Harry Parsons has definitely been around a bit (anyone who has caught an ox-eye herring off Papua New Guinea gets my vote for persistence) in the pursuit of his profession as an agronomist. According to the dust jacket he took fishing rods with him wherever he went, but the more you read, the more you will realise that this is a man with a deathwish and an infinite supply of ropy kit. If Harry’s rods were unreliable, then the guides he chose were worse, and I wouldn’t have set foot in some of the boats he went to sea in, let alone fish from them.

This book isn’t great literature and the layout is slightly anarchic, but there are some great stories here and it is a reasonably good read. Great title, though - so good that it has since been used for a book on Norfolk sea food cookery by David Stannard, a novel by Anne Heines and, believe it or not, an album by Nick Keir.

Out of print.