Book review: “Bass Lure Fishing - A Guide’s Perspective Volume 1”, by Marc Cowling (who I believe is currently the best writer about UK bass fishing)

I don’t want to go embarrassing the bloke, but a chapter or two into Marc Cowling’s new book and any angler with any interest in bass fishing has surely realised that by now he is reading the intimate fishing thoughts of not only a very good bass angler and professional guide, but also an angler who thinks deeply about his fishing AND then has the communication skills combined with the desire and generosity to put it all down on paper and release a fishing book like this.

I am half way into Marc’s new book “Bass Lure Fishing - A Guide’s Perspective Volume 1” but I don’t need to have finished it yet to be able to tell you this - do yourself a favour and just buy it. If you anywhere on the learning curve which is trying to catch these magnificent fish on lures then this book is going to help you out so much with your fishing and thought processes that at five times the price it would still be cheap because of the knowledge on offer. I like to think I’m okay at my fishing whilst being completely happy that in many respects I am still at day one with this bass fishing thing, and whilst I know and hugely respect Marc Cowling plus he’s one of the most humble guys you could ever hope to meet, his brain is obviously wired to really dial down into his fishing and analyse the subtleties that most of us probably miss. I find this fascinating, and I find it perfectly wonderful that he takes the time and effort to pen so many thoughts in a book like this.

And it’s the very obvious sense of interest, intellect, and ability to communicate which to me is the whole point of a book like this - one angler/professional fishing guide with an intimate knowledge of his local coastline combined with a voracious appetite for learning and experimenting and being humble enough to recognise how much more we all have to learn all the time we are out fishing. Trying to make sense of fishing and nature whilst accepting that for all we know it could all be turned on its head the next time we head out fishing. Marc’s chapter “The Game Changer” is absolutely brilliant the way it catalogues his discovery of bass lure fishing at night and how it has changed his fishing and guiding so much. I have no time for top dogs in fishing who have forgotten what it’s like to get into something and sometimes be a bit confused, but I have a huge amount of time for kind and honest anglers who strive to help other anglers get better at this fishing thing we all love so much. If you don’t learn more about bass fishing with lures from this new book then either you can’t read, you have no interest in learning, or you really are the absolute top dog and you already know it all anyway. Fishing to me is about learning all the time, and holy bloody cow has this book got me thinking and planning.

I really like how Marc interweaves so much easily digestible information into various and noticeable guiding and personal fishing sessions. “Bass Lure Fishing - A Guide’s Perspective Volume 1” is a very different kind of fishing book to Marc’s first book “The Lure of the Bass”, and I think he has been really sensible to come at so much fascinating information from a different, real life fishing kind of slant. Real fishing sessions and their respective highlights plus so many golden nuggets of bass fishing thoughts, what more could any angler with an inquisitive mind want from a fishing book? I am happy to admit that there is no way I could write a book like this, and I take my hat off to Marc Cowling for his new “Bass Lure Fishing - A Guide’s Perspective Volume 1” book. Bloody well done indeed sir!

You can buy this book from Lurefishingforbass.co.uk right here (this is an affiliate link) or direct from Marc Cowling here (this is not an affiliate link). This is a self-published book and it might not be readily available for ever - snap it up because it’s worth every single penny and then some.

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