I once heard the English fascination with caravans described thus: it's because we love things that fold away. Simple as that. Not because we yearn for the freedom of the open road or because of some deep-seated need to take our houses with us, but simply because we like sofas that turn into beds and sideboards that turn into tables.

I can sympathise. It's one of the reasons I like this here John Wilson Rovex 11-13ft rod, because it can be fished four different ways, as an 11ft float or quiver tip or as a 13ft float and quiver tip. For this flexibility (and because I'll be using it a lot this year and don't intend to keep calling it by its trade name) I've decided to call it something else: so Sir Rovex, I dub thee The Transformer - because although you don't turn into a table, you do allow to take four rods fishing but only one rod bag.

And there's another reason for the name. Fishing with Sam yesterday, I hooked a small carp first cast on the quiver after a bite so ferocious that it almost pulled the rod from the rest. As I struck and realised the fish was on, I let out a sort of weird, hooting chortle that - on reflection - sounded very John Wilsonesque. Maybe the rod has more transformational properties than I thought...

Sam with his biggest freshwater fish so far - a 4lb 5oz carp

About this pike, then. I've had it in my head to go pike fishing for months now, but as is the way of these things, have been put off by something simple - I'm too cheap to buy ready-made wire traces and I can't get the hang of tying my own; yet having spent a tenner on the all the required bits, I'm loathe to just give up. I'm also concerned about being able to care for all the pike I'm going to catch so I've bought long forceps, found a strong glove, have an unhooking mat and watched several videos on various pike angling sites. Nevertheless, it's all off putting.

But it's also the last day of the river season, so if I want to give it a go - and not let it gnaw at me for the next three months - it's got to be today. I take an hour in the morning and research various trace-tying methods online but they all seem to require tools or components I don't possess and in the end I put my glasses on, put magnifying clips on top of them and peer at the tiny instructions on the back of the trace wire packet that I bought months ago. It looks more straightforward than I remembered. So I have another go and after a couple of fails, I have something worth testing, so I tie on a 5kg weight, grab the carp rod and give it a try. The knots - and more surprisingly, the. crimps and various bits of folded wire - hold well enough. I make more and they come out like home-made rolls, all different shapes and sizes. No matter how I measure I always end up wasting wire and at the end I've got some traces twice as long as the others. But they feel OK and they look like the real thing.

The river is beautiful. Although in an official drought zone, the level hasn't dropped anything like as much as previous years and there are several anglers dotted along the half mile or so stretch. I walk to the top, tackle up with a little rubber perch-like lure (6 for £3.50) check my gloves, forceps and mat are all present and correct and begin to fish.

Three hours later it turns out I needn't have worried about my lack of pike handling skills since despite near-perfect conditions and the amazingly fish-like movements of my little lure, I don't get a single take. I do hook the bottom six or seven times though, and the only break I get is using the one shop-bought trace I'd had in my tackle box for about 10 years - my own mishapen, higgledy-piggledy ones work just fine thanks very much. So I'll claim a moral victory and return next year to try again.

As I'm packing up a small owl appears, following the course of the river downstream until it reaches the bend where I'm standing with my mouth open. Then it rises over the bank on the other side and floats silently into the trees.

You can just about see the lure above the creel. Sadly, not irresistable to pike after all...

The close season has snuck up on me and looking back on the entries to the blog, I can only give myself the following mark: must try harder - maybe the fishing book and a succession of articles for Waterlog have wrung all the stories from me.

Yet I know that can't be true. I've just read an absorbing little book called My Favourite Swims by Fred J. Taylor (signed by the man himself - thanks Dave) and what strikes me is not just Fred's love of fishing but his compulsion to write about it too - to get it down on paper for posterity so that these stories, no matter how slight, are not lost.

On impulse then, and realising that time was running out I took the new John Wilson Rovex 11-13 footer to the river, paired with a centrepin and 4lb line, the idea being that I would test its versatility by trotting for a bit before switching over to the ledger for the last hour or so. Bait would be small cubes of luncheon meat followed by worms from the garden. Mmmmm.

