I knew within two casts yesterday that I had made a bad call. I could have been somewhere else I knew was going to be fishable, but I haven’t fished the open coast around here for a while with being away and so on - and I wanted to see how it was shaping up for the time of year. Weed can be a real problem when things start to warm up and you combine it with a bit of bounce…………….

And that is exactly what I found yesterday! Stunning open coast conditions which had me galloping down the cliffs and over the rocks like an aging gazelle - okay, not quite - but when I got to my chosen rock I could see a lot of broken up weed in the water. First cast and my lure was covered, second cast and it got worse, so I moved and moved and found only more weed. Covering my lures, draped across my leader, it was a lost cause from the off. Of course I should have moved and gotten the hell away from this particular section of open coast, but the photographer in me has been thinking about a few things I wanted to try out, and the only way to find out if stuff works is to use it out in the real world.

I fish a fair bit on my own these days, and whereas I used to stay the hell away from shooting photos of myself fishing, the simple fact is that I need lots of fishing photos for lots of different reasons. Magazines, blog, social media, tackle company consultancy work etc., if I don’t shoot myself sometimes then I am losing out. For sure I am somewhat bound to certain ways of taking photographs when I am on my own - as I was yesterday - but if I don’t keep trying different techniques and settings and so on then I will never get any better at it. So I took the decision yesterday to use the location, light and conditions to experiment a bit with various camera settings and placements and see if I could improve upon a few things which in turn could hold me in better stead for the future.

Camera settings aside which I experimented with and found some interesting (photography related) stuff out, a particular scratch I wanted to itch was how I might properly shoot myself “reverse casting”. I am right-handed so I naturally cast over my right shoulder, but I can keep the same hand positions on the rod and fire a lure out pretty well over my left shoulder if need be. This comes in handy sometimes, so with the weed issues yesterday I decided to experiment with the angles of me to my camera and lens to properly show some reverse casting. Why you might ask? Firstly I want to see what it looks like and find out if I am actually a bit crap at it, secondly because it never hurts to have these sorts of photos on file, and thirdly because I could also experiment with some slightly different camera settings and see how they worked.

I am as obsessed with photography as I am with fishing, so the fact that I wasn’t going to catch any bass yesterday didn’t bother me one bit. I got to spend time experimenting with photography related stuff and I answered some questions which had been bouncing around my brain. I also got to give more time to these fascinating, dirt cheap and somewhat ridiculous looking Rock Grippa (wading) boots which I will blog about soon. Bloody hell they work well, and if you know anything about the rock and surf fishing scene in South Africa especially then you will have seen those anglers wearing these types of boots for years. I managed to snag the last pair in stock in my size, but I believe more stock is inbound. If you are interested, the lure rod I am using in these photos is the incredible Favorite Black Swan 982MH 9’8’’ 10-36g - but then these ridiculous Black Swan rods don’t surprise me anymore because they are so consistently bloody good……….

Disclosure - if you buy anything using links found in this blog post or around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you any more to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.

When the fishing’s a bust I will sometimes practise photography stuff because I love it as much as the fishing

© Henry Gilbey 2023