Whatever you do, don’t lend me your camera!

I have had a nightmare with cameras this year. Earlier in the year I had one stolen, then I drowned one, in the meantime I bought a temporary one, which I ended up dropping down the toilet (don’t ask!) and finally when all my new Nikon gear turned up, within days I found a fault. Anyway, I’m finally back up and running, out and about photographing a few features, so if you wondered why you hadn’t seen much editorial content from me in the last few months, lets just say it was down to camera luck, or lack of it! Right, on with the show…

It looks like it’s going to be a bumper winter Cod season

In the last few weeks I have done a few shore cod fishing trips, photographing features and I’m excited to report that this year’s winter cod season looks like its going to be a blinder! I’ve fished in several locations between Minehead and Clevedon on the Bristol Channel and it would seem there is no shortage of codling in the 1-3lb range with the odd bigger one here and there! The real big cod usually appear after Christmas, so fingers crossed.

Facebook – what an awesome tool for finding old friends and new angling buddies!

On the subject of Bristol Channel cod fishing, one of the recent features I photographed was with an old pal of mine, Craig Butler. Now there’s nothing unusual about fishing with an old pal, but what’s quite nice about this story is that I hadn’t seen or heard from Craig in nearly 20 years until recently when we caught up via facebook. When we first knew each other, 20 years ago, we were both freshwater anglers living in Oxfordshire.  Strangely, we both moved to the Westcountry since that time and of course we both took up sea fishing. How freaky is that?

To meet up with an old buddy, only to find he lives just a few miles up the road and sea fishes too! Wild - and all by the power of Facebook! Initially I didn’t really get into the whole Facebook thing, but I have to say what a powerful tool Facebook is if you’re an angler.

By the way, Craig now runs Minehead’s West Coast Angling tackle shop, so if you’re fishing the Minehead area, or if you want up-to-date info on how the Minehead area is fishing, give Craig a call on 01643 705745

After 30 or so years, Spurdog have returned to Plymouth!

Plymouth’s Spurdog population disappeared many moons ago but I have some awesome news. A few weeks back I got a call from Plymouth charter skipper, Malcolm Jones, to say that he’d been catching Spurdogs consistently and could actually target them, so I hopped on board for a day to take some pics.

The day we fished we only had a handful, but we lost a monster Spur at the side of the boat and mixed with some huge Bull Huss, some massive conger and a few other species, all on super light tackle, it was one of the best days fishing I have had this year! Now I know quite a few of you in Wales and in Scotland have a healthy Spurdog population, but for Plymouth, which boasts great offshore fishing but perhaps lacks inshore sportfish like this, is great news.

Lets hope 2011 sees Plymouth’s Spurdog, and indeed other lost inshore fisheries, return to their former glory. If you fancy booking Malcolm and his boat “Sea Angler 2” for a day’s Spur-doging, get in touch via www.seaanglerii.co.uk

New Book is coming along fine

Well we’ve finally started the long haul of design work on my latest R.Y.A. book “Boat Angling Explained”. Things were delayed a little as the book’s designer was called off to do another job. In the meantime, I had the choice to work with a different designer or wait, so I chose to sit it out and I’m glad I did. When I’m working on books etc, that need diagrammatic work, its important for me that whoever I work with has as much enthusiasm as me, and also that they have an interest/knowledge of angling, otherwise the finished product just isn’t going to get the story across.

The designer that I have been working with on this book (and the RYA baits book) is a guy called Pete Galvin. Twelve months ago Pete knew nothing about fishing but after we started working together he took himself on several educational fishing trips, and boy has it paid off! For the last few weeks (and for the foreseeable future) I have been proofing diagrams that Pete has done for the new book and I’m chuffed to bits. When the book is finished, you won’t need to read it – Pete’s diagrams will say it all!! Watch this space!

Special Offer for WSF readers… Florida 2011 – 3 anglers for the price of 2!

Finally our new Florida Keys fishing holiday website is up and running (after a lot of sweat and tears!) We’ve expanded, changed the name to the Long Key Fishing Club and to celebrate we’re doing a spring/summer special, especially for WSF and Angers Net readers – three anglers for the price of two! Check out the new Website www.fishinginflorida.co.uk You can now take your pick from Guided fishing, Self Drive boat fishing, Kayak fishing and Shore fishing - plus motel, suite and villa accommodation. There’s something for everyone’s budget with holidays starting from just £799 per person for a weeks fishing! If you’ve never fished the Florida Keys, it really is a must!

On a final note I would just like to say a big thank you to Jamie of Bad Panda Graphics www.badpandagraphics.co.uk (yet another designer!!) for working so hard on the new Long Key Fishing Club logos! (concur with Jimbo on this one, Jamie’s work is top drawer and he’s also an angler, he’ll be doing a fair amount of work for WSF over the next six months – watch this space – Ed)

Right, its early Monday morning and after the bad weather this last week, I’m finally off out to wet a line and test a reel for you guys!