Caught hook, line and sinker by the march of the seasons

Annalisa Barbieri on Fishing

Indulge me this week because I am utterly smitten. With a man in his nineties that I have not even met. Or, at least, I am in love with a book he wrote fifty years ago and now re-published: Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing by Bernard Venables. But no man that writes like Venables does can be anything other than utterly lovely.

Indulge me this week because I am utterly smitten. With a man in his nineties that I have not even met. Or, at least, I am in love with a book he wrote fifty years ago and now re-published: Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing by Bernard Venables. But no man that writes like Venables does can be anything other than utterly lovely.

Part of the charm of this book is that it is written in a style that is not des nos jours. You can't quite put your finger on why, but it's there. Perhaps it's the lack of cynicism, the lack of mention of any of today's woes (pollution, lack of fish... etc). Whatever, be warned, this book will draw you in totally. It took me two days to wrestle it from the mitts of my Pete who, in between reading this book, watching re-runs of Thunderbirds and organising Scalextrix grands prix is in some sort of childhood regression and getting almost no work done.

Venables takes the reader, via his characters, through the seasons and explains where fish are found at different times of the year (winter: "What, they [Mr C and his son] might think, could live in that rushing river, brimful, heavy with the soil it has disturbed from its banks? It is impossible to see an inch into it. But, they must remind themselves, the fish are still there. They cannot leave the river. They must have tucked themselves in somewhere. And if the fish can be found, they may be feeding"), what bait to use, a little about the fish, the tackle... The prose is accompanied by the cartoon strip adventures of Mr C and his son. It is the sort of book you read, slipping from one beautiful, crystal clear sentence to another, without even realising you are doing so. There are no long, fancy, smancy words and yet you learn from it all the time.

It would make the most wonderful present (I'm not on commission, OK?) for fishermen, or anyone interested in fishing, of any age; and a proportion (£3.33) of the £10 (plus £1.50 p&p) the book costs goes into training schemes for youngsters run by the National Federation of Anglers (NFA) or the Salmon and Trout Association (STA). Ring 020 7526 2328 to order yours, quoting either NFA (coarse fishing) or STA (game fishing) depending on which training fund you'd like to support.

Reading about fishing has, for the moment, replaced actually doing it for me due to my awful RSI. But, thanks to some wrist splints designed by Conran (nowhere does it say that rehabilitation cannot be stylish), lots of rest, and some homeopathic remedies that may or may not have worked but were nice and crunchy, my arms and wrists are much better. This means that I can go grayling fishing soon, fill my flask with hot soup and test out the warmth-retaining properties of my new fleece pants. Pete keeps trying to get me to go out in a boat on a reservoir and thus far I have managed to avoid it by blaming my RSI and "girlie reasons", which is quite awful I know and perpetuates the myth that girls use some feminine wiles, etc, etc, but it's ages since I've been on a reservoir and I'm terrified.

Still, if I wait long enough the fish will probably be able to come to me. A researcher from Plymouth University has trained grey mullet, carp and sea bass to come when "called". By giving them food rewards, this chap has found that the fish respond to high or low frequency sounds. Thus far the research has taken place in a tank and the fish can remember the signal for up to four months - wonder if it also works on goldfish - although they are trying to get them to remember for longer. Cod seem to like low frequency grunting type sounds best while haddock have a better ear for the higher range of frequencies. The idea behind all this "one man and his fish" type business is to help with falling fish stocks: the fish would not be called back until they are of a certain age, thus cutting down on the number of too-young fish that are accidentally caught and killed.

Now then, I'm off to Canada and the States in a few days time, not fishing, sadly, as I'll be on a posh deluxe train but that's not to say I can't look out for fishie things en route. I've already specified that I won't even look at Atlantic salmon but that Pacific salmon is OK, so I may actually get to eat some salmon for a change. Hopefully, as it did last time I was on a posh train, this will sabotage anyone else's chances of filling their gobs with Atlantic salmon too.

a.barbieri@independent.co.uk">a.barbieri@independent.co.uk