experienced angler at chucking lures at night, but I feel that I have just about done enough of it in Ireland now to warrant those levels of confidence. I have a heap to learn, but because I have caught a bunch, I feel confident. The fact is though that I have simply not done enough night based lure fishing around where I live to have a similar level of confidence yet, but it’s getting there - hence my nearly falling off a rock the other night when a not very big 2lb bass impaled itself on my lure………

I am no different to any of you here - catching fish breeds confidence, end of. I read around fishing and communicate with all manner of different anglers all around the world, and I guess by reading this blog you are kinda reading around your fishing as well. We can read and learn by various means until our heads are fit to burst with information, but it counts for little unless you actually go out and catch some fish because you’ve used that information.

I can’t pretend that I want to fish as much at night as I do in the daytime, and this is primarily down to my creative urges as a photographer and how the dead of night and not really wanting to chuck a load of bright flash around for various fishing and creative reasons don’t exactly combine to creatively stir me. But I am as much an angler as I am a photographer, and yes, sometimes it’s just bloody good to catch fish regardless of the light - or lack of it of course. In no way have I sussed out as such my local bass fishing at night on lures, but nothing beats getting out there and giving it a bit of a go.

So there I was on Friday night, standing on a particular rock that I like at a particular state of tide (see here) and I’ve gone through a few different lures and techniques I suppose, but not a sniff. It’s flat calm, plenty dark enough, and in the last couple of days the May bloom has just cleared up around us. What freaks me out slightly here is that I had used the “usual” white senkos etc. but hadn’t had a sniff, so I change lures and hook that epic 2lb bass on the first chuck with the new lure. OK, so my confidence levels have gone up a very important notch, but my brain can’t help but slightly wonder if it was the lure change that did for the bass, or was it a simple case of whatever lure suddenly being in the right place at the right time because that shark like bass was suddenly where I cast and on the hunt?

As I said, I read around the fishing that interests me as much as I can, and a lot of what I read about night fishing with lures almost anywhere in the world revolves around black lures being your go-to colour as such when there is no daylight around, and wind them in dead slow of course. Over in Ireland I am most confident with a white senko clipped on the end of my leader when we are night fishing though - and not wound dead slow at all - and as per the screenshot above, that’s the exact colour of lure I clipped on last Friday and hooked that whale on the first chuck with it (not fished dead slow either) - it’s an IMA iBORN 98F Shallow, a lure that I couldn’t help but love the look of the first time I saw it when some clients of ours bought some off Absolute Fishing in Tramore on their way down to us in Kerry last October. Anyway, whatever it may have been as regards lure, place and timing, of most importance to me was catching a bass at night not far from my house. A shot of confidence to do lots more of it in the future, and I can’t ask for more than that really.

Maybe I’m too old and maybe I am missing the point with the whole social media thing, but if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s the whole selfie thing. Hell, the word itself sends a shiver down my spine. I love how social media makes the world of fishing so accessible, and of course I love to see shots of anglers with their fish or anglers fishing, but is it just me here with the selfie thing? I have absolutely zero interest in seeing endless, crap mobile phone photos of people looking into a phone and posting them online. And I am damn sure that nobody has any interest in photos of me looking into a mobile phone. Nope, I don’t get the whole selfie thing……..

So here’s my “anti-selfie” if you like. My family and I have spent the most incredible week out here in the breathtakingly beautiful Isles of Scilly - perfect weather, perfect place, just can’t think of a better place to come with my girls. We absolutely love it out here. Storm has run and run and run all around St. Mary’s, St. Martin’s, Tresco and Bryher. I could try to get down with da kidz and post heaps of pointless selfies of me doing nothing more interesting than looking into a mobile phone in some strange desire to show the world my face, but instead I thought  would show you a couple of deep and meaningful photos of me at the northern end of Tresco - I went on a dog walk around the island while my girls had a look around the gardens.

Sitting on a rock, thinking about life, feeling absolutely no desire at all to peer into a mobile phone. Deep. Have a good weekend and may this summer weather continue for a few more months. OK, so I know it’s hardly epic bass fishing conditions, but wow does a bit of sun and warmth do wonders for the soul. Selfie weather?

I came across this new lure rod in the rather impressively stuffed full of lure gear Seaview Angling tackle shop in Plymouth - the Nomura brand of lure gear is being imported into the UK by the longstanding Kiddy Wholesale people. The first thing that came to mind when I picked up this interesting and aggressively priced Nomura Isei Light Game 2.35m (7’8’’) 12-36 lure rod was how interesting it felt as a wrasse fishing rod. I have no doubt that a rod like this has various applications outside of simply wrassing with it (kayak fishing?), but that’s what first struck me about the rod, that’s how I have fished with it, and that is how I will review it.

Does around the £100 mark buy you a proper lure rod that can deal with presenting various soft plastics to wrasse on Texas rigs as I have been doing, and then having some guts to help skull-drag them out of some rocky lair that they have a very urgent desire to get back to? In a word, yes. I think the 12-36g rating is a bit of a shame though because it implies that this 7’8’’ Nomura Isei Light Game is a bit of a poker and not much else - when it isn’t, indeed I don’t think it’s a 36g top end lure rod at all. Nope, to me it’s a rather nice say 8-28g wrassing rod that is perfectly happy bumping simple Texas rigs along the bottom. There seems to be plenty of “feel” and enough guts to set hooks and wrench wrasse out - I landed wrasse to about 4lbs on the rod without feeling undergunned - and to me it’s a rod that confirms my initial impressions when I first picked it up.

I kinda like the minimalist handle design when my hands are nice and dry, but I can’t stand it when my hands are wet - why oh why do some manufacturers put those utterly pointless carbon looking/feeling grips on a rod (the short foregrip on this particular rod) that then are as slippery as a slippery eel when your hands are all wet from say unhooking and releasing a wrasse and itching to get your gear back in the water because the fish are on the feed? It was the same on that lovely 8’ Daiwa Branzino a few years back that came via Daiwa France - what a rod, but just about the most annoying grip/screwlock where the back of my hand sits behind the reel that I have ever come across. Nope, the minimalist grip on this Nomura rod doesn’t do it for me when my hands are wet, but at the price and with how the rod performs it’s not remotely a deal-breaker in my mind. As ever, it could just be me and you might all love this style of grip. I don’t, and especially when I am trying to horse a wrasse out with wet hands.

If you are into your wrasse fishing or are looking for a shorter lure rod with some decent lifting power then it’s very much worth having a look at this Nomura Isei Light Game rod. There are a few other rods in this Isei range that are shorter and rated lighter, but I have only seen this 7’8’’ 12-36g one and it’s a pretty impressive bit of kit for around £100. Yes, it bugs me that you aren’t getting Fuji guides, but at least they are K-Guide lookalikes that work just fine and perhaps I am being unrealistic at the price. I happen to think that the red tip on the rod makes it look a bit gimmicky, but as with the handle that is merely my taste. I must admit that I haven’t exactly been looking hard for wrasse type lure rods recently because I am happy with what I have here, but I am glad I stumbled upon this Nomura rod. Bashing wrasse on soft plastics is a complete blast if you ask me, and I see no reason why anglers should not be going for more specialist gear just as they are with bass fishing.

There may be a plenty of bass anglers who for whatever reasons look down their noses at fishing for pollack, but I’ll take a 5lb+ pollack on the sort of lure gear we use for bass any day of the week. Give me a lonely headland on some beautiful deserted coastline and a crash-diving pollack and I can’t really see how shore fishing in the UK and Ireland can get much more fun. Oh how I wish that we had the sort of shore pollack fishing around here that can be found with such regularity in parts of Ireland and the Isles of Scilly. These flat calm, crystal clear and seemingly lifeless conditions we currently have - although I’ll take this warmth and sunshine thank you very much - well I’d love to be able to head out for a bit of pollack fishing armed with my bass gear and a few lures.

