Bass fishing on the Fly
The real secret that lies within saltwater fly-fishing is that it provides you with many valid excuses to find yourself challenged by your angling method in beautiful places out on the coast.
Whilst out there, on the coast, you can use those challenges to create angling experiences and perhaps from time to time build unforgettable 
memories that will last you a lifetime. Over time you will also find yourself ultimately satisfied through learning to make great casts, nice loops and better presentations to catch fish. And there is so much more, mending, drifting, leader, line type, fly choice, weather, wind…..and of course realising the unique fish behavior in relation to the fly.
If you are a person who finds personal satisfaction through the challenge of the ‘method’ of angling activities rather than simply the ‘catching‘ of fish then saltwater fly fishing is for you. These angling challenges will never stop and they will always change. My goal is to help you to understand and to successfully meet these challenges. Because there is so much to consider in approaching bass on the fly, workshops can often take two complete days, we have absolute flexibility in your learning requirements and the workshops are fully bespoke.
Behind each workshop the Leave No Trace Principles are always integrated into your experience.
Please visit my Workshop page for more details – a schedule for workshops to follow shortly.
Chapter one
The fish, as usual, could not be seen but yet their presence was ‘felt’. It was very obvious to the angler in the failing light. This feeling of course could have been attributable to the bass angler’s constant companion, hope, but on this occasion the instinct was founded in something more primitive, simpler perhaps. The angler moved quickly across the wet slippery rocks with a careful intent purpose. If we could stop for a moment, interrupt, and ask where his confidence, where his source of heightened expectation quick movements and excitement came from he would surely turn to look at us, confused, eager to get on and disappointed maybe in our failure to recognize the signals which directed him inexorably to the possibilities of what might lie ahead……..
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
I have had to change my life again. 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. 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 of such a vast treasure. I was free to contemplate the rise of a tide over a location, to rise from a warm bed at 02:00 hrs to catch a tide, free 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 at the cost of a greater security mind, my anticipation of being on the coast to fish when I can, is even more heightened, more valuable, more significant. Never to be wasted. This is why I don’t regret not having the same freedom, I have been lucky beyond belief, challenged beyond any comfort zone, worked hard, created luck,struggled, laughed, cried, failed, lost, won, 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 freedom has made me aware that it is always there ready at any time that I might choose it again.
I wonder sometimes that maybe as a result of my new found stability perhaps the words above or indeed similar thoughts are written too easily, without significance and perhaps not that important now. Are they too casually constructed in the new found comfort of a more stable lifestyle? Do not be fooled into thinking that ten years was not valid, not worthwhile, because believe me, no matter how I feel right now there is no time and no where I would rather be other than arriving to my home of an autumn evening with my customers having spent a rewarding day attempting to catch bass on the Wexford coast,
Whenever I am ready again, someday, whenever the coast and the fishing is right again, I am waiting, I know the meaning of patience.
THIRTYARDS 
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