There were a handful of anglers there already, taking advantage of the sudden warm, shirtsleeves weather. The first was sat in a swim I'd never seen before, obviously created by club members who’d removed part of the bank upstream where the river splits and cleared out the vegetation choking it as it ambles back to re-join the main current. The result is a wonderful looking swim which flows fast over a gravel bottom before easing round the bend into deeper water. There's a nice looking slack on the far side and plenty of features to fish to. I shall have a go at that next season.

Further downstream for me then, to the bend where I've had several good sessions in the summer. I tackle up with the JW set at 13 feet with one of the new cheap plastic stick floats bought from Dragon Carp Direct (hey look at me Ma, I’m advertising…) which cocks sweetly yet gives me plenty of weight to control it. Half a dozen trots later I'm back in the groove. The rod is heavier than my 15 footer but handles well, is easy to hold and thanks to the relatively short handle, I’m able to move the rod around without hitting myself in the stomachs.

No bites though, so after an hour I take the rod and just potter about in the swims either side, fishing very close in, letting the float tickle the dead margin reeds. No bites but it's pleasant enough in the sunshine so I wander further afield, putting on a tiny worm and casting further out and suddenly the float's gone and I'm into a chub of two, maybe three ounces. A rod that catches first time out is going to be a lucky rod, and I'm pleased. There's a tiny bit of the worm left so I re-cast and get another bite, see the flash of a perch and then it's off again. The swim looks promising though so I amble downstream and get the rest of the gear, then re-tackle with a quiver tip section at the top, add a small Arlesey bomb, switch up to a 12 and put on a bigger worm.

Two things happen in quick succession. A stupid dog appears silently at my shoulder and barks loudly at me and out of the corner of my eye I see the tip judder and then pull round. It's a perch of about four ounces. Very welcome. I fish on.

Another bite, firmer this time and it feels like another perch and I'm taking my time, enjoying the scrappy little tugs and darts when the water in front me explodes. There's a moment when the river seems to suck in its cheeks and then rod's in a hoop, the tip almost touching the water and I'm attached to a very big and very pissed off pike. A pike so big that this can only end one way - and so it does, with my tackle up the tree beside me, hook gone, line sheared through, river still again, me laughing with the adrenalin rush. Amazing. It’s like having your very own Aussie croc story.

The swim obviously dead, I move on to see if that new spot the top of the stretch has been vacated. It has, but though I tackle up again and fish hard in the fading light I don't get a single bite. But it doesn’t matter. Above me in the west, Jupiter and Venus, the father of the gods and his consort are riding together high in the heavens, dazzlingly bright, lighting my way back across the field, over the stile to the car and in time, all the way home.

My wife asked my this morning how fast carp swim. Seriously. I love that woman. I'd been talking about the wild carp (or near as dammit wild carp - lean, little torpedoes that look more like barbel than carp) in a local lake that I hadn't fished for years. I'd forgotten what they were like. Three casts in and I was mugged - float gone, line snapped, water in front of me all a-commotion, trousers round ankles (well, almost...). I can't believe anyone can actually catch these buggers they take a bait so fast and I've certainly never come across a fish with such pace.

I went to show Ray the remains of my line snarled around the end of the rod and we both laughed. I went back, tackled up with a cheaper float and had another go, this time holding the rod and waited.

There's an amazing thing that happens sometime when you're fishing. Something changes, the air almost crackles, the water comes alive, you can see shadows, sense movement beneath the surface, almost hear the fish as they move over the bait. Everything becomes hot and - let's face it - a little sexy.

So this time my early warning system went off and I managed to get the rod up and hold the fish when it tore off towards the reeds. Did I mention I was fishing with a size 14 hook, six pound line and a centrepin? Thought not.

What a fight, harum scarum, back and forth, left and right, zooming up and down the swim like a cat with its tail on fire. Ray came round about half way through to see what the fuss was about and stood quietly behind me as I huffed and puffed the fish into the net. I weighed it in at exactly 5lbs, my biggest fish of the season and a magnificent specimen - lean and solid, it looked as though it was cast in metal.

Afterwards, over a cup of tea, shaking my head I said again that I didn't understand how the carp could be so much faster than any other fish I'd ever caught.