I am not saying that Devon and Cornwall are devoid of pollack, rather that the chance of a bunch of decent fish from the shore ain’t exactly that good - too many people, too much inshore netting? Down in Kerry for example you don’t really raise an eyebrow at say a 5lb pollack from the shore, and whilst I’d love to be catching 5lb bass all day long, I do love what I tend to refer to as a sort of “glorious lack of subtlety” that you get with pollack. Give me that tap, tap, bang, on, crash dive any day of the week, and whilst pollack obviously aren’t so varied with their terrains etc., I just can’t go bass fishing all the time. I love it, but I need a bit of variety, and whilst yet again this year seems to be getting away from me with stuff in the diary, I have made a promise to myself that if I don’t head over to the west coast of Ireland on a non-bass fishing trip next year - pollack, mullet, wrasse etc. - then you can all get together and give me a collective slap in the chops. Life’s too short not to be doing this sort of stuff, and with the reports of bass fishing over in Ireland recently I am wondering once again if emigration is required!

I bet you can’t go past a piece of water without looking or at least thinking about what might swim in it, indeed I guess this “affliction” as such is part and parcel of what makes us anglers. Regular people are walking around and no doubt wondering what on earth the likes of you and I are doing as we peer into the water and then yelp like excited puppies when we see fish. Catching fish is at the top of my list of course, but I also love simply watching fish swim and move around.

I shot the short video above where I was fishing yesterday evening, and please excuse the fact that it’s merely a bit of dodgy iPhone video work, because I wanted you to see what I saw and understand my thrill at seeing these fish feeding like this, but then my reluctance to actually try and hook them because of where they were feeding! I’d have fancied my chances of at least hooking one of these mullet or even the lone bass that pops up towards the end of the footage, but I can think of better places to try and get a hooked fish out of!

I caught a bunch of small bass where I was fishing, and whilst they were hardly going to break records it was good to see so much life about. Watching them literally fight over the chance to nail my little IMA Pugachev’s Cobra surface lure had me giggling every single time, and when conditions are like that it reminds me how much I need to be carrying a slightly quieter and subtler surface lure. Has lure fishing gone and made me more subtle?!

I have a couple of new lure rods here to try out and review in due course, and I must give credit to the UK based TronixPro people for having the balls to develop and then bring to market high end lure rods like these that are retailing at around the £300 mark. Rung with Torzite guides and looking rather damn lovely, I have the HTO Shore Game 8’8’’ 7-28g and 9’6’’ 7-35g rods here, and I fished with the 8’8’’ yesterday evening. Very interesting, and especially with the little 2016 Daiwa Certate 2500 strapped to it. Crumbs. I need help. More to come, but you all have a good weekend, may England beat Australia in the rugby on Saturday morning, and may the shift in the wind direction that is forecast to happen bring my local coastline back to life. Fishing eh? I’ve been at this fishing thing for 35 years now and the addiction just keeps on getting worse………..

As I alluded to the other day, I have limited experience of fishing for bass at night with lures, and because what I have done with lures at night has tended to be based around a few specific locations where we have found that certain lures and/or techniques can work well, well my overall knowledge as such is lacking - and I wondered if any of you here fish with jig head rigged paddletails at night? I don’t mean paddletails that you swim with light belly-weights on the weedless hook, rather paddletails like the Fiiish Black Minnow that are for the most part designed to sink pretty quickly via the weighted jig head at the front. Do you fish with them, and do you have much success? And why am I asking you?

I was out on Saturday night, and whilst it didn’t exactly seem to be alive with fish, the conditions were getting better and it didn’t half feel like we should at least be getting a few hits. Because the wind was freshening slightly onshore I was fishing a white senko on a belly-weighted weedless hook to give me a little more control, and a lure with any more than a single hook was as good as out because there was a fair amount of weed in the water. But no joy, and I started to think about how I might get more “good water” time with a lure where it was fishing properly for longer before picking up a bit of weed.

I can’t remember the last time I went out bass fishing without at least a few Black Minnows in my box, in various permutations of course, and accepting 100% that you might not even fish with these lures. I do though, indeed I don’t bass fish with any other jig head rigged paddletail because I can’t see the point when the Black Minnow continues to do so well for me and covers so many options, and on Saturday night I thought it might be worth a go to get down on the rough ground bottom. On goes the newish black Black Minnow that you can see above, the 120mm body rigged on the 12g Shore Head, and from the off it seems to be fishing pretty well and picking up less weed. Whack it out, feel it on the way down, let it hit the bottom and then either sink and draw it back or simply wind slowly with my rod tip up whilst maintaining a “bouncy” kind of contact along the reef.

Anyway, I’m putting the Black Minnow out as far as I can into a bit of a freshening SW breeze that is also laden with lots of lovely rain right in the kisser - always especially nice at midnight - and on one particular cast it suddenly went solid as my lure was dropping through the water column after the cast. What the hell’s going on? I know I haven’t hit the bottom yet because it’s an unmistakable feeling when the solid jig head smacks down on rock in some relatively shallow water, so that sudden stop and tap has to be a fish. Wind down hard, set the hook, the rod slams over and the bass takes a couple of yards of line before suddenly coming off. Now I’m not saying it was a monster, but it felt ok, and my drag is always set, how shall we say - not as generous as most anglers. I think I might have said some rude words when the bass came off!

So this bass hit me at night, on the drop, with a lure that ain’t exactly falling slowly, and once again it’s got my brain cells churning with yet again how much I have to learn about lure fishing at night, and secondly that perhaps I need to treat night time lure fishing more like I would go fishing during daylight hours if that makes sense. It’s dark for us and we might stumble around a bit, but fish so obviously move around with consummate ease. More food for thought for me, indeed one night over in Ireland the other day, the only hit we got on a beach at night was when I was bumping a Black Minnow back through the surf.

I fished for the first time on Saturday night with the longer new HTO Shore Game lure rod, the 9’6’’ 7-35g. Holy frigging cow, it’s a gun! So light, so powerful but easy to fish with, and so, so my sort of 9’6’’ lure rod - time will tell how it deals with all that I want to throw at it, but initial impressions of these two new HTO Shore Game lure rods are extremely positive. Nope, not cheap, but serious stuff never is - what will be of most interest to me is how they stack up against the various Major Craft rods that I have come to know and love over the last few years.

But of course, the single most important aspect to the weekend was England beating Australia in their own back yard. Seven wins on the trot with our new (Aussie) coach, and yes, sod it, this time I am getting properly excited about our England rugby team again. Saturday morning was one of the best and most exciting games of rugby I have watched since that epic November morning in 2003, and whilst you just know the Aussies are going to come back seriously hard next Saturday, in my mind we really should win the three match series and use all that confidence to get better and better. Nowhere near the finished article, but doesn’t winning breed winning? You can see the confidence building in that England side. Well done Ireland as well. Epic stuff.

They should have called this new rod Longcast. Holy cow I don’t think I have ever put lures out so far, and it’s because this new, “budget” Major Craft Firstcast FCS-962ML 9'6'' 10-30g lure rod is so easy to compress if you need to wind it up. Seriously, something already very long-casting like the IMA Hound 125F Glide just absolutely flies on this rod, and even the white senkos on a beach in the middle of the night seem to be going miles. This Major Craft Firstcast 9'6'' 10-30g lure rod is the cheapest Major Craft rod I have fished with so far, and whilst I am a tackle tart of the highest order, I will gladly admit to being very excited to get my hands on one of their new budget Firstcast range to see what £110 might get on the lure rod front.

A wave in the face makes fishing great! Thanks Mark...........

