Find me here from today

A Journey 2004 - 2014

 

Using various strategies to get your business and services ‘visible’ is beyond doubt essential. In todays world that definitely means using social media tools, websites, mobile friendly accessibility, and a strong reputable and credible online presence.

The use of ‘Feature’ articles in angling publications is one of those strategies that I adopted early in 2003 through the advice of David Byrne. The first International ‘Feature’ that effectively portrayed the potential of South Eastern Irelands bass fishing appeared in VoyagesdePeche in 2004 (here). Nico Jamin was the chief Journalist working with the magazine at the time and his photos feature in the article.

Julien La Journade the editor in chief of the magazine has a close and highly developed relationship with Irish angling promotion. A constant champion of many guides and services in this country Julien has done me many small promotional ‘unprompted favours’ over the past ten years. Subtle in context, a paragraph here a photograph there, just enough to keep things ticking over.

I have been very lucky with the journalists I have had the opportunity to work with over the past ten years. When I want to work with somebody I’ve already made the decision on the basis that I know that their objectives are based simply in carefully promoting the angling, the local support services and of course the guiding as provided by Jim Hendrick. Here’s the kicker though, many angling journalists are interested in promoting themselves and their angling prowess in preference to either the fish the environment or the services. This is often achieved by being facilitated into positions of angling opportunities that they could have never ever dreamed of experiencing!

I have been careful and lucky too.

But I’m guessing now that this is always the case, there’s always a little bit of quid pro quo, and that’s fine until you find their friends are casually ‘guiding’ on places where you have worked for years to develop. Somehow the quid and the quo are not the same.

The something special about Julien LaJournade is probably in his passion, his depth of understanding of both what it means to be a genuine fishing guide whilst being aware of the impacts of local recreational angling and the associated risks of over development of any fishery in many environments. I have learned to believe that these are some of the characteristics of quality angling journalism.

My personal strategy with magazine features was to use many different International publications across many countries over time. Coupling this to reporters who viewed Wexford in the same way as Guinea Bissau, Gabon or Norway and that in these places were unique fishing possibilities available to you if you used a local fishing guide – simple, this is their job. I know how to do mine.

Julien returned to Ireland this year and we worked on an article for his magazine. We had an incredible week. Both tough and at times awe inspiring. I find it appropriate now as I change my life and my angling, again, that the magazine I started with in 2004 (as above), the first of its kind to visit South East Ireland and particularly Wexford,  is the one I close with for the time being.

So much has changed since then. The magic of technology and photography has moved so much that these photos here were taken on my mobile phone, unheard of in 2003! Some of these and more feature in the latest edition of  Voyagesdepeche.

Julien has completed 9 pages of an article about his latest experiences of Irish bass fishing on the wild coast of Ireland guided by Jim Hendrick.

Julien is a balanced writer, a great lure fisherman and someone who has inspired me never to get engaged in the online bullshit of expertise that’s so prevalent around bass fishing.

I believe that not everyone has agreed with what I did as a guide, I tried to do my job as best as I could and with as many like minded people as I could find. I’ve had incredible bass angling experiences and I have been lucky to have shared some of those times with great angling journalists. Journalists who have done bass fishing and Ireland proud.

Thanks to you all – Jim Hendrick

ask me what I did with my life

To fly fish

 

CATCH AND RESPECT IN BASS FISHING

FIRST PUBLISHED DECEMBER 31st JANUARY 2007.

What it really means -

Under the influence II–the grip loosens….

We have been in the grip of an anticylonic system for nearly three weeks now, and it looks like its stuck for another few days, up to Sunday at least. But then on Monday we are released from its grasp and the week ahead looks really good for bass fishing – new moon, nice tides, a swing of systems to the south west and a mid week ‘perfect storm’.

Imagine breaking white water at last!

If you can get your planning right in the right locations it looks red hot mid week. I’m hearing genuine experiences of lots of hard hours done by some of the best bass anglers in Ireland over the past few weeks and it has been tough out there !