"It's because it's so shallow," said Ray. "They can't dive, so they shoot off because they've got nowhere else to go."I looked at him, wheels turning oh-so slowly.

Of course it makes perfect sense but it had never occurred to me before.  I still don't know how fast carp swim, but at last I know why these ones seem to have rockets strapped to their backs.

As always, cheers Ray.

I'm delighted to report that I've been commissioned by a publisher to write another fishing book. Can't say any more than that at the moment except that the outline will be finished in a few days and the whole thing wrapped up before the end of October.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

But not in a good, US TV show, sexy way, but in a it's-got-no-business-being-this-hot-at-eight-o'clock-in-the-morning way. If I'd got here an hour earlier then I would have stood more chance. But as the fellow club member I met as we both parked by the gate (Hi John) observed, it's just nice being out at that time of the morning. Just the two of us on a half mile stretch of river in early July, dendrabenas in the bait box, courtesy of Sean, and a new rod and centre pin combo courtesy of Dragon Carp Direct. Crumbs - as if an angling story would ever be an appropriate medium for product placement.

The 12ft twin top barbel rod was £20, looks a bit horrid but feels OK. The centrepin was £30 and looks lovely - not quite a Bob James, but not bad either. Despite an over-lively ratchet, it performs well, at least when catching two small perch and the world's smallest pike. Seriously, I didn't think pike started life that small - it looked like a garfish. Next time I'm going to try bread flake and see if that will sit on top of the weed because too often the end tackle came back festooned - those worms do like to burrow.

Still, I stayed true to my plan and fished and moved, dropping a worm into half a dozen likely spots over the course of four hours, starting off about 7.30am. Within half an hour my ears were burning. And not in a good, US TV show, sexy way.

It's nights like these that I feel extremely fortunate to be living here and now. There's enough wrong with England in the 21st century - this spiteful government for starters - that it's easy to forget places like this still exist, pretty much on your doorstep. It's also easy to forget that one of nature's properties is the extraordinary ability to ease a troubled spirit or make still a restless soul. There's a rejuvenating side to fishing that non-anglers - who see only the caricature of sitting by a canal in the rain, chin in hand - don't get, but if you've been lucky enough to experience it, you'll know.

A quick raid then, with Sean as a guest, to see if we can't sort out his recent tendency to blank whenever he looks into the water. To be fair, this is because he's been on the Avon three times already this season and is after not just a particular species (barbel) but a particular fish (Hubert? I don't know, and Sean's not telling). Anyway, given Sean's skill level (high) and the water's inhabitants (plentiful, obliging) I'm pretty confident we can do something about it. Last time I bought someone here they caught a 22lb personal best mirror carp. Bodes well.

It's overcast but warm with a wind from the west and conditions are pretty nigh perfect. We both start catching roach and rudd, Sean on some mad strawberry mini-boilie and me on sweetcorn (I've also brought a couple of handfuls of crumb from the tail end of one of my home made loaves which produces the best, stickiest groundbait I've ever used). I catch a little tench. Then a bigger one, then Sean shouts something. I reel in and scoot along the bank to find him deep in negotiations with a rather large fish. Because he's using 6lb line and a centrepin, this turns out to be great fun. I video it and we take turns in guessing the weight. I start at 12lbs, mainly because I can't see the fish yet. When I can it immediately becomes clear that this is a mirror carp that won't be seeing 12lbs again - it's considerably bigger. Sean plays the fish gently, coaxing it round the swim, calling it 'fishy' from time to time as if in reassurance. There's the occasional powerful run but mainly it stays deep, pulling hard rather than tearing off. When it finally comes to the net it looks nearly 20lbs and turns out to be a spit over 17lbs. It's a beautiful fish as you can see. Sean's the one holding it, looking ridiculously pleased with himself.

I went back to my swim and caught more roach and rudd, a smashing 4lb 1oz tench (I love having a set of scales after all these years) and then inspired, tackled up a carp rod and tried the swim next door on the other side of the tree which I'd been baiting up with corn and bits of luncheon meat. If this were a story I'd have saved myself a 20 pounder to insert into the day about now but all I got was a couple of taps from a passing rudd.