OK, so it’s a gun of a rod, and timing is not remotely critical. Easy, easy, easy. Seriously, it’s not right how well lures go out on this thing, but of course distance isn’t close to everything with a lure fishing rod, and because I am carrying one lure rod with me when I go out fishing, I need that one rod to be able to do a lot for me. This 9’6’’ 10-30g Firstcast is a “proper” lure fishing rod that will work for plenty of anglers - it’s very easy to like, it’s just an easy rod to fish with, and it’s going to cope with most of what we might want to throw at a lure rod like this. If you have £110 to spend on a lure rod and you’re interested in a 9’6’’ rod that will deal with the sort of lures many of us choose to fish with then I can’t really imagine how your money could go any further really. Sure, you could find a cheap poker of a rod that you might think wow, this feels like a real man’s rod when you waggle it, but then you go fishing with it and you’re left wondering why it’s so heavy and cumbersome and you are struggling to fish properly with lighter lures. Nope, I am all over rods that I can actually get something out of.

But what are you giving up for £110 as opposed to say £180 for the next level up Major Craft Skyroad Surf 9’6’’ 5-28g? Well there’s no doubt that the Surf is a big step up in precision, and I really notice it when fishing with surface lures especially - very different tips on the rods for starters, but then that tip on the Surf is a freak of nature. Sure, you’re going to have no great issues working surface lure on the cheaper Firstcast, but I can’t pretend it’s an outright delight to do so. It works just fine, you will catch and land fish, but then I fish with that £70 more expensive 9’6’’ Skyroad Surf and it’s a completely different story. Same with working soft plastics especially, save for when we are casting out say a white senko at night and doing no more than slowly straight retrieving it. You aren’t going to notice less precision when you aren’t actually working lures as such, indeed I love using the 9’6’’ Firstcast when I am fishing like this - because it’s so damn easy and efficient. Getting my Fiiish Black Minnows out into a run of current is great on this Firstcast as well. They fly!

The handle on this 9’6’’ 10-30g Major Craft Firstcast is a little longer than say my “perfect” 9’ Truzer, but as is usually the case I don’t even notice it after a while - and of course we all like different handle lengths anyway. The actual handle design is not exactly awash with sophistication, but it’s a Fuji reelseat with fairly slim Duplon grips and it works fine. The guides again are Fuji, and whilst they are not as small and low profile as on the more expensive Surf, again I can’t find fault and I am really liking how much rod I am getting for £110. I didn’t like the 9’6’’ Major Craft Crostage because it was too soft and through for me - although I have subsequently learnt that it’s a rod designed for lure and bait fishing in Japan (check here) - but this cheaper again Major Craft Firstcast FCS-962ML 9'6'' 10-30g lure rod is a different story.

If £110 is your absolute ceiling when it comes to buying a “proper” lure fishing rod then do all you can to check this Major Craft Firstcast 9'6'' 10-30g lure rod out (and I haven’t seen any of the other rods in the range yet). It’s a lot of rod for the money and it will work well for heaps of anglers. If though you can beg, borrow or sell organs to raise the extra £70 required to buy the 9’6’’ Major Craft Skyroad Surf when you will be getting a lure rod that is in a different league, make no mistake. The Surf has no right to be so good at its price point, but then this Firstcast is also a lot of lure rod for the dosh. All credit yet again to Major Craft for making lure rods like this at the prices they do, and then I also take my hat off to the Nice Fish lot for bringing them into the UK and getting them into some of the more forward thinking tackle shops. I have found this rod for sale at Veals Mail Order and Chesil Bait’n’Tackle if that helps.

We are anglers and we always wish for “perfect conditions” - whatever those might be for you and your fishing - but how much does going fishing when everything seems to be ideal end up teaching you? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take perfect conditions as much as possible thank you very much and I will never say no to a bunch of decent fish that want to impale themselves upon whatever I throw at them, but it really struck home a few weeks back in Ireland when we had seriously less than ideal conditions how much that situation then resulted in us learning a whole lot more about what we might do in the future when faced with a forecast like that again………

I would guess that you keep an eye on as many weather forecasts, crystal balls and even webcams as I do, indeed it’s hard to imagine my life now before I lived near the sea nd tides and winds didn’t rule my life! Home fishing, away fishing, it matters not, we are looking for those times when tides and conditions come together and we seriously fancy our chances at banging a few fish out - and then your head drops when things don’t look so ideal. I know I am guilty of talking myself out of going fishing sometimes because I reckon conditions are somewhat less than ideal, but the beauty of these fishing trips away is that because you are away from home, you’re going to go fishing almost regardless and try to almost make things happen - and without a doubt this can end up teaching you so much more.

A few years back we did some filming for the now discontinued Tight Lines Sky Sports programme over on the south coast of Ireland, and whilst we were pretty much bound by when crews etc. were available, I distinctly remember worrying like crazy because the forecast was so dire for bass fishing - the middle of August, baking hot, big blue skies, as bright as you like, and to top it all off, east winds. Time to go mullet fishing if you ask me, but we were there to film bass fishing, and via some kind local help we ended up fishing a strong run of current in an estuary that produced some of the most amazing bass fishing I have been lucky enough to be a part of - and to this day I still regret the fact that we were filming, because if we hadn’t been, we’d have caught so many more bass, and there were some serious fish around like this near as dammit double figure fish above.

The fact is that filming fishing stops you actually fishing for a lot of the time, and especially when I was presenting the short film - trying to do a piece to camera (PTC) again and again because your mates keep hooking bass on Black Minnows which means you need to start again because of needing to help land fish and yap about them to camera etc. What I really want to do is rip the microphone off my top and smash some bass myself, but I can’t, at least not until we’ve got the PTC out of the way, which is proving somewhat tricky because my sodding mates can’t stop hooking bass!

Anyway, sorry, I digress. Wow did those few days teach me about certain locations and certain conditions, as did my last trip to Ireland a few weeks back. A forecast that I would have seriously considered cancelling the trip on if they had been forecasting it a few days before we left to catch the ferry over, yet we ended up catching a bunch of fish in less than “perfect conditions” - which in turn helped to put so much extra information in the memory bank for future trips and what to try and do if we get similar conditions again. We were almost forced to do things we might not have done if we had got “perfect conditions” - different locations, different tide states to when we might usually fish them etc. - and at the end of the day I would argue that we came away having learnt far more than if everything had gone totally to plan for us. And let’s be honest, when does everything go totally to plan with fishing? It’s us trying to get one over on nature, and I would argue that nature knows a little bit more than we do.

You all have a good weekend. I have been bricking myself all week about the rugby tomorrow morning, but I truly believe we can go 2-0 up in the three match Test series against Australia. I am trying as much as I can not to get too overexcited about English rugby because of all the disappointments we have had to live through since November 2003, but I can’t help it. I am hugely overexcited once more, and I will always love how such a beautifully aggressive and violent game on the pitch never, ever lends itself any of this perfectly despicable supporter violence I read about at this Euro football thing in France. Best of luck to Ireland and Wales tomorrow as well, but I simply can’t see Wales turning the All Blacks over in their own backyard, and especially not after that midweek thrashing. Ireland though for a 2-0 lead in their series? Bring it on!

The most awesome match possible that revolved largely around selfless bravery from putting bodies on the line again and again for wave after wave of gold attack, and in my mind the most significant result since November 2003. Sustained but legal violence throughout the eighty minutes plus on the pitch, yet not a single mention of any fan based violence in the press which seems to so blight these Euro things that are going on. Nope, rugby will always be where it is at for me, and Saturday was just frigging epic………

If you are an England rugby supporter then it’s been a long, long road from the World Cup success of 2003 - plenty of downs, a few mainly false ups that so cruelly raise our hopes and then dash them like feeding mullet that are feeding on everything else save your bait, but forever the hope eternal that the proverbial corner will be turned and we will get back to being pretty damn good at the sport which, let’s face it, we invented.

