Clever words by clever people: 

"Men and fish are alike. They both get into trouble when they open their mouths." - Jimmy D Moore

Extracts from "Fishwife"
 (1) Canny carp?
Most anglers I have met manage to convince themselves that carp and catfish are highly intelligent creatures. This justifies the lack of catching a great, over-fed lump with a two second memory and a brain the size of apea. Most anglers, including Al I fear, consider me to be slightly further down the intellectual ladder than the fish and swear that they are creatures whose existence in the world after millions of years goes to prove their cleverness, and can't be just down to luck.  (The fact that these monsters are the size of a bull terrier and have no predators is evidently irrelevant.) Thus, crafty catty and clever carp are fussy about what they eat and the importance of the correct bait cannot be underestimated, I'm assured, and the layman's belief that any old bait is good enough is a misconception. Oh, no, the super-fish would ostensibly screw up their noses at basic fayre. Totally unconcerned with their ever bulging waist lines, they 'hoover' the beds of the lake for the tons of boilies which have been thrown at them to encourage their appetites. Little wonder that they are
seldom caught, as they have a perpetual supply of food right under their fat noses. Nonetheless, the serious angler realises that variety is the spice of life and that maybe the new wonderfully flavoured boilie will do the
trick.
(2) Night Fishing
 The need to rise on command is something Al has off to a T, but which I have yet to embrace. Once I am asleep my body is disinclined to bounce into life at any time, and the middle of the night is a definite no-no. Thus, when on our last visit to the lakes, my promise to help in the event of a catch was a bit tongue in cheek. Anyway, in my mind the likelihood of Al catching anything was remote and I crawled into my sleeping bag contemplating a good night's sleep. I was also aware that it is possible for an obsessed angler to dream that an alarm is screaming, and there was no way I was getting upon the chance that Al was only dreaming. Therefore, when he called me a few hours later I didn't exactly leap from my sleeping bag, if leaping from a sleeping bag is possible anyway, but moved rather more slowly than he had hoped. "Ang, come on, for Christ's sake," he yelled. "Alright, alright!" I yelled back as I hunted for my flip-flops, found them and staggered out of the bivvy. "Get the landing net" he shrieked as he struggled with the fish, "and bring  it over here". Over here in my mind was somewhere close, so I picked it up from where it was and dumped it a couple feet further towards him. Job done I returned to the bivvy and prepared to climb back into bed only to hear, "Ang, Ang, where are you?" "I'm back in bed." I sleepily replied. "Where's the bloody net?" he bellowed. "On the bloody ground" I bellowed back. "I can't reach it from here. You'll have to come and help me, and bring the camera with you." his Lordship shouted impatiently. So once again I crawled out of the bivvy, retrieving the camera on the way. "Grab hold of the net, then" Al commanded, "and place it in the water under the fish." I staggered around in the dark trying to locate the lake, never mind the fish, picked up the net and half-blind, gently slid it under it. At this
stage I should mention that I have been troubled with an eye condition for some years and at this particular stage of the disease I was obliged to patch one eye to alleviate a double vision problem. The other eye wasn't much cop either, so although I successfully helped in landing a 29lb carp, taking a photograph with a piddling little camera, in the dark, was a different kettle of fish altogether. As Al struggled to hold onto a very slippery, lively fish I struggled to take a photograph, first with the camera upside down. Al's headlamp shone alternately on the camera and straight into my un-patched, light-sensitive eye as I yelled at him to keep his head still. "I can't see a bloody thing" I whined. "You're blinding me." "Awe, come on Ang, this getting heavy" he replied, as though I was being obstructive on purpose. I made three attempts, looking through the view finder with my patched eye before finally getting the camera the right way up and viewed through my good eye, but as Al wanted me to photograph his face and not the top of his head, he looked up and the headlamp once again blinded me."Oh, sod it" I mumbled as I pointed the camera in Al's general direction, and took half a dozen photos, the images upon which were a mystery. As it happened they were very good and I was able to have one copied onto a mug  for Al.
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fishing complexes with decent facilities:

• Furnace Lakes, Slifield, Nr Horsham, W.Sussex
  Beautiful large complex with five ponds to suit most anglers
• Lift to peg on quad-bikes with trailers
• Angling lodges comprising: Well lit kitchen and toilet areas
• Kitchen with microwave, constant hot water and lots of cleaning products.
• Toilets are cleaned twice daily, have an abundance of toilet rolls and cleaning products and hand hot water.

Shopping: Supermarket 5 minutes drive Angling shop 20 minutes drive

Bailiff always has a supply of bait, soft drinks, chocolate, ice-lollies and batteries. There is also a TV/Radio hire service

B is for Beds            
I feel that my fishing-sisters should know about fishing beds. They are lethal, heavy, finger-traps and should be the sole operating domain of your partner. Do not think that just because they look level and ready to jump on to that they are. Any weight placed in the wrong place will cause the bed to collapse at one end, dumping you  unceremoniously on the deck, whilst catapulting the other end up to the bivvy roof, jettisoning anything that had been on that end, all over the place. They also take up a  ridiculous amount of space in the boot and are cumbersome to carry. If it wasn’t so angling-naff, I’d use a li-lo!

C is for Cat Fish and Carp   
I don’t want to keep harping on about fish, but you should know about your partner’s new love interest. I know - the wife is always the last to know, but rest assured that his new amour is not the best looking gal at the dance. Ms Carp is pretty when young, but deteriorates with age.     Strangely, the men seem to like her more mature, and while we live on lettuce leaves to keep ourselves trim for our mates, as soon as our backs are turned they’re off looking for a chubbydate. Ms Carp fit’s the bill. Years of caviar and champagne-flavoured boilies from hopeful anglers have given her a girth the size of a pot-bellied pigs. Her cousin, Ms Cat, has let herself go even more. I can’t think of anything kind to say about her. She’s slimy and ugly, with a big mouth and whiskers. So, no worries girls. Even on your worst day you couldn’t be as bad as your partners ‘mistresses’.