Our Guiding Year in Review 2025

Welcome to ‘Our Guiding Year in Review 2025‘.

First and foremost, Joe and I would like to thank every single one of our clients for the effort, levels of perseverance, and above all, their receptiveness over the past year – it really has been a thoroughly enjoyable year of guiding our clients in 2025. We’ve laughed, joked, made new friends, and as a collective, have continued to learn more and more about How, When, and Where to catch the UK’s premier sporting fish.

As well as being an extremely fulfilling 8th season of Full-Time guiding for me, it has also been my most successful. What’s more, in what has been my 2nd Guide Joe’s first full season, not only has he placed numerous clients onto their first ever bass (and/or first on a particular lure type) but he has also instructed and assisted many of them onto their new Personal Best – all the more impressive considering he was operating on a weekend basis from April until early autumn, before making his appointment Full-Time.

Something that Joe and I are extremely proud of, is the fact that on three separate occasions, one of our clients landed a bass of 60cm+ and 70cm+ within the same session! Now that really is bass lure fishing and guiding at its finest.

Best and Largest

Talking of figures, the scores on the door for 2025 read:

• Our clients landed (and successfully released) 31x 60cm+ bass, including 2x just over 69cm
• Our clients landed (and released) 5x bass of 70cm+,
• The total bass landed (and released) above 70cm since the I conceived the business has now reached 18…
• Joe guided a client (Brian) onto a 74cm beast, which is the largest bass a client has ever landed at South Devon Bass Guide Ltd (see here).

” Had a three day package with South Devon Bass Guide Ltd. Excellent bass guiding service. Marc is very professional and taught me lots of watercraft even down to tweaking my casting and retrieving lures. Caught my PB bass and my PB night caught bass. Would highly recommend booking if your in to lure fishing. I would recommend reading Marc’s books too. Very well written and informative. ”

R. Smith

The 5x 70s

A gallery of the five 70cm+ bass landed by our clients in 2025 can be found below:

A Brief Summary

If I were to briefly summarise our 2025 bass lure guiding season, then the bullet points below cover it nicely:

• Although warm and sunny overall, again, the summer was essentially windy, meaning exposed sections of this majestic coastline were basically ‘weeded out’.
• Without a doubt, the open coast fished better than the two previous seasons, with the twilight periods, and the darkness proving particularly productive.
• Elaborating on both of the statements above, the period between early-April through to late-July, and to a lesser extent October, saw the more ‘reliable’ bass activity along the reefs, rocky ledges, headlands, coves, and beaches.
• There was a very distinct change in the behaviour of the bass once the August heat ceased, and September blew in. Indeed, it was literally like flicking the proverbial switch in relation to where in the water column they, quite suddenly, began to hunt and feed.
• Consequent to all of the above, Joe and I were continually required to think laterally in regards to what the bass were feeding on, whilst also taking into account the wind, weather and water conditions, both in the days leading up the sessions, and on the day itself – nothing new there admittedly.
• There is no denying that the Megabass Sleeper Craw played a significant part in a number of this season’s major triumphs – especially from September onwards. Furthermore, it was a surprise (and a pleasant one) to be able to utilise them this earlier in the autumn than I expected due to the amount of sea lettuce/salad that accumulates within the inter tidal zones of the estuaries.
• The only month in which a bass wasn’t caught by one of our clients on a Creature Bait was July (we hooked two, but they didn’t stick) proving that these remarkable lures are not a ‘winter only’ venture…

” I had a 1 day package for 2 of us with Joe. It was a fantastic day and Joe was fantastic, knowledgeable and great company. We were/are novices, and Joe coached through basics to all sorts as the day went on. I will definitely be booking again. Thanks Joe.”

P. Picton

The Remaining 26x 60s

A gallery of the 26x 60cm+ bass landed by our clients in 2025 can be found below:

Types of Lures and Venues

Of significance, in tandem with the Megabass Sleeper Craw captures throughout the autumn (a period when the vast majority of our clients had specified their use within the appropriate locations prior to the sessions) the type and colour of the lures utilised to catch the bass you will see in the month-by-month galleries below is expansive.

As professional guides, you would expect us to know the optimum lure to attach given the environments and situations we had planned for, or were subsequently faced with. The challenge in this respect however can be convincing the client to ‘fish it’ with confidence – this is where a guide really earns their money I believe.

Again, as you’ll discover through the photographs of our clients gleefully clutching their trophy fish alongside the lure that accounted for it in many cases, whether we’ve asked them to attach a hard surface lure with an internal flash plate in bright sunny conditions, or a black soft plastic under the glare and gaze of full Moon they’ve been happy to oblige, and the results have flowed.

Joe’s 2025 Client Gallery – January to December

2nd Guide Joe completed a couple of sessions in January – both of which were successful in the sense that bass were landed. Of note, is that Joe will continue to guide during the months of January, February, and March in 2026 such is the demand for our services throughout the winter months. Below is a Gallery of his Client Catches in 2025, commencing in January, and continuing in the order the fish were caught in. His remaining 2026 Availability can be found here.

Marc Cowlings 2025 Client Captures

My guiding season commenced during the last weekend of March and ceased at the end of the first week of December. As mentioned at the start of the post, as well as being arguably my most successful personal season (see my Marc Cowling – Bass Lure Fishing posts here) it has, without question, been my the BEST season I have experienced as a Full-Time Professional, Bass Lure Fishing Guide.

The gallery below captures the more significant captures including the largest from the open coast for my client Ben at 69cm (that snaffled an Albie Snax) and another of 69.5cm (for Josh) that grabbed the 2025 Lure of the Year – a Megabass Sleeper Craw:

Best Bass Lures 2025

The most successful lures for our clients in 2025 were (in no particular order):

• Megabass Sleeper Craw
• Westin Sandy Fixed 120
• Xorus Patchinko 100
• Xorus Patchinko 125
• Wave Worm Bamboo Stick (black)
• Sawamura One-Up Shad 3-5″
• Savage Gear Gravity Stick Pulse Tail
• Savage Gear Gravity Stick Paddle Tail
• OSP Dolive Stick 4.5 and 6″
• Pirate Lures Teaser 120
• IMA Komomo II
• Megabass Spindle Worm 4″
• TC Lures/Marc Cowling MWS Needlefish
• Prototype Westin Popper
• Prototype Westin Surface Slider
• Albie Snax
• Sidewinder Bass Stick 6″

2026 and 2027 Bookings

(Marc Cowling and 2nd Guide Joe)

I (Marc Cowling) am FULLY BOOKED for 2026 however, to enquire about my 2027 Availability then please complete the Contact Form below, or email me directly at: southdevonbassguide@yahoo.com

2nd Guide Joe’s 2026 Availability can be found via the link here.

Thank you for all your support in 2025!

Joe and Marc