Nearly thirteen years later and we are finally the real deal again, and to me it’s so damn exciting that we have so much more development to come. We can dream once more of three years down the line - could we do it again? Heading down to Australia and winning the three match series 2-0 - with one more to come of course - well that’s just immense. OK, so I can’t help but wonder how we might have done against the current All Black side which is brushing Wales aside with a worrying injection of class in the second halves of each game, but this changes nothing - a newish (Australian!) coach has taken his side to the southern hemisphere after the success of the Grand Slam and delivered something which has never been done by an English side before. Series wins down south don’t exactly come delivered on silver platters, and yes, I had moist eyes come the final whistle on Saturday. World Cup aside, that’s about as good sport gets in my view.

We need to remember that Australia were the beaten finalists in last year’s World Cup, and we have turned them over in their own backyard - and it looks like there is so much more to come. Imagine if Eddie Jones and his staff can sort out a world class attack to go with everything else that is starting to come together so nicely. Damn right I’m excited about England rugby all over again, and damn right I am now starting to dream about the 2019 World Cup. Mighty, mighty England. It bugs the hell out of me that I pay for Sky Sports yet never, ever watch a single minute of sodding football, but Saturday’s game of rugby has made it all worthwhile! Heady days.

Oh, and please could we have our summer back. I am getting far too used to doing barbecues under big garden umbrellas like I do through the winter, and I’d love a bit of that weather back that we were gifted last half-term………..

It feels a little strange not to be driving my twelve year old, dirty grey Ford Focus estate around anymore, but there you have it below, my new car - and it’s a big thanks from me for your help the other day on here and on Facebook when I asked, indeed via your comments and specifically the ones telling me to look at the Citroen Berlingo Multispace XTR, well that is what I am now driving. I was close to getting a Skoda Octavia estate or some other similar estate type car, right up until a few of you told me to have a look at the Citroen………

Photographing my new car, whatever next?

Which I did. I didn’t find it easy looking for a new car primarily because I have so little interest in them, but I did what most blokes do and carried out as much research as possible - but that Citroen Berlingo Multispace thing never once crossed my radar. Another straightforward estate made the most sense because it’s what I have driven since my eldest girl was born, and I was actively looking for a second hand Skoda Octavia estate. But via your comments I went and had a look online at the Citroen Berlingo and what it could offer me, and then I went and booked a test drive to see what it was like.

Absolutely bloody perfect for me and what I need a car for, that’s what it is. Thank you, thank you! Sure, if a drop dead gorgeous car is your thing then you ain’t exactly going to lust after those stunning sleek lines on a Citroen Berlingo Multispace (!!), but I am not buying a car to try and look better. Nope, a car is a tool to me, and I need a car that works for the family and for my fishing/travelling around with loads of stuff in it - this Citroen fits the bill brilliantly. So comfortable to drive (nice and high and upright, great visibility), plenty quick enough for me, decent stereo, acres of room in the back for kids or passengers, great big boot, easy to take any of the back seats out individually if I need even more space (or to kip in), and I love those sliding rear doors. Hell, it’s even got a touchscreen thing in the front that made me nearly jump out of my skin when a call came in over the mobile! I am far more used to shouting over a crappy bluetooth earpiece.

So there you have it. The new motor. And yes, there will be a fair bit of piss-taking from various mates about how I am preparing for old age with a car like this and what they are sometimes used for, but that’s no worries - loads of room for the old zimmer frame! Nope, I love it, and I reckon it’s going to be the perfect car for these high milage trips I make over to Ireland especially, either with a mate or two along with me, or those whole day journeys I do on my own over to glorious Kerry for my co-guiding work. Set the cruise control and have a damn good kip on the way! A great fishing wagon, and it makes me very happy to be driving something that is based on a van.

Many thanks again. The only reason I have ended up with this rather fantastic car is because some of you kind people took the time to leave a bunch of helpful comments the other day, and I hugely appreciate it. Oh, and the Citroen garage took my beloved old Ford Focus estate off my hands for the princely sum of £200 part exchange! The driver side electric window hadn’t worked for a couple of years and I am still finding it a thrill to press the button on this Citroen Berlingo Multispace and actually have my driver side window go up and down, instead of having to pull up just right at say the toll booth after the bridge going into Wales so that I can open my door, apologise for the sodding window not working, and hand over money/take ticket etc. It’s a new dawn…….

When I first thought about putting this review up of a waterproof wading jacket during our summer it felt a bit daft, but with the weather we have been having recently I reckon it’s actually become perfect timing! I wasn’t sure that I would get a lot of use from this Scierra C&R wading jacket until the autumn, but over the last few months it’s come out of my rucksack on far too many occasions if you ask me, and whilst that might well be perfect for giving it a proper testing, ideally I’d like not to have to wear it thank you very much ye weather gods…….

As with when I first started wearing lightweight chest waders and wading boots, it was the same with a “proper” wading jacket from the fly fishing world - because I was doing some work with Svendsen Sports at the time, it was therefore Scierra gear that I turned to initially, and I have to say that I don’t remember any of their wading jackets that I used giving me any undue grief. I bet you all use any number of different waterproof tops from various markets, but I do happen to think that the slightly shorter and usually nice and easy to fish in wading jackets from the fly fishing world tend to work well for the way that many of us here go about our lure fishing.

OK, so it’s not as if around £170 is small change to spend on a waterproof jacket, but when I compare it to the price on say some of the Simms wading jackets, this Scierra C&R one getting towards good value for money I feel, and especially with how it’s working out for me. Yes, it’s going great guns so far and I haven’t come across anything that I actively dislike about it - initially I went for the XL size as that’s what I take with nearly everything, but it was a little tight across the shoulders for casting all the time especially. I asked if a mate could give it a thrashing and I then got an XXL and it’s the perfect fit for my lure fishing (he would usually take an L size and this XL one fits him perfectly if that helps). Nice and comfortable, very easy to wear, enough room to wear a few more clothes underneath when it gets cold, and it doesn’t catch me anywhere when I wind a cast up and let it fly.

Is it just me, or does this colour go well with my new, uber-good looking new car? Sorry!

I would expect a jacket like this to be properly waterproof, and so far there are no issues whatsoever, and that includes a fair amount of fishing in some perfectly horrible weather. Sure, as per every single waterproof jacket I have ever used for fishing, a little bit of water will eventually find its way in down the sleeves in heavy rain especially, and at the start I was a little worried that this jacket’s cuff design might lend itself to letting in that bit more. But I was wrong, indeed I reckon this C&R jacket is one of the better ones when it comes to minimal amounts of water trickling in via the sleeves. Same with the hood and face area - driving rain in your face and a bit has to get in via me peering out from underneath the well designed hood, but as with the sleeves it’s a minimal amount. As much as wearing a baseball cap annoys me because of the peak getting in the way with cameras, I have gone back to wearing one in the rain and I do reckon it’s worth it with helping the hoods on jackets work that bit better with you.

There are various pockets on the jacket which I must admit I haven’t really used, but the zipper up and down the front seems to be of decent quality, and it can’t rust via saltwater because it’s made from some sort of plastic/rubber or whatever? I went through a phase a few years back of trying out various walking/climbing jackets for my (saltwater) fishing, and the metal zippers all failed eventually, or at least got so stiff I would routinely curse the sodding jacket as I tried in vain to do it up or get out of it! Not a problem with this one. I like this Scierra C&R wading jacket as an outer shell that is not too heavy yet plenty warm enough for many situations, but then very easy to layer up underneath if needs be.

