Really enjoying this filming work out here in Ireland, sorry for the lack of photos - it's hectic!

We were bass fishing in a gentle bit of surf at last light last night, and for about fifteen minutes the light seriously went off as it is prone to do out here in Kerry - and I couldn’t take photographs like I usually would. I was miked up and fishing away for the cameras, I was doing what is a part of my work, I am really, really enjoying it, but yep, there was a part of me that was literally dying inside because I couldn’t go and grab my camera and shoot the living daylights of it……………

That though is a dilemma I am more than happy to have in my life. It was many years ago when I worked out that working in fishing was never going to make me remotely rich, but when you get to fish and film and spend time in a part of the world like this and you get to call it work, then if fishing is your thing I know I am pretty damn lucky and the rich bit can be for other people. I’m no pro in front of the camera, but I do enjoy communicating about fishing, and I really enjoy the collaborative work like this I sometimes get to do. The filming lads from Savage Gear are working hard, John Quinlan is going miles beyond a regular working day to help us nail the stuff we need - and I get to fish a bit and try my best to get it all across on camera. Fishing excites me and I only know how to be myself on camera, and there will always be the stop or pause button for people who don’t like it.

So filming is filming and of course it impacts on the fishing and indeed photography you would ideally like to do, but these days the filming gear is so light and mobile that in reality John and I are able to maximise the actual fishing time when we are fishing and they are filming. But it’s filming, and filming requires a lot of different shots to enable the editor to create the YouTube videos we are working towards. It’s obviously all about fishing, but fishing isn’t just fishing, and especially when you are working with a tackle company. We are looking to create YouTube videos about bass and pollack fishing for starters, but we also need to be pulling away from the actual fishing to talk about and show off all the new products which are either coming out about now or later in the year. There is so much to do and it’s going well.

Apologies then for my lack of photographs then, but I only managed to pull away from the actual fishing and filming and fishing tackle for a brief few minutes the other day and snap some slightly ordinary photos of John fishing. I have seen some of the footage that the lads have been shooting and I am really impressed, but what was almost the most interesting was reviewing some of the Water Wolf (little underwater camera, you attach it to your line) footage yesterday evening and seeing that many pollack so often tracking the lure underwater and not committing to it. I have been convinced for so long now that fish track but refuse our lures far more often than we realise, so what is it that flicks that switch inside the fish to suddenly smash a lure? I love the eternal questions in fishing which we will never be able to fully answer………….