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Major Craft Seabass Custom Marc Cowling Edition 88ML 8'8'' 6-32g lure rod...
In all honesty it took me a while to really get my head around this high-end lure rod, and I put that down to the fact that I had got so used to the action on the awesome APIA Foojin'RS Art Magic 90ML+...
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I guess you would also turn away from hitting the lure if you suddenly saw me...
We were out the other day on the hunt for decent looking water, and whilst we didn’t exactly cover ourselves in glory it was fascinating to be fishing various locations I had never seen before. I’d set...
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Weird looking guides on this Zenaq Snipe rod, but they seem to be doing some...
This is not a rod review by the way, indeed I am a bit hesitant about doing a review of the single most expensive lure rod I have ever fished with, the Zenaq Snipe S86XX Longcast 8'6'' 8-40g lure rod....
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Found some good bass right before that storm hit, talk about timing!
It will always fascinate me how an angler computes what they know to make a call on where and when to go fishing. How deeply do you think about it? How many readily accessible resources do you use to...
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Savage Gear WP Performance Jacket review - around £150
I never even realised that this waterproof Savage Gear WP Performance Jacket existed until I fished with Simon over in Guernsey back in February of this year. I have worn a few different items of...
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When you’re fishing bouncy conditions and things nearly go wrong - the photos
I wasn’t sure about posting these photos up, but I am going to trust that we can all be grown up here and accept that this fishing thing we all love to do is not without at least some kind of risk. If...
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Gear of the Year 2024
As always it’s a massive thank you from me to all you kind people for taking the time to read this blog and interact with me. Some of you also kindly buy stuff via my affiliate links. I remain...
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Is it worth exploring techniques to hold my lure that bit longer in a...
You know how my brain works if you read this blog, and with some winter bass fishing I have been doing recently, I have got to thinking about something. It might be nothing because how I am currently...
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Non-fishing Stuff of the Year 2024
You know the score as well as I do here. Another year down the road, another year older, and still we look back and wonder where all the time really went. I’d like to stick around for a while longer if...
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Happy Christmas 2024
I went out fishing with a mate early on Saturday morning and we had a blast. With all this weather, our coastline is in a bit of a mess, but we put our heads together and came up with what we hoped was...
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Stunning New Year’s Eve bass session, absolutely bouncing, Happy New Year!
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I was away with my family seeing my in-laws on the Isle of Wight, so I wasn’t fishing, but for a good few days I had been eyeing up the tide and potential...
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I caught my best bass of 2024 on 26th March, so I see no reason not to keep...
Fishing did its typical thing yesterday by bringing me straight back down to earth. Yep, I blanked. The conditions felt pretty good but the wind was a cold N to NE and the sun was shining. Most welcome...
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Off and running for 2025 with a chunky January bass - the thrill is as great...
Call me obsessive - never! - but I choose to keep a regular eye on the various factors which influence my fishing. I know that wind and swell forecasts are only forecasts and not fact, but at least it...
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More January bass and a very early contender for my fishing photograph of the...
Okay, so one bass was landed and it wasn’t by me, but it was a January bass from the open coast landed by Dave, and I dropped a fish which was briefly on but then came off. That weather which ripped...
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Daiwa J-Braid Expedition X8 braid review - around £38 for a 150m spool or £60...
This is not remotely a “budget” braid, but there is something rather interesting about it which I can’t really prove but which I am convinced makes this Daiwa J-Braid Expedition X8 braid a really good...
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I never go fishing without a few metals in my lure box, doing so got me a...
I don’t know how far I can chuck a 28g Savage Gear Seeker on a really good 8’8’’ lure rod (coming later in the year), but I connected with a chunky January bass around the 3 lb mark yesterday morning...
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Favorite Totem 842MH 8’4’’ 12-36g lure rod review - £159.99 (SO close to the...