What more can I say? The jacket works well, I think the price is fair when compared to other fly fishing gear out there, but of course many anglers are perfectly justified in thinking that it’s far too much money to spend on a waterproof jacket for fishing. It matters not at the end of the day though, because the jacket exists, I am sure Scierra are selling a bunch of them, and I happen to think that it works well for how many of here go about our fishing. If anything untoward suddenly happens with this Scierra C&R wading jacket that I or a couple of mates are now using, I will of course report back, but after plenty of use now I think it’s a really good wading jacket that I wish I wasn’t having to use so much this “summer”.

And how about finishing up the Australia tour at 3-0 tomorrow morning in the rugby? I keep having to pinch myself that really are in the position to complete a clean sweep against the second place team from last year’s World Cup, but I am feeling that good about English rugby again that I see no reason why the boys won’t produce another monster performance down under……...

You’ve got ideal conditions, a rather nice set of tides, and you’re running down the cliffs or across the beach because you’re so utterly convinced that there will be a heap of bass just waiting to impale themselves on the various lures you decide to hurl at them - but you draw a big fat blank and you wonder why on earth why when everything looked so damn good. There could be any number of reasons of course, but I wonder if many of us don’t go and overlook what I presume might well often be the most logical explanation - that the bass weren’t there because the food they want to eat wasn’t there either. Or as per the post title, “if the bait fish aren’t around, then the bass won’t be”.

And if there is one thing I simply don’t know enough about, it’s bait fish/predator food source movements and habits. As much as bass are some mighty fine fish, I am pretty sure that charity isn’t at the top of their list. I could be wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they don’t come inshore specifically to please us anglers who are out there trying to catch them. Deep down I am pretty sure that when you catch bass from wherever you are fishing, they were in the vicinity because their food source was - and if that food ain’t there then no amount of willing a nice big predator to jump on the end of your line is going to work………..

Are some of you having a very up and down bass season so far, because it’s been like that around here this year. Not for one second am I saying that it’s all simply a food source thing that the bass fishing hasn’t exactly fired yet, and yes, like any of you I worry greatly about whether there will actually be a viable recreational bass fishery not too many years down the line, but as an angler who is fascinated by his sport, wow would I love to know more about what bass feed on - the when and where if you like, just as with trying to catch fish. I like to think that some bass will come inshore to mooch around for food that is always there in season as such (blennies, prawns, crabs, etc.), but that when you catch a bunch of bass I have to assume that they are in and feeding because a significant amount of food they are hunting is in the area as well - sandeels, mackerel etc. And to me it’s just feeling too barren out on the open coast around where I live so far this year.

One thing that has really, really struck home to me from spending time with John Quinlan down at their Thatch Cottage guided fishing operation is how he is always scanning the water and horizon on the lookout for feeding birds. Granted, it’s somewhat easier to know when there is bait around via such a visible sign as feeding birds, but then that’s the whole point - work with what you can see for starters. As with predatory fish, those birds are there because their food source is, and John is constantly on the lookout for the birds signalling that there is food around, on the basis of course that the bass should be around as well. Now there could be any number of reasons why - a less healthy ecosystem than over in say Kerry for starters? - but I don’t see feeding birds (gannets, terns etc.) around where I live with anything like the frequency I see them over in Kerry or indeed around the Copper Coast, and as such I can’t really use their presence as a food source indicator a lot of the time. Nope, the simple fact is that I don’t know enough about the food sources that bass are coming inshore to feed on, and like many of you here I am sure, we anglers base a lot of what we think we know on assumptions - but then one could argue that the very basis of fishing being our attempt to outwit nature is of course always going to be to a large degree based on our best guesswork. I want to know more, but I will never come anywhere close to knowing it all, and that to be perfectly honest is just fine by me.

My new car is going to get its first proper journey this morning as Mark and I head for Fishguard in Wales to get the ferry over to Ireland. As per usual I will do my best to keep the blog updated with the fishing we are doing over there, but please accept my apologies in advance if those updates are somewhat less than regular. I am hearing reports of some good catches of bass and I really hope the Irish Bass Festival this coming weekend goes well for the organisers and of course everybody who is fishing it. More to come…...

Filth! My new IMA Salt Skimmer, just itching to be unleashed somewhere in Ireland.....

I take my hat off to the people who work within fishing and make the effort to run these festivals, and it was great to be back out in Ireland when the Irish Bass Festival was on. I love meeting different anglers and hearing about their fishing, and it seems that over the weekend there were a stack of bass caught if you found the pockets of fish and managed to stay on them. We had a great night on Friday for example, or rather from about 11pm Friday night through to about 5am on Saturday morning - no great size to the fish, but the more bass I catch on these white senkos at night, the more I enjoy it. That hit is so electric when you can’t see what is going on. So we’re thinking about cleaning up the next night with even better conditions and tides, yet we only saw a couple of fish whereas not far from us some other lads caught a bunch. Fishing eh?

 

Come the deadline for registering bass on Sunday afternoon and there were some pretty knackered anglers hanging around Absolute Fishing in Tramore. Reports were of a mix of fish coming day and night, but we have been getting most of our fish in darkness so far on this trip. I know a visiting angler who had the most awesome few sessions before the bass festival started - ok, so the guy knows how to fish which kinda helps, but he had 50 bass in three sessions, biggest around 8lbs, average size about 4lbs, and that to me is some world class sport fishing. He then bled during the actual festival itself! Fishing eh?  

Rather than me waffle on here with a nice case of lack of sleep, check the Absolute Fishing page on Facebook for full details of the festival and the winners. Great prizes, fantastic event, well done to the organisers and big thanks for having us visiting lot over again. I think the winning fish was around 74cms - one lad caught a 76cm and a 77cm bass at night but dropped his phone in the water that had the photos on and couldn’t find it! Another fantastic festival, hope to see a bunch more of you next year.

If there is one thing that catching bass on these white senkos at night via a simple and pretty rapid retrieve has thrown up for me, it’s the whole divulging fishing techniques and information thing - or not. Now it’s a given of course that all of us here do as much as we can to protect and hide where we go fishing - for whatever reasons I grant you, but I guess top of the list if the simple fact that we don’t live in very big countries and our fish populations are under severe pressures already, and we would prefer to fish without a heap of other anglers around and have the best possible chance at landing a few fish. But that’s not the point here………

Monday night, 10.30pm, 70cm bass for Mark, white senko on a straight retrieve

Do you believe in keeping it quiet the actual how you catch your fish? I choose not to of course, but I wonder with anglers who do choose to keep techniques quiet - what are their reasons for doing so? I must respect the fact that some anglers do, indeed it matters not at the end of the day if an angler wants to talk about how they catch their fish or not, but it interests me why somebody would choose not to divulge fishing techniques. Whereas the internet has given many of us a “voice” as such, you’re always going to have a percentage of anglers who quite happily do their own thing, keep themselves to themselves, and simply fly under the radar. Not for me though.

The flipside for me these days is how easy and rewarding it is to share information - and note the word “share” here. When the internet works well, I love how easy it is to put information out there, start dialogues, and at the end of the day often end up learning a whole heap more than you knew in the first place - with the end result being the same goals as always - to catch more and bigger fish oneself, to learn more and become a better angler, to try and help other anglers out and in turn be helped out oneself by doing so, and to try in some small and most likely insignificant way to inspire more people into loving their fishing and in turn passing information on themselves. Does that make any sense?