So that's Ray and Sean sorted out with big carp from the lake, both from the same spot. My turn next.

It's good to be fishing with Ray again, even if we don't arrive at the same time and don't even sit together, and it feels to get re-acquainted here, at the little lake where we started fishing at this club all those years ago. June the 16th it was, when there was still a close season on the lake and everyone arrived the evening before so they could start fishing on the last stroke of midnight, even if it was just with one symbolic cast. I caught 17 tench that day. Seventeen. That's more than I've caught in 10 trips to Blenheim Palace lake.

I got there early, while Ray was still working out the kinks by doing his yoga routine (and shaking off the effects of Yvonne's birthday party the night before). Despite the forecast, there was no sign of the sun, only a damp mist that hung over the fields, broken by the necks of dozens of bright-eyed alpacas, as the car bounced down the track to the bottom. Not a soul about (unless alpacas have souls) and a wonderful time to be out and about in the world. I wandered over to my favourite corner and baited up with the last embers of my opening day maggots (they'll only last a couple of days indeed - take that, tackle shop owner) then opened the plastic bag of casters to be greeted by a smell so foul, so sweet and mealy that it swept me back to the days when we holidayed with auntie Margaret in the little house next to the piggery. Strewth. I smelled my fingers. How am I going to eat my Ginsters?

Now I've watched my share of John Wilson videos where he cooks up a ground bait concoction of maggots, caster, bran, beer, corn, all the kind of stuff and then balls it up for the fish, but smelling my fingers again and looking at my static float, I just can't see it. No fish is going to want to put that in its mouth.

The float sails away twice in two casts. Both times I strike perfectly and completely miss the fish. It's as if they're trying to eat the bait and spit it out at the same time. After a while I give up and switch to luncheon meat. After the casters, this smells like little pieces of chopped and shaped and mechanically reclaimed heaven. The fish think so too and in quick succession I catch silver bream, roach, rudd and then a couple of nice tench. I've got a set of digital scales my daughter bought me and they're pressed into service for the first time today on the largest of the bream - a good 2lbs 1oz. Lovely.

I fish until the midday sun gets uncomfortable and then pack up. The vile maggots and caster are flung into the pond (interestingly, the little dark frogs that hopped round my feet all morning have gone to town on the luncheon meat but steered clear of the casters - and they say youngsters will eat anything) and I walk round to where Ray's fishing in the opposite corner just in time to see him catch this lovely little tench.

You'd think I'd know by now. That I wouldn't fall into the trap of believing that the same thing can happen twice in a row. I mean, who'd be daft enough to go back to the river three days later with the same tackle and bait, arriving at the same time and expecting the same outcome? I'd had a different swim in mind of course - can't go living off past glories in their entirety, because where's the fun in that? So off I wandered, heading downstream to the swim where Ray used to fish a lot, where we both caught rainbow trout that mad June 16th five or six years ago (hell, everyone caught a trout that first morning, the silly buggers were everywhere).

You'd think that all the swims would be the same but they're not. Can't get near this one because the bank's too high and overgrown and it's too bloody dangerous. I need a longer landing net handle, a stouter rod, 6lb line and some freelined luncheon meat or cheese paste, not all this trotting gear.  Still, by the time I realise this, I've had a perfectly good walk and ended up back at the first swim I fancied, round the corner from I where I fished the other evening and the first port of call for lazy anglers who - like me - have parked by the gate. I always feel ambivalent about swims like this. On the one hand the fish here are accustomed to food, on the other, they may also be a bit knackered.

You'd think it wouldn't take long to tackle up but it does, mainly because my first float has a split in the eye at the bottom so having attached it to the line and tied the hook, the line pops out at the first opportunity. So I take it off (and put it back in the float tray so I can make the same mistake again in a month or two) and re-tackle with Thursday's float. It's deep here, a good 18 inches deeper than round the corner. Slow too. I see shoals of dark bream filling my keepnet (not that I've got one) but intsead, third cast I hook a big chub and then lose it.