If you can live with the fact that the fixtures and fittings are not of the same Fuji-type quality than you might find on a more expensive lure rod, then with this Favorite Totem 842MH 8’4’’ 12-36g we...
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I broke my creature bait virginity yesterday and I’m heading over to Guernsey...
I am nearly 52 so I guess I am meant to be a relatively mature adult who has seen most things and could be more “sensible” (sod that), but I woke up at 3am this morning with a jolt because I can’t shut...
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Catching my first few bass on creature baits - is it really a game changer or...
Obviously I don’t have nearly enough experience yet to tell you whether the whole creature bait thing (crab imitation or not?) is or is not a game changer for my bass fishing, but I do know that I now...
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Fenix HM65R ShadowMaster headlamp review - around £100 in the UK
First off let me tell you that I wasn’t thinking about a new headlamp for my lure fishing for bass at night (or running or early morning winter dog walks etc.). A few years ago I found what to me is...
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Creature questions - are these lures really imitating a crab, or is it more...
Just this morning at breakfast my wife said that I definitely have an obsessive personality, and to put it into context I was trying to have a conversation about running and not fishing - she has no...
View ArticleAre you interested in audio or visual types of blog posts?
I never stop thinking about this kind of stuff, but after listening to the latest episode of the excellent “The Lure Fishing Podcast” from Cormac Walsh where he is talking to Marc Cowling of South...
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Off to Portugal for a week (hope my flight goes this time!), thank you for...
If we don’t get another hectic storm over the weekend which stops my flight taking off - see here from this time last year - then on Sunday morning I am flying to SW Portugal to see if I can find a few...
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The bass fishing is not easy out here, but it’s about as exciting as it gets,...
It’s probably not great for me as my heart literally stopped for a split second yesterday morning when a fish hit my lure, but because it’s the south west coast of Portugal and you know the size of...
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A few bass coming in, a few bass lost, broken rods, broken reels, bloody...
The bass fishing here in SW Portugal is merciless when it comes to ego and fishing tackle. In four days I have seen a broken lure rod, a broken spinning reel, a good few lost lures, a bloody pair of...
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Sequence of photos showing a good bass so nearly landed, then suddenly lost...
I got back home last night and I was thinking about doing this blog post almost straight after the events you will see below which happened earlier last week. When you look at these photos you need to...
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It’s not every day you see a bass like this in the UK in the middle of February
It felt so strange to make that first easy cast with a little 8’6’’ 32g lure rod a couple of days ago when I had been blasting stuff out on far more powerful 9’8’’ and 10’ rods in Portugal the week...
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Unrealistic expectations for this time of year? Who knows……………..
It was only a few years ago that I caught my first ever bass in the UK in February, then I am pretty sure it was March last year when I caught my first ever UK bass in that particular month. January...
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Looking at and thinking about water I already know (and need to check out)...
A select few anglers I know and get to fish with a bit have really got me thinking about bits of water almost all over again. I was talking with a friend the other day and I said something along these...
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Automatically turning to heavier lures the rougher it gets isn’t always the...
With the relentless onshore weather we’ve been getting for a few days around here, I got to thinking about a session we had not long before Christmas when my “logical approach” as such didn’t turn out...
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My first audio blog post, please tell me what you think. The Big One Show...
I stumbled across some online software the other day which allows me to record audio directly to it, and if I ask it to, it also produces a basic video of my audio together with a transcript of what I...
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Never realised how much extra roll a football-style jig head can put on a...
You probably guessed a long time ago that this time of year combined with bad conditions tends to get me thinking about this sort of stuff! I came across football-style jig heads many years ago, and...
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The Big One Show was better than ever for lure fishing
What a weekend up at Farnborough. I have worked in the fishing tackle industry for nearly thirty years now. I know a hell of a lot of really good people, and I love getting to see so many of them like...
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Never has the one tiny bass meant so much! Hope to see some of you at the...