I think I understand keeping how one catches fish a secret, or at least quiet, but I guess I’m not wired that way. I was asked recently for example why I would choose to talk about catching fish on white senkos in the dark, and my reply had to be “but why not?” I find it massively exciting how fishing is always developing, and being part of something like lure fishing that evolves like this is in my mind such a wonderful opportunity to share information, learn from other anglers, and then keep on putting that information out there in a continual cycle if you like. I was shown how to fish these white senkos at night and I am feeling more and more confident with them, and if talking about using those daftly simple straight bits of soft plastic can ever help just a few more anglers catch a few more fish, then I think that’s just brilliant. OK, so if the guy who first introduced me to using the white senkos as night like he does asked me categorically not to divulge what he’s doing then of course I would have respected his wishes, but this guy happens to believe what I do - why not yap about it? What harm could there possibly be in talking about how we catch fish?

I guess that some of you here do in fact like to keep your techniques quiet, and I must respect that. You might be right and I may well be wrong (and the other way round), but I’ll give you an example of freely divulging information which resulted in so many of us now enjoying catching these fish on lures like we now do, and perhaps even take for granted like it’s been going on for many years. Smashing wrasse on soft plastics - now as much as we all used to catch the odd wrasse “by mistake” on a livebait or lures (and perhaps a different bunch of anglers were actually doing so but choosing to keep it quiet), it was a few lads in Jersey who “decoded” if you like the fact that wrasse are in fact a species of fish that are more than happy to chow lures if you fish them in a certain way. Now these forward thinking and talented anglers could of course have chosen to keep their revelations quiet and gone on bashing wrasse on lures and we’d have been none the wiser. Would other people have stumbled upon soft plastics being so deadly for wrasse if you really target them? Quite possibly in time, but the simple and unselfish fact is that these Jersey lads chose to use the power of the internet to (freely) put their information out there - and the rest is history if you like. And I am forever in their debt.

We are all different and we choose to go about things in so many different ways. That question I was asked has really got me thinking because I guess I just don’t question my urge if you like to be very open about how we go about our fishing - and of course, please bear in mind here that there are any number of far more talented anglers than me out there who are choosing to do the same thing, or conversely choosing not to put any information out there. And it matters not. If I caught a 20lb bass tomorrow I’d be secret squirrel ninja about where I actually caught it, of course, but I’d be shouting from the rooftops about how I actually caught it because it might actually help a few people out to go and catch an even bigger bass. Somebody’s going to take that technique as such and improve upon it, and then I must hope that they in turn share the information back to us lot and we continue the circle.

So for me the fundamental question here is this - the angler who chooses to keep how he or she catches fish “secret” as such (and of course there is no problem with this, it’s just that I don’t) - where did that angler learn about their fishing? Did they invent it for themselves from day one of picking up a fishing rod and wondering how on earth it actually works, or were they helped along the way as I guess we all were in some way? One can of course then choose to put your own information out there as you learn more about fishing (me), or you can of course choose not to - it matters not, but people fascinate me and how we are all so different in life of course translates to how we are with our fishing. Isn’t fishing so damn awesome though because it’s got room for us all?

It’s going to be a sad day when the courier comes to pick this lure rod up, because I really don’t want to say goodbye to it. Holy cow this (TronixPro) HTO Shore Game S962MLM 9'6'' 7-35g rod is a weapon - so, so my kind of lure fishing rod, indeed it’s as if I could have asked for nearly everything I wanted from a “just that smidgen more powerful” than the 10-30g 9’6’’ Major Craft rods I have fished with a lot over the last few years - and then got all that in this rather special HTO rod. Yes, £310 is a lot of money for a lure fishing rod, and yes, I can’t imagine that the rather clever TronixPro people are going to sell millions of them, but their new HTO Shore Game S962MLM 9'6'' 7-35g lure rod is one hell of a bit of kit and I reckon it would work fantastically well for plenty of of anglers.

I haven’t put the 9’6’’ Major Craft Truzer up against this new HTO rod, but from memory I am pretty sure they share a lot of their DNA, and that’s meant as a big complement - a similar kind of overall feel and action, albeit this 7-35g HTO rod is that smidgen more powerful overall, and I like that. Until I come across something better, the 9’6’’ Truzer is my ideal lure rod of that length if you like, so I am sure you can understand my loving this HTO one because it reminds me so much of the Major Craft Truzer - with that slight increase in power as I said. I haven’t got a clue how far I can cast a lure and it means squat of course, but a few times the other day at a spot on the Copper Coast I caught the Xorus Patchinko “just right” in some bouncing conditions with a lively onshore/slight right to left wind, and I am pretty damn sure I have never, ever put that particular lure out so far. You know when you giggle because a lure seems to go so far? The rod’s a casting machine, but don’t let that hide the fact that it’s the most stunning rod for fishing any number of different lures and techniques.

We fished a lot with white senkos at night over in Ireland the other day, and this 9’6’’ HTO Shore Game does it really well, albeit you don’t actually need that bit more power for how and where we're fishing with them. It’s a stunning rod for working surface lures -  I love the fast action and how the tip helps me work surface lures so easily and efficiently, and bumping Black Minnows in current is awesome on this rod. I don’t really understand powerful/fast rods that then give way to a soft tip, so the way that this 9’6’’ HTO Shore Game rod just bends “correctly” if you ask me therefore suits me so well. I can’t tell you much more about the rod from a fishing point of view other than I think it’s a frigging stunning bit of kit.

OK, so I have a bit of an issue with the handle design, but that may well be a personal thing. When my hands are nice and dry I have no problems at all, but when it’s lamping down with my rain or my hands are wet from releasing fish or crashing waves etc., then the lack of duplon at the rear of the reelseat annoys me because my grip on it is now not so good. Not for one second would it stop me buying this rod, but yes, I do prefer something like duplon or cork behind the reelseat instead of simply the securing nuts and then grooved plastic of the actual reelseat. But hey, I fished just fine in some filthy weather and bouncy conditions with the rod. And yes, I love the Fuji Torzite guides on the rod and the actual handle length is perfect for me.

I like how this 7-35g 9’6’’ HTO Shore Game rod is that little but significant step up in power from something like the stupidly good (and should cost far more if you ask me) 9’6’’ Major Craft Skyroad Surf. We’re not talking say the Major Craft X-Ride 9’6’’ 15-42g levels of power, but I would guess that the TronixPro people have done their homework with this rod and reckon that the 7-35g rating covers the bulk of how we go about our shore based bass fishing here in the UK and Ireland - and I do have half a clue about how much thought, work and testing went into this rod and indeed the shorter/lighter one (review in due course). Bloody well done I reckon. If I was after a lure rod that was aimed squarely within that 7-35g range then I’d be more than happy to drop around £300 of my money on this HTO Shore Game S962MLM 9'6'', and at the end of the day I can’t tell you how much more I like it than that (I have found the rod for sale here if that is any help). Perhaps I need to kidnap the courier so he can’t take the rod away!

I had an interesting email from the Angling Trust a few days ago - did you know as an angler know that the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Seas) advice is this: “ICES advises that when the precautionary approach is applied, there should be zero catch (commercial and recreational) in 2017”? Moan all you like about the various recreational fishing organisations not magically and instantly getting you more and bigger fish to catch, but I choose to take my hat off to the various people who are fighting the anglers’ corner and so often go unnoticed and unappreciated. Below is the Angling Trust email I received:

“The Angling Trust and the Bass Anglers Sportfishing Society (BASS) warned UK and EU fisheries ministers last year that their failure to take heed of the scientific advice and begin radically reducing the commercial catch limits would eventually mean more pain in the long run as solutions proposed by ICES would get ever more draconian.

They made it clear that they have no expectation that EU ministers will implement in full the ICES advice with regard to bass as "no scientifically advised moratorium has ever been introduced by the EU Council in the history of the CFP."

