“Over the years I have set myself occasional lexicographical challenges while fishing. I know other people who take part in this age old activity. Let me explain.

If you take the initial letter of each type/species of fish you catch, in the order you catch it on any given day’s fishing, you can, with subtle bait, depth and tackle changes, try to tempt different species to spell out interesting phrases, words or initials.

So this week I managed to catch a Camilla Parker Bowles. Mind you, it was an accidental one as I hadn’t set out to do this.

I had an afternoon fishing on a southern river for barbel in the most torrential rain and my first fish of the day turned out to be quite a large chub.

I caught it on a sizeable piece of meat. On re-casting with a new piece of bait, I promptly caught a pike of about the same size. This was unexpected but pike are capable of eating most things.

At this point I realised that if my next fish were to be a barbel or – heaven forbid – a bream, I had nabbed myself a ‘Camilla’ (Chub, Pike, Barbel).

Since the royal nuptials, though, and the dropping of the surname, a lot of anglers who take part in this game don’t count ‘Camillas’ anymore.

I returned the pike and caught nothing more until darkness started to fall when I felt the tell-tale signs of a fish showing interest in my bait.

I was touch-ledgering and as the line tweaked through my fingers I lifted into a small but beautiful barbel. It was my third fish of the day and it proved to be quite a challenge to land in the fast-flowing water of the weir pool I was fishing in. Eventually I netted it and smiled. As I returned the fish back into the water, I declared myself to have caught my first ‘Camilla’ of the year.

The whole game is invalidated if you catch any extraneous fish either before or after the initials, word or phrase, so I promptly stopped fishing and packed up. I mean, who wants to catch the meaningless CPBC? Not me. I like order. Besides, I was soaked through.

This year I have tried quite hard to catch an ‘Eraser’ (Roach, Umber*, Barbel, Barbel, Eel, Roach) but have so far failed. I have, however, been successful with the slightly less difficult but equally satisfying ‘Talking Horse’ (Minnow, Roach, Eel, Dace).

I know a chap who is currently going mad up in Cambridgeshire trying to nab himself a ‘Magic Roundabout’ (Zander, Eel, Bream, Eel, Dace, Eel, Eel). He did once bag a ‘Wimpy’, though, so he should be congratulated for that (Bream, Umber, Roach, Gudgeon, Eel, Roach).

As if fishing wasn’t hard enough already.

* I should point out that umber is an archaic term for a grayling. Without this minor rule-bend there would be very few vowels (apart from the eel and the rarer ide or orfe) available to the avid Lexi-fisherman and the game would be Flounder, Grayling Chub, Kelt, Eel, Daced.”

Editor’s note: Are you a lexi-fisherman? Let Michael know what you’ve caught using the ‘Comments’ tab below.