It always happens at some point in March - the weather gets stunning for a few days and it feels like a proper taste of spring. I went out fishing a couple of days ago to do what I have promised myself...
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Great few days at the Glasgow Angling Centre, yapped to plenty of anglers and...
The Glasgow Angling Centre really is a hugely impressive fishing tackle shop done on a scale we are simply not used to here in the UK. What I really admire though is that however big the actual shop is...
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Was I really going to catch? Had to have a go, conditions were lovely, the...
I simply couldn’t resist heading out to the coast on Monday afternoon when I saw a bit of swell rolling in on the webcam. I know it’s early March, but if I hadn’t thought what the hell and gone for it...
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More bass on the creature baits, itching to experiment with different lures...
One thing I can’t do is complain about a lack of bass numbers in the middle of March in the UK, not when I am managing to snag a few from estuary waters in which I have tried but failed miserably at...
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Favorite Totem 842M 8'4'' 6-24g lure rod review - £159.99 (remarkably close...
I don’t really see how a lure rod designed to fish with slightly lighter lures than what might be termed the norm for our bass fishing can get much better than the sublime Favorite Black Swan 8’5’’...
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Could a mainline like Berkley FireLine make any difference at all around the...
Two (lost) bass in particular are always going to bounce around my brain. One fish hooked on the IMA Nabarone 125F hard lure (doesn’t get nearly enough love) quite simply went the wrong way on a very...
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Do you make any modifications to the fishing tackle or gear that you use?...
I got to thinking about this blog post last night when I had been out fishing yesterday and I was using the excellent RBB Surf Supporter II lure bag (review here) which to be honest I hadn’t picked up...
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I know it’s still March (easy to get overexcited), but I am interested to see...
A year and a few days ago I landed my best bass of last year, so I am naturally interested and excited to see what might or might not happen out on the coast when we lose this protracted period of high...
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There is so much more to jig heads than I realised, I am still finding stuff...
I think I need to do a series of audio style blog posts on here (podcasts?) which detail some specific moments or people or events in my saltwater lure fishing journey as such, mainly because if they...
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I know it’s March, but this morning’s blank is going to niggle me for a while
It’s not often that a weather forecast from a week or so out ends up spot on, but ever since I saw the forecast for this morning I had been eyeing up an open coast session and hoping that what they...
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Scaling down and getting subtler to catch more and/or bigger bass?
I will never forget an Irish bass fishing “expert” banging on at me about various experty things, including the “fact” that to catch big bass you had to use big lures. Mmmm. I also completely get the...
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When rigging soft plastics for shallowish water, what are your reasons for...
I hope you don’t mind me asking the same question here as I did on my Facebook page yesterday, but I am very fortunate with the amount of engagement I get from a wide range of anglers (my eternal...
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Most gorgeous start to spring since we were first locked down in the pandemic?
I haven’t seen a single cloud in the sky for a few days now and it’s just incredible. I can’t pretend that I like this weather that much for my open coast fishing especially - flat calm seas, very...
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A fascinating new video from Ultimate Fishing specifically about fishing for...
I don’t know how YouTube knows that I like fishing!!, but a couple of days ago a brand new video from Ultimate Fishing dropped into my feed. Turns out it’s a new film that revolves around the rather...
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Our brand new Savage Gear Defiance SG8 and Defiance SG4 lure rods are on the...
If you read this blog and look at the photos, you will have unknowingly seen plenty of photographs on here where me or a friend are fishing with these new Savage Gear lure rods which have just hit the...
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Very cool to see some keen youngsters fishing so well
I am pretty damn sure that I didn’t have anywhere near the skill of these kids I met last week when I was their age. I met up with some good people last week to do a bit of fishing and see some fishing...
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Saw a US fishing video where a bloke said something like “let’s be honest,...
The YouTube algorithm knows me too well. Fishing from around the world, new black metal tracks, trailers to new films (can’t wait for 28 Years Later in June), and various camera/photography related...
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