Both organisations have issued a joint statement setting out a call for all bass netting to cease and for bass to become a recreational and sustainable commercial hook and line species only. They want to see the introduction of a slot size for both hook and liners and anglers to allow the larger, most fecund individuals to be returned to contribute to stock recovery. Both the Angling Trust and BASS have made it clear that they see no case for further restrictions on recreational bass fishing given the strict bag limits that were introduced for anglers last year resulting in a zero take from January to June and a one fish per day limit for the remaining six months.

Martin Salter, National Campaigns Coordinator for the Angling Trust said: " The politicians have only themselves to blame and their blatantly political decision taken last year, in contravention of clear scientific advice, to grant a four-month exemption and larger vessel catch limits to inshore gill netters and hook and liners from the proposed six month bass moratorium, which was unfair, irresponsible and inflicted further damage on already threatened bass stocks. Recreational bass fishing, which now has a tiny impact on bass fishing mortality, bore a disproportionate burden of last year's catch restrictions and it is time that politicians finally grasped the nettle and end the unsustainable netting of this popular sporting fish before it is driven to extinction. "

Both the Angling Trust and BASS are seeking an urgent meeting with UK Fisheries Minister George Eustice to discuss the government's response to the ICES advice on sea bass ahead of the European Council of Ministers meeting in December where the final decisions will be made.

Nigel Horsman from BASS said :"This is a sad day for bass stocks and for all those thousands of anglers who take so much pleasure from catching bass. We can only hope that our fishery managers and politicians learn from their mistakes and heed the lessons from other countries, such as the USA, who have faced similar situations. It is imperative that no risks are taken with the ability of the remaining bass stock to mount a recovery. But, provided we do that now, I am hopeful that bass stocks will recover. But we must also fix the underlying cause of the current problem which is commercial overfishing on a grand scale."

David Curtis from the campaign group 'Save Our Seabass' added: "It is now confirmed that commercial fishing has put the very survival of the sea bass stock in jeopardy.  If the politicians do not now restrict the bass fishery to recreational angling and sustainable commercial hook & line fishing, we and future generations will hold them accountable for the disappearance of bass from our seas."

And here is that Angling Trust and BASS official statement on the ICES advice:

“The ICES advice for 2017 reveals a severe situation and a moratorium on commercial bass landings is now essential to allow bass stock recovery. Recreational angling bodies are not in the least surprised that ICES is now recommending a total moratorium on all bass landings in 2017. For several years we have warned that unless EU Fisheries ministers started taking heed of the scientific advice and began radically reducing the commercial catch limits then the solutions proposed by ICES would get evermore draconian. Politicians have only themselves to blame and their political decision last year to grant this year a four-month exemption and larger vessel catch limits to inshore gill netters and hook and liners from the bass moratorium was unfair, irresponsible and inflicted further damage on threatened bass stocks.

The Recreational Sea Angling (RSA) sector, which has least impact on bass fishing mortality, bear a disproportionate burden of this year's catch restrictions with a zero (Jan - June) and one fish bag limit (July - Dec). We believe the impact of RSA on bass landings was minimal last year and will be negligible this year, which expectedly will be confirmed by ICES advice next year. Further restrictions if needed must be sought within the commercial fisheries and not recreational angling.  

There has been strong criticism in Parliament and thousands of anglers have petitioned and demonstrated against these exemptions and the unfair treatment by comparison of recreational bass fishing. Both UK and EU Fisheries ministers should be aware that we will not accept a repeat of this unfairness in 2017.

We believe the following key points should be central to any strategy to rebuild bass stocks:

* If a moratorium is applied, it must be applied to all forms of commercial bass fishing.

* There must be no exceptions of commercial gill netting of any description.

* At the very least all bass netting should cease and bass should become a recreational and sustainable commercial hook and line species only.

*  Consideration should be given to the introduction of a slot size for both hook and liners and anglers to allow the larger, most fecund individuals to be returned to contribute to stock recovery.

*   We see no case for further restrictions on recreational bass fishing given the bag limits that are already in place.

* The government should speed up progress in coming forward with its promised Long Term Management Plan for bass, particularly in the light of the Brexit vote and the likely withdrawal of the UK from the EU Common Fisheries Policy.

It is with regret that we have no expectation that EU ministers will implement in full the ICES advice with regard to bass; no scientifically advised moratorium has ever been introduced by the EU Council in the history of the Common Fisheries Policy. Bass is caught in mixed fisheries as by-catch. This alone will be used as an argument to not introduce a moratorium. In light of the fact that Ministers will not follow the scientific advice and close the fishery we therefore recognise the need to secure fishing opportunities for members of the public fishing recreationally for the publicly owned bass stocks. We are in discussions with our European colleagues about coordinating a response from the recreational sector (whose economic value is worth over 30 times that of the commercial bass fishery) ahead of the Fisheries Council meeting at the end of the year.”

So there you go. I am flying over to the US this afternoon to help Fiiish at the massive iCast show in Orlando, so the blog might not be quite so regular until I get back in just over a week. In relation to the above, it’s interesting to note how serious somewhere like Florida is about their recreational saltwater fishery, indeed you don’t think about casting anything out there until you have bought a fishing license. Interesting as well to note how healthy their fishery is. Need I say more? Our fisheries and the recent EU vote bear parallels if you ask me - increasingly we stand divided in the UK these days, and I wonder where it’s actually going to get us in the long run? Anyway, here comes a week of 2am starts as per usual when I go to the US because I just can’t get on their clock! And of course a terrible case of bouncing fishing brain with all that gear at iCast and of course somewhere like a BassPro shop. Me? Never!

I've been coming to the US for a number of years, always fishing related, and usually something to do with my working in fishing - and each and every time I cross the pond and spend time amongst US anglers, I am struck by just how positive and enthusiastic they are about their sport fishing. I just love it. I love talking with anglers from all around this vast country about their fishing, about how good it can be, how many anglers are enjoying so much fishing, and just a general absence of moaning and complaining.

The Fiiish stand just before the iCast show opened on Wednesday morning here in Orlando

It's bloody infectious, to the point that my head is in a complete spin yet again and getting anywhere close to being on US time simply can't happen. Early morning brain bouncing. Just when I think I am starting to get a slight handle on the different kinds of fishing, along come a bunch more anglers who then fry my English head with tales of their fishing around where they live. I could spend serious time out here.

The iCast show is a monster, and the positivity is just relentless. Granted, a lot of the fishing tackle here doesn't have many applications for the way we tend to fish at home, but of course there's a heap of stuff that would be great, and naturally there are some of the bigger companies making gear that I bet you any money we never see in Blighty. Take Rapala, a lure company I am hardly falling over myself to buy stuff from for my bass fishing, but then I wander around their huge stand here and I spot a number of new lures that I reckon could do plenty of harm for us. Will we ever see them for sale in the UK? From past experiences I seriously doubt it. That's but one example.

But for me it's all about the positivity mixed with the absolutely outrageous amount of salt and freshwater fishing out here. I have talked with so many US anglers about their local fishing and my head is a mess! I met a guy for example who lives in the Pacific Northwest and has the most incredible mix of fresh and salt stuff almost on his doorstep, and there's me thinking it's kinda steelhead and nothing more up there (as awesome as steelhead are though). How wrong could I be? Tuna, halibut, chinooks, various trout species, landlocked salmon, you name it, they've got it, and loads of good fish as well.

I've had a thing about seeing big redfish for a while now, and the “obvious” one if you like is those amazing looking Louisiana marshes in the autumn and winter time. I'd kill to see it and photograph it, but then I meet a guy who tells me all about the insane surf fishing in Texas for big reds, jacks etc., and it's just the sort of land based fishing I love - wandering up and down 60 mile long beaches on the hunt for fish, smashing big fish on lures in the middle of nowhere, and for me a perfect sounding mix of fishing and photography. I'm there!

