Fishing lines: Keith Elliott

If you go down to the canal today...

There's a delightful story in Billee Chapman Pincher's Fish Tales about the Queen Mother. It seems HM was salmon angling on the river Dee, accompanied by her ghillie, when their fishing was interrupted by another angler floating downriver.

A lesser fisher might have berated the intruder for spoiling a good day's sport. But royalty is taught how to handle these tricky little social situations from birth, and instead of shouting at the chap to stay on his own side of the river, she directed her ghillie to haul him out.

The ghillie battled into the cold waters, and eventually managed to grab the chap. Safely on the river bank, the sodden angler gave a gruff thanks, dipped in his pocket, and gave the ghillie a pound. Then he walked off, probably to do some more fishing.

The Queen Mother turned to her ghillie and said: "Well, he didn't value his life very highly, did he?"

Sadly, this is not untypical (though most fishers would surely be a little more generous). It's little wonder that Lifesavers, the charity of the Royal Life Saving Society, issued a set of guidelines this week. Based on the number of deaths each year, fishing is one of the most dangerous sports.

You may be surprised to learn that those sad old geezers cowering under green umbrellas on the local canal are taking their lives in their hands. And to be fair, most of them are more likely to die of boredom than anything else. But even a shallow pond or stream can be lethal if it has power cables overhead. Carbon rods or poles love electricity. The two leap together, like lovers reunited. It's slightly less romantic for the fisher on the other end, because he gets frazzled.

Drowning, though, is the main killer. The number of fishermen who cannot swim a stroke astonishes me. Yet they will wade up to their chests in a raging river, or stand on seaweed-strewn rocks as waves break over their feet. Lifesavers advise all anglers to wear life jackets; water doesn't need to be 20ft deep to drown you, and being able to swim doesn't mean you can ignore the rules. Waters such as Rutland are vast, and falling out of a boat can mean a half-mile swim to shore. That's not easy in all your clothes.

These days, life jackets don't leave you looking like Mr Bibendum. I bought one in the US that is like a thick pair of braces. Gives me an almost aristocratic air.

The old saw about most accidents being caused by people was never more true than in fishing. Dangling your hand in the water when there are sharks about, tying a line round your foot when angling for very large fish, or saying: "I'll show you how to unhook this deadly stonefish without thick gloves" (all true incidents over the past two years) are like getting "I'm an idiot" tattooed on your forehead.

One Australian angler was so convinced he was a fish that he made himself a rubber fish-suit that covered him from head to toe. Unfortunately, he had forgotten the small matter of breathing, and suffocated to death. And you thought fish were stupid...