As any bass angler knows (depending on your location and degree of  influence) a North Easter / Easter does nothing to excite us…on this coast anyway.

However I wont be confusing a shift in weather patterns that may increase the likelihood of success with the conclusion that all is well with the fishery.

After all its bound to be better for many reasons.

Never alone

 

‘He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see the prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.’

Ernest Hemingway – The old man and the sea

Ocean flipping, (a pattern of sevens or greater)

The key to the slowdown in global warming in recent years could lie in the depths of the Atlantic and Southern Oceans where excess heat is being stored – not the Pacific Ocean as has previously been suggested, according to new research.

But the finding suggests that a naturally occurring ocean cycle burying the heat will flip in around 15 years’ time, causing global temperature rises to accelerate again.

Go HERE

And then go HERE

And then go fishing…!

National Bass Policy

Any person with a modicum of common sense looks forward to the launch of the policy documents this morning at IFI. In this instance any person interested in the current and future state of Bass fishing should be, to some degree, celebrating the launch of the National Bass Policy.

The team members of the policy group have worked hard to achieve, what is in my opinion on the basis of the draft, a strong document. We could discuss many aspects of it over many hours no doubt!

Using the same common sense when applied to the ‘implementation’ of the policy and you quickly arrive at the conclusion that IFI is probably and more than likely under resourced in achieving all of the objectives, and this is only when you consider the Bass policy.

During the initial meetings and early formation of the first Irish Bass group, the scope of what was required to cover the wider aspects of the Bass fishery and its development coupled to protection was quickly realised. The group decided its focus was to be based on illegal fishing as a singular objective.

However it was my particular interest to develop the wider aspects of what may have been required. As is the case with many scenarios like this it ran into quicksand and stalled. Life gets in the way sometimes, its normal! This blog was a vehicle I used to get some of that bass information out there.

It is my belief today that no one single person can be ‘responsible’ for all of the aspects of Bass angling in this country no matter what they may be – this is not a criticism but rather a practical observation.

There has been much discussion here on the subject which has evolved from one anglers initial concerns about the lack of Bass in Wexford to finally arriving somewhere close to the possible meeting of people to assist the Irish Bass organisation.

Recognising the under resourcing at IFI, most companies would probably ‘outsource’ requirements, leaves the possibility of the recognition that some of the aspects of the implementation of the Bass policy could in fact be accomplished and achieved by a wider and capable group of people coupled to a proper division and allocation of diverse responsibilities and interests based on genuine trust transparency and openness.

This is how things get done.

________________________

The Policy can be found in the Bass documents library here on this website as can the original draft policy which has been available here since publication.

Its been a long time..

It's been a long time since I rock and rolled,
It's been a long time since I did the Stroll.
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back,
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from.
It's been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time. Yes it has.

Led Zeppelin – Rock and Roll

Big bass on the fly–a considerable angling challenge

I am still challenged by bass on the fly – probably even more so now than ever.

Its not easy out there at the moment, in a much diminished fishery, a difficult method is always going to be at times more tasking. But……

But with a little bit of thought and planning some fishing is likely even if very much unexpected.

Some help can be found here from 2009 – Bigger Bass on the Fly

 

Yellow Flatwing 20 cms’s – drifted

G-Loomis CC GLX #7

Danielsson LW 6/9

Rio Outbound Short F/I #7

Airflow saltwater poly leader 5’-0” – Rio fluoroflex + tippet

New existence

As between clear blue and cloud,.. I had my existence.

I was there. Me in place and the place in me.

Seamus Heaney

High life in Los Angeles, time

I was on my way seatrout fishing with two friends of my father. We were headed down towards ‘The Coombe’ with ABU Krills and Tobies and Lying Eyes was playing on Micks tape deck in the car. The first time I had ever really heard the Eagles. I was 14, it was June 1978 . It was The Greatest Hits, it was Hotel California. It was magic.

Now at 50, 36 years later, and only last night in fact, I fished the same place with two different friends for the same species.

Today I am driving to the Eagles to hear them live in Dublin, for me, the first time.

