Catch and release

Paris FlyFishing Show

LAST CAST

I have had to change my angling life again, not a problem! This change was borne of circumstances beyond my control and beyond the parameters of how I felt I could run my bass angling guiding business.

The ‘valid’ number of bass have simply disappeared from the Wexford coast. 

Ten years of freedom to build something personally worthwhile were given to me by two people at the centre of my life. This  freedom was beyond value. Now I have time to contemplate the consequences and meaning of such a vast angling treasure. I was free to contemplate the rise of a tide over a location, free to rise from a warm bed at 02:00 hrs to bring people from around the world onto the coast to fish for bass, free to watch a breeze arrive across a mirrored sea. Free from the constraints of 9 to 5, time, mostly, had no consequence unless it was connected to tide or arrival or departure or season.

Now that I don’t have that same freedom my anticipation of being out on the coast to fish when I can is even more heightened, more valuable, more significant. Time cannot be wasted. I don’t regret not having the same freedom, I have been lucky beyond belief, worked hard, created luck,struggled, laughed, cried, failed, lost, learned, understood, witnessed and grew. I bring this with me now to my life, my family, my work and more than anything to my personal bass fishing.

The experience of having worked within that sense of freedom has made me aware that it is always there ready at any time that I might choose it again. Whenever I am ready, whenever the coast is right again!  I am waiting..

My main bass angling interests now lie in working slowly on Thirtyards over the next few years whilst developing some aspects of social media to support my visual interpretation of the unique Irish coastline. This will happen as I personally fish and sometimes perhaps work on small angling projects.

I will continue to guide for bass and seatrout fishing but only in a very limited fashion and mostly with fly fishing in mind. This decision has not been easy, but at this time there are simply too many reasons and aspects that currently exist in Irish bass fishing that make the change one that I am very happy to have made.

Thirtyards is a personal project. It is still largely a work in progress, a vehicle, a place, a companion perhaps. I anticipate Thirtyards coming slowly into existence over the latter half of season 2014 into 2015 and on-wards.

I have created Thirtyards largely as an accompaniment to a plan for a book. A book based in the bass fishing that I have encountered on the coast of Ireland whilst both fly and lure fishing. Thirtyards will also include a sense of some of my guiding days and the potential behind a service like saltwater guiding in Ireland. There’s no doubt that the many customer interactions, fishing days and magic moments, especially those of the last ten years self-employed and working as a full time bass fishing guide have been tremendous and at times beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

I want, now, over the next few years to put those experiences down before they disappear. You can already find some of these ramblings and extracts and perhaps the start of the coming together of the book here on the Coastal Notes page. You can also find the fishing thoughts of many other people on these pages.

Thirtyards is a place too where you can find limited unique bespoke guided saltwater bass fishing adventures on the coast of Ireland and details of my saltwater fly fishing workshops. It is ultimately about a planned attempt to create something but its also about time and place rather than distance cast or numbers caught or how to or the latest gear guide… at this time an unmeasured bass fishing universe exists inside my mind. I’m trying my best to get it out there!

I feel a huge sense of anticipation, largely because I’m excited by what might lie ahead, and there’s a lot of time and indeed work ahead, but also, I am challenged by ‘what content’ might want to find its way onto Thirtyards and also what I might choose to leave out for the book…

I am consciously taking my time.

Thanks for stopping byon the odd occasion and perhaps we’ll meet someday, who knows, it might be in the right place at the right time!

Regards, and keep casting – Jim

Leave no trace