You'd think I wouldn't be using the same size 16 hook that lost me all those fish on Thursday, but there it is. How do I know it's a chub? Because I can see one of its scales on the hook. Judging by the size of the scale, that was a big chub - the scale is almost bigger than the roach that I haven't caught yet - and losing it kills the swim. I move upstream, catch the tree on the far bank on the first cast, the reeds in front of me on the second and then the bottom on the third. The supid, fish-ejecting hook refuses to give way and each time is returned unharmed. Then I sit on a slug.

You'd think that after a fishless hour in the new swim I'd resist the temptation to move back to the scene of Thursday's triumphs but I'm too weak-willed and moments later I'm at the same buffet, catching nothing but a tiny perch, barely hooked on the outside of the mouth, who looks up at me with his angry little eye as if to say 'only just mate, only just'.

Yeah, you'd think...

The river's been fishing pretty poorly of late. When I think back to when I first started coming here (after the initial getting-to-know-you phase was over) there were good fish to be had. We caught carp to 10lbs, bream to 5lbs and chub to over 4lbs; pretty good for a river that in parts, you can almost jump across. Recently though, those fish seem to have vanished, or at least moved off to pastures new and trips over the last few years have disappointed. Truth be told, the river has sometimes felt a bit fished out, as if it was in decline and unable to renew itself.

But it's June 16th and that means I have to be here, even if the weather's like a jack-in-the-box and there's a smart wind blowing hard from the west. Despite going through the motions (choosing my 15 foot float rod, centrepin, 4lb line, a few stick floats, going to the tackle shop to buy maggots with a bait box so small that the guy there smiles and asks if I'm taking the kids) I don't seem to want to go. Haven't been since March and it's only later that I realise my last two trips have ended blank or with just a couple of little fish to show - small wonder I'm not motivated.

Nevertheless, I'm here, wading through uncut, thigh-high wild grass down to the river, delaying my first sight until the last possible moment, until I have to see it or turn back and go home.

It looks good. Despite the lack of rain it's not too low, there are lilies in the slow stretches but it's not overgrown with weed and stone me if it doesn't feel a bit fishy. There's only one angler on my bank (everyone else must be upstream on the other side of the road bridge) but he's tucked away out of the wind and approaching rain under a brolly so big that I can't see him at all - just the tip of his rod pointed at the river. It makes me think of Strider's pipe poking out from beneath his hood in the Prancing Pony.

I walk down to the willow and - remembering an arm-wrenching take from  few years back - nearly set up there, but the swim's been cut a bit too large for my liking so I carry on downstream, past the old tree and round the corner. I see a large fish drifting in the current, just below the surface. At first I think it's an enormous roach but then it flicks a steadying tail and I can see it's a decent bream. I make a note of the spot for later and move on.

I've decided to fish the bend. Although it's completely exposed to the elements I like this spot because it's a bit like a buffet. You can fish close in to the left, trot through slightly further out, trot the far bay and then pull the float round in from of the lilies before letting it travel on downstream, or flick it round to the right and let it sit in the slack or pull it out into the current and hold the float back so the bait rises in a tempting Crabtree-esque fashion.

I tackle up, cast out and the fish come. I get pretty much a bite a cast for the next two hours, starting with dace, then roach and then perch - the biggest of which you see here (it's only when choosing the photograph that I notice something has tried to take a chunk out of its flank). But I'm also losing fish after fish, and not in a barely-hooked-one-tug-and-they're off kind of way, either. One of them's certainly a jack (the line comes back minus the hook) but others are not - one feels like a good perch while another has chub written all over it. Stepping up to a size 14 makes no difference and although I catch continuously, I'm still losing almost as many as I land.

Things slacken off about 9.15pm and it's then that Nessie makes her appearance. A bream of perhaps a couple of pounds comes wobbling through from my right and heads upstream to the top of the swim, then turns and comes back before making a tight little circle in front of me and disappearing back the way it came. It - sensibly - ignores the bait I try and drop in front of it's questing snout (twice) and for the entire visit keeps its back a clear inch and a half out of the water. It doesn't seem distressed in the slightest, by the way. It's just moseying.

The bites die out around 9.45pm and I take a last look round and pack up. Heading back up the field to the car in the dying light I realise I feel terrific.

Thank you.