Orvis news–Irish bass fishing

A nice photo essay on the Orvis  US Website 

by Paul Moinester – click the top photo to link

May–fly

Issue 48

Read engaging stories from Dave Karczynski, Brian Irwin, Shauna Sherard of Trout Unlimited, Cameron McDonald, Will Rice, Dr. Aaron Adam, and Hilary Hutcheson.  Enjoy the stunning photography offerings from Dave Karczynski, Adrienne Comeau, Cameron McDonald, Nick Shirghio, and Freddy Terranova. This is Fly continues to embraces diversity with a collection of stories that will take readers around the world chasing steelhead, bonefish, permit, and of course trout!

"Among narrow springs creeks made narrower by imperialist shelf ice, fish for days on snowshoes in biting wind. Catch nothing. Suffer much. Wander through patch of thorny briars and perforate waders, which you fix by no longer walking in the water. Day in, day out, suffer. Then, on fourth day, behold wind die down. Behold snouts of trout, first snouts of season, breaking film for midges—midges sluicing down through high caverns of snow. Catch first fish in 3.5 months. Then second, third. Then fiftieth, fifty-second, fifty-third. Have best midge fishing of life, here, in Arctic Wasteland Without End. On 7x and size 22 hooks and fingers fat as sausage. Take one picture of glory before conceding moment unphotographable. Moment was not the moment because of the moment. Moment was the moment because of the two days, the three weeks, the four months of suffering leading up to it. Share quiet, private triumph."

Completed

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MARKS THE END OF INNOVATIVE FÁILTE IRELAND BSC IN SMALL ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT

The twenty three participants on WIT’s BSc in Small Enterprise Management run in conjunction with Fáilte Ireland, attended the final workshop of the course and a reception to mark the occasion earlier in April.

I an very happy to have been on this programme.

This innovative programme was the first degree level course in Ireland to focus on the professional development needs of owner/managers of small tourism and hospitality enterprises. The twenty three participants represent enterprises across a number of tourism sectors including accommodation, restaurant, angling, water-based activities, conference, and education tourism and hail from nine counties including Kerry, Waterford, Dublin, Wexford, Kilkenny, Cork, Donegal, Mayo and Clare.

The degree programme emerged from years of collaboration between Fáilte Ireland and the School of Business, including the Fáilte Ireland Tourism Learning Networks (TLN) initiative, which the School managed in the south.

According to Dr Anthony Foley, Course Leader, “The participants are local tourism champions and have, through the programme, developed their professional and business management skills. A key outcome of the programme has been the development of distinct network development templates. The programme is also seen as a flagship programme for its pedagogical design, based on a Problem-based Learning (PBL) model, and its blended delivery.”

The Fáilte Ireland BSc in Small Enterprise Management has made international waves and just this month a chapter on the degree published by Emerald has been selected as an Outstanding Author Contribution in the 2014 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence. The chapter has been widely disseminated through journal articles, book chapter and national and international academic conferences, totalling eleven peer reviewed papers.

In attendance at the event were Dr Tony Lenehan, Head of Industry Services; Mr Colm Breheny, Client Services Manager; Mr Peter Stocksborough, Client Services Manager; all from Fáilte Ireland as well as staff from the School of Business including Dr Anthony Foley, Course Leader; Dr Thomas O’Toole, Head of the School of Business; Dr Denis Harrington, Head of Graduate Business; and Ms. Joan McDonald; Head of Department of Management and Organisation along with WIT lecturers on the programme and staff connected to the Fáilte Ireland TLN initiative.

The degree is based in the Department of Graduate Business and is part of the School of Business’s engagement and knowledge strategy.  This has a linked theme into the launch of the Higher Diploma in Business in Service Design and Innovation, and also through the GIFT Interreg project on green innovation (co-managed by the School of Business) and many of the class participants are members. There has also been the parallel growth of an excellent tourism industry advisory and development facility at the School of Business, through RIKON.

The saltwater fly fishing experience

So much more than fish