I could I go on. Believe me, it doesn't matter when you think you know about US fishing, because you're always going to meet somebody from another corner of this amazing country who is doing fishing stuff you had no idea about. I love it, and whilst for many years I suppose I have specialised a bit for my work related travel in some very out of the way and remote places, I can't help but love the mix of civilisation and truly wild fishing out here in the US, and when you stir it up with such a positive feel and outlook from the anglers I meet, wow it's one addictive cocktail of adrenaline and dreams and not quite enough time yet wanting to try and experience as much of it as possible……...

I know it’s short notice, but we have a couple of places in August on one of these co-guided fishing trips I do with John Quinlan and their awesome Thatch Cottage Fishing Lodge operation. Timed to coincide with good tides and a time of year over in Kerry (south west Ireland) when the fishing can really fire - for bass of course, but also for a bunch of other species that we also tend to target when the conditions are right. If you read this blog then you know how much I am in love with spending time over in Ireland, and these co-guided trips for me are about as good as work is ever going to get, and I believe that sense of fun and adventure comes across in how John and I run these trips together. We do long fishing days, the food is outstanding, and we laugh a lot. What more do you need on a fishing trip?

Let there be laughter, and lots of it!

The dates are:

• Friday 19th August - arrive at Thatch Cottage Fishing Lodge
• 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd - fish, a lot!
• Wednesday 24th August - depart.

All fishing, accommodation and food is included.

Come along if you can - contact me here, and because it’s short notice we can do a bit of a deal. Getting to Kerry is pretty easy and we can help you with travel suggestions etc. Have a look at some photos from last year below. Nope, it’s not all about big bass and nothing else. It’s about catching fish and learning about lure fishing especially against the mighty backdrop of a very unspoilt and uncrowded corner of the world where time stands gloriously still. I know it’s short notice, but if you ever dreamed about fishing in Ireland then drop what you’re doing and come along. Hope to see you over there………….

Please believe me when I tell you that I am a fishing tackle tart of the highest order (no, really?!), and I absolutely love fishing with higher end lure rods and spinning reels especially. I lust after the more expensive Daiwa and Shimano spinning reels and the way they feel when you first pick them up and turn the handles, but of course I completely accept that many anglers can’t or simply will not spend a heap of cash on a reel - can’t for numerous reasons, and won’t perhaps because there is always going to be the argument that spending a load more cash doesn’t automatically mean that your spinning reel is going to last a commensurate amount longer. Nope, lure fishing around saltwater is incredibly tough on fishing tackle as we all know.

So as it stands at the time of this review (and of course I will report back if anything goes wrong with the reel in the future), I can’t really see how a spinning reel that comes in under the £140 mark could get much better than the Penn Clash 3000. I am quite simply loving lure fishing with it. As I said a while back here on the blog (here and here), I have zero experience of fishing with Penn spinning reels for UK and Irish saltwater fishing so I didn’t come to the Penn Clash with any previous opinions. I didn’t know what to expect and my judgement as such is of course influenced by having used Daiwa and Shimano spinning reels for a bunch of years now. Whilst I really like the look of these Penn Clash spinning reels, I have a hunch that they could be a marmite sort of thing.

If you want to spend around £140 and under on a spinning reel then of course you’re not going far wrong by looking at Daiwa and Shimano, but I would also implore you to have a look at these new Penn Clash reels. The Clash 3000 is essentially the same size as a Shimano 4000 or Daiwa 3000 reel, indeed this Clash 3000 weighs the same as a Shimano Sustain 4000FG. I have rarely felt such a sense of confidence in a spinning reel when I am out lure fishing, indeed whilst this Clash 3000 initially felt a little on the “tighter” side to start with, it’s loosened up nicely over time. I love a smooth as butter spinning reel, but how many of them stay that way for a meaningful period of time? I can’t help but think of a (not cheap) reel like the Shimano Sustain 4000FG - absolutely love it, but I have had to get a bunch of bearings in it replaced via a service, and I’m not sure how comfortable I feel about the length of time it took for the reel to get like that.

What can I tell you about these Penn Clash reels that I haven’t mentioned before in a couple of preview/update posts (here and here)? Nothing really. Go back and read them if you are interested in these reels, because quite simply I just love fishing with them. Sure, I need to be mindful that their 6.2:1 retrieve ratio is faster than what I am used to on a spinning reel, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem. OK, so it bugs me that you don’t get a spare spool with the reels and I can’t find out when spare spools will actually be available here in the UK, but at the price I can’t really grumble. The handles on the reel are as close to perfect as a reel handle can be I reckon, but as with rod grips that is of course a personal thing - hell, I’d love it if all my reel handles could be exactly the same as the Clash handle. I like it that much. The drag feels great, albeit discussions about drags and the fish we are likely to hook in our waters I reckon are overdone somewhat - come on, we love our fish, but tarpon they ain’t. If a bass is ripping loads of line off your reel then either it’s on speed, or just possibly you’re drag knob need a little “assistance”. I kinda like how Penn have Less and More with helpful directional arrows on said drag knob! No excuses now……….

I do actually have the slightly smaller Penn Clash 2500 spinning reel here as well, but that has to go back to Penn UK because it’s feeling a little “rough”. I did take the reel to the iCast show in the US and asked a somewhat unfriendly, “looked down his nose at me” Pure Fishing bloke what was wrong with it - the answer was that the gears were most likely not quite meshing 100% but that the reel was actually just fine and how it felt was a matter of personal taste. Balls. Sure, the gears might not be meshing quite right, but a spinning reel should not feel like this Clash 2500 does, end of. Am I unlucky? I don’t know, but my mate Mark’s Clash 2500 is running perfectly and I wonder if the odd reel slips through the (mass?) manufacturing process without being 100%? Whatever the case, the US Pure Fishing bloke can stick his fobbing me off attempt where the sun don’t shine!

As for what size Clash I would go for, well a while back I’d have said the 3000, but over time I kinda fancy the slightly smaller 2500 on most of the lure rods I might fish with. Both are the perfect size for UK lure fishing, but that big chunky handle to me makes the smaller Clash 2500 feel just fine on shorter and longer rods. Hell, I’d be happy with either, and whilst the 2500 I have here has to go back for a checkup, I am sorely tempted to buy one anyway because I like it that much. The reel just feels “right”.

One thing to be aware of if you do buy a Penn Clash spinning reel - don’t do what both Mark and I did and get a little “greedy” with your line level (you may need to play with the spacers by the way to get a nice flat line profile, but there are instructions on how to do so in the box, and it’s very easy). The 3000 I have here has always behaved impeccably with 20lb braid and never even a sniff of a wind knot in all kinds of conditions. I had loaded it up to just on the edge of the black line inside the spool, but then independently of each other, Mark and I both went a bit over that black line on the smaller 2500 which we both have. Take it from us - save yourself the hassle and do not get greedy with line levels on these reels. Both Mark and I began to suffer a few wind knots on the 2500 reel, so I took a bunch of backing off, got back to a level which was a tiny bit under that black line and straight away everything was behaving impeccably and has done ever since. Some reels seem to take a bit of overloading and some don’t, and these Penn Clash reels categorically don’t. I know Mark was still getting a bit of wind knot hassle over in Ireland the other day on his 2500, but I have to say that roughness on my test 2500 aside, both Clash reels have been behaving impeccably for me on the casting front once I stopped being greedy with the line level. If I ever get a proper report back on the rough feeling 2500 I will report back here, but the Penn Clash 3000 is as good a spinning reel as I have ever fished with for under £200, and as ever there’s the argument about how many roughly £140 spinning reels you could get for the price of something much higher end and how long they all last.

And below is my work in the new issue of Sea Angler magazine that is just about to hit the shelves. Always over the moon to get a front cover, and always loving photographing and writing about fishing.