"Sarah had a week off from work and, bless her, she chose to use it fishing. Love for me or love for the sport? I’ll let you decide.

But what great fun she enjoyed. Her first dace. Her first minnow(!) But best of all, her first grayling (on the float, see below), her first sea bass (on the lure), and her first barbel – touch legering - and a bite followed by a fight to pull her arms off.

In fact, memories galore. Had the weather not have been so sweet to us, we’d probably have gone abroad and missed some of the most fantastic of memories. The only time we had a cross word was when she lost what was evidently her biggest barbel. The bad news for me was that this happened just after I’d tightened up her clutch! Why couldn’t have kept my fiddling fingers to myself? A smaller fish soon afterwards softened the blow but I suspect I’ll never quite be forgiven.

In short, you sometimes just forget what a smashing, accessible, adrenaline pumping sport fishing can be, at whatever level you want to enjoy it.

The Glory of Grayling
I guess grayling must be just about our most unsung, least understood species. And, as far as I’m concerned, they’re just about our most beautiful.

Grayling are really game fish but because they spawn in the coarse fish season, they are treated as a bit of a crossover. Trout anglers view them with suspicion and so do the coarse boys.

In truth, you can catch grayling any method you like – fly, trotting or even on a little feeder. But the best thing about grayling is the waters they inhabit. Beautiful rivers like the Wye, the Dove, the Wessex chalkstreams, the Welsh Dee, the Tweed and the Tummel north of the border...grayling just don’t do anywhere that isn’t beautiful.

Still, that’s what you’d expect from a fish that is probably our most delicately, artistically attractive of them all. Look at that gorgeous fan-like dorsal, those sleek lines, those shifting, seductive colours and it’s no wonder that they are called the ‘Lady of the Stream.’

Dave’s Monster
Every now and again, even in the UK, you see a fish that takes your breath away. Such was the case with my friend Dave’s mammoth, forty-two pound, seven ounce carp, just a few days back.

Now, in Britain, any forty pounder is still a massive, colossal achievement. Forty pounders may come along like tube trains on the Continent but they still don’t do that here.

And, what made Dave’s fish especially significant was the fact that it has been off the radar for many, many years. This is a fish that was last seen over a decade ago and it’s good to know that it has prospered mightily since then.

Intriguingly, the massive fish came to a surface-fished bait and the sight of this whale of a carp slobbering in the floating crust is one that Dave will relive again and again in his memories."