THE COUNTRYSIDE CODE

As an angler, you'll be traipsing around a lot of countryside and plenty of public rights of way. So it's important to understand – and use – the Countryside Code, to respect the environment. Here it is:

Country folk can be pretty weird.

Well, you would be too if you only had a haystack, two pigs and a duck for company.

Some of them drive big tractors.

Not because they're doing any work, but so they can catch huge queues of traffic behind them and make everyone travel at 1mph.

Cows blowing off are making the polar ice caps disappear.

One day all the penguins will be dead. Blame the cows for that too.

Always close gates behind you.

One can only assume that pigs blow off too, but no one mentions them. Perhaps they hold it in?

In which case it's quite surprising that pigs don't fly. Some do, or so they say.

Always keep dogs under control.

Country folk are trigger-happy and will shoot practically anything that moves.

If you see a country person, put your hands in the air and say, 'I surrender' loudly and clearly just in case.

Don't pick the wild flowers.

Unless they're very pretty.

Don't start fires.

Unless you're cold.

Country people always speak while chewing on a stalk of grass or corn. That's why you can never understand them.

So if one tries to talk to you just nod, say, 'Yes,' and laugh for no reason a few times. But keep walking.

Oooh, and don't drop litter.

(Just because 20 feels like a rounder number than 19.)

PIGS MIGHT FLY