Sinking feeling as steam rises

So much for fishing making you feel calm and at one with the world. Last week I was in Surrey, not far away from the Albury Estate Fisheries. Here you can buy a day ticket and then a fishing allowance, and if you don't catch any fish you can use the tickets again at another of their fisheries (subject to buying another day ticket). It's a great idea.

My boyfriend, his cousin David and I started off at Vale End. I had been here a year ago and caught fish. David, a manic fisherman, decided he couldn't wait for us so he had set off earlier and we met him there. Things did not bode well. The fishery was absolutely packed, despite it being midweek. Practically every swim was occupied - very unusual - which immediately made me feel tense.

The weather had not been kind so the ground underfoot was yukky. No big deal usually, but on top of everything else it made me cross that my line was getting covered in gritty mud. The sky was grey and all around were men fishing. One across the way from me was chatting for all he was worth with his companion, smoking a pipe that stank out the whole lake. Chat, chat, chat, quite disturbing what little peace there was. I was getting cross. This was one of the few places free to fish from, yet the casting was difficult, trees all around, ankle deep in mud, arm-pit high reeds to further catch my fly...men gossiping... Finally, after some deep breathing, I managed to find some semblance of concentration and cast a few times.

Beep beep went a truck behind me. I looked round. It was the bailiff wanting payment. There I was, fishing, six-and-a-half months pregnant and trying to find inner peace and he couldn't get off his backside to get payment from me? (A few others commented on this to me afterwards, what a lazy chap they said.) I walked over with no small amount of attitude and paid him £27 for a day ticket and a three-fish allowance. My boyfriend and David got a four-fish allowance. Between the three of us we spent more than £100.

We were there to catch dinner for 14 people. We fished for about an hour or so, then decided to move to Powder Mills, down the road and also part of the fishery (so no more payment required, thank good-ness). It was much quieter there, but the lake had a weird stillness to it and lots of green stuff over it. It didn't look good. Still, we found a spot to fish and it was then that I noticed steam coming off the water (later, David told me he'd read that if there is steam coming off the water you can forget about catching fish because it means that the oxygen level in the water is low).

I fished hard. Usually I stick to a method/fly that I think will work but because so much was at stake - 14 people's appetites - I tried everything save for the illegal. I moved further down the bank and put my stuff on a bench. I cast, and walked, about four feet away from the bench. This man came up and started talking to me, eventually taking the hint that I did not want to talk. Then he set up - next to me. There was an entire empty lake, but he sets up next to me. I should have said something, but I was so utterly flabbergasted at his gaucheness that I just packed up and moved away. We three decided the fishing here looked unpromising so we went to the last fishery: Weston Lakes (again, covered by our ticket).

Things looked much more promising here, as men were catching fish. My boyfriend went up to one and asked him what fly he recommended. "Something white and glittery," he counselled. I tried this. It didn't work. I tried everything. David was on the bank opposite me fishing a buzzer. Eventually he caught two fish. By this time I was tired and fractious so I took myself off to have a nap in the car from which I awoke several hours later, with cheeks as red as a baby's. My boyfriend had caught a beautiful brown trout but lost it. He was cross. "I hate this kind of fishing," he sighed, "I'm not enjoying it." We all felt the same, compelled to fish on because dinner was at stake, yet getting no pleasure from it at all. Eventually we decided to pack up and go to the supermarket to buy dinner: tired, cross, frustrated, and vowing never again to attempt to feed the five thousand.

a.barbieri@independent.co.uk