Taking issue with a conger line

fishing lines

AS A lifelong non-smoker, I can't understand why anyone would want to kill themselves by sucking on a bundle of hot leaves. But what do I know? Though the recent National Angling Survey failed to quantify the habit, bankside observation convinces me that fishermen and fisherwomen are more likely to smoke than participants in most sports.

There's nothing new about this. In At the Tail of the Weir, written in 1932, Patrick Chalmers writes: "Men who fish usually smoke. And some smokers can smoke with impunity before breakfast, even big, swarthy cigars that wear gold-and-scarlet cymars can some men smoke at 4am. Men who can smoke thus betimes, even if their tastes and banking accounts confine them to the smoking of pipes and cigarettes, say that this early tobacco is the most pleasurable of all. But I who am only amateur of the habit cannot smoke before breakfast either with enjoyment or without trepidation."

Modern piscatorial thinking bears out Chalmers's misgivings. Many authors claim that fish dislike the taint of cigarettes on a bait or fly, and will bite more readily to a non- smoker. Load of nonsense, of course. Some of the world's best anglers are heavy smokers. But even discounting the health factor, there is a sensible reason to why fishing and smoking don't mix. I once saw a fisherman lose the biggest perch I've ever seen when his cigarette tip dropped on to his line and burnt through it.

Anglers have always been a popular target for the cigarette companies. For example, WD and HO Wills have been sponsoring angling events since 1975. I took part in one of these contests. Every one in the week-long competition collected 200 Woodbines at the start of play, and a further 20 to top up his stock daily. Elderly smokers, the few that are left, will remember the evil-smelling Woodbine, smoking's equivalent of a pit bull. Even heavy smokers complained of sore throats after puffing a couple. The competition sounded like a national coughing championship.

Sponsored events, not just in fishing but other sports too, have become more important to the tobacco lobby as a means of dispensing propaganda about their product. Many traditional advertising methods are now taboo, which perhaps explains the two-page advertisement for Super kings in a Sunday tabloid last week.

For those who indulge in more highbrow weekend reading, the ad shows somebody holding, apparently underwater, a cigarette which in street parlance would be described as a "20-skinner". In the background, a large thin fish with the aggressive mien of Vinnie Jones chases a small shoal of what appear to be angelfish crossed with koi carp. The caption says: Longer than a Conger.

Now, I don't know much about cigarettes, but I know a bit about conger eels, that king-size version of the common eel and a fish once sold as rock salmon. For a start, they don't eat goldfish, and they don't swim around in open sea. They're malevolent lurkers, living in dark places and under rocks, wafting to pounce on unwary smaller fish.

Sensible divers are always cautious when exploring wrecks. That's the sort of place congers call home, and there are tales of eels so huge that they have slithered inside wrecks, eaten everything that's swum past and grown so big that they can't get out again.

The smallest conger I ever caught weighed 4lb. lt was well over 2ft long, but the National Federation of Sea Anglers say the minimum size that you can take a conger from its mother is 36 inches. I'm told they're sometimes caught as small as 2lb, but I've never seen such a tiddler. They are much more common at 20-30lb, and the British record weighed 112lb 8oz. That fish was more than 8ft long.

I'm sure there's something in the Advertising Standards Authority code about being fair, truthful and honest. Maybe this is the smoky equivalent of those Club 18-30 ads, meant to be deliberately provocative.

But even if the nature of Superkings' claims doesn't leave the ASA fuming, the ad should surely be banned on health grounds. Can you imagine what a 10ft cigarette would do to your lungs?

Still, you can sympathise a little with the company. "Larger than a minnow" doesn't quite have the same ring. You can still be provocative, factually correct and topical, though. How about: "Larger than the average fish stored in the secret hold of a Spanish trawler illegally operating in Canadian waters"?