Salar Pursuits’ website is worth a visit, the main attraction being a range of Casio ‘barometric fishing watches’ which can tell you the atmospheric pressure and air temperature in addition to the time. Also featured on the site is a promotion for Andrew Bett’s book, which tells you how to use the watches to catch more fish.

Theories about why fish take better at some times than others are legion, the oldest of them no doubt going back to the first time the first angler blanked and needed a convincing explanation. The Solunar Tables are one of the best-known examples, now in their 72nd annual edition and still predicting almost to the minute when the fish will come on the take, according to whether the moon was directly overhead or directly underfoot. Andrew Bett’s theory is more prosaic and centres on his deduction that the vast majority of trout and salmon are caught when the barometer is rising – and he backs this up with 180 pages of densely written text and tables.

Wacky, or is it true? Well, I suggest you pick up a copy find out for yourself, you lazy so-and-so. My own theory is that salmon can be caught when they are taking and that they can’t be when they aren’t, but what should I know.