FISHING – IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT CATCHING FISH*

(* It is)

Other anglers have said to me, 'Jim, I don't go fishing purely to catch fish – if I do land something, that's merely a bonus. I go fishing because I love the tranquillity, the solitude and the feeling that I am at one with nature.'

'And to get away from the wife!' I always add, and they don't laugh.

Can this really be the case, or are these people defeatists who aren't terribly good at fishing if they're honest with themselves? Surely the point of fishing is to catch fish and nothing else. Here follow some inanities they spout, and my responses…

THEM: 'Look, a moorhen! Isn't the bird life here wonderful?'

ME: 'No, it isn't. I am not a birdwatcher – I wouldn't know a bird if you flew one into my face. I would think it was a very small aeroplane.'

THEM: 'These trees are so majestic, don't you think?'

ME: 'No, I don't. I am not into trees – I mean, who is?'

THEM: 'One of the things I love most about fishing is the solitude.'

ME: 'Then why don't you stop $&%!& talking!'

THEM: 'Oooh, look, a dragonfly!'

ME: 'And?'

THEM: 'Doesn't the sky look amazing today?'

ME: 'It looks to me as it normally looks. Like sky.'

THEM: 'Don't the clouds look amazing today?'

ME: 'Look, I think I covered this one with “sky” (above)!'

THEM: 'What marvellous flowers, grasses and shrubs there are here!'

ME: 'Shlowers, shrasses and shru… Hang on, that doesn't work.'

THEM: 'I adore the drifting sounds of nature!'

Me: 'I can hear enough drifting sounds of nature from the comfort of my own armchair after a plate of beans.'

THEM: 'Ah, the wind in my hair, the…'

ME: 'Don't even go there.'

THEM: 'How peaceful it is here!'

ME: 'Peace is overrated – look what happened to John Lennon.'

Call me a curmudgeon, but I can't stand fishing small talk.