Woe betide my landing net of shame.

More a different world than a different weather system as the previous days stormy winds have died away and the morning session starts still and clear. Alders does its best to lure me with a shoal of fish bubbling the surface, but I walk my tackle by, as today is a Willows day,

And so it should be, as I soon have a Mirror in at 5lb 9. But having lost another when a Drennan hook-link, brand new on this morning, snaps as the loop, it goes quiet.

My decision to switch the one permitted rod to a lift-method float with sweetcorn on a 14 hook is a good one. Ten minutes later, a strong bite and I'm into a big fish, no, a very big fish. On only 5lb line. I can only hang on as it takes me way out left, way out right, and all areas in between. The hook seems well set and i can give it maximum strain on the understanding that every time it asks for line, I give it. I can wait, indeed I have to. I gain line on it several times, but though I bring it bankwards, each time it decides it isn't for him and powers off again. I play it, no exaggerating. for 15 minutes. With my rod arm starting to ache, the fish finally starts to give some signs of tiring, with each hard-nosed press against the direction I want it to go not quite as forceful. and I can now see the float stop on the line above the water though I've still not seen the fish.  I lower the net into the water in preparation for our meeting, and let it lie on the bed in front of me, , the pain from the tendonitis in my left elbow making it impossible to scoop in the normal way, only lift it above the exhausted fish from below then pull it in with two hands. The fish goes left then right again, but I sense it knows I am winning now winning. With a p.b. carp of 15lb I rationalise that this one must at least 20 when, still unseen, it makes a do-or-die dive under the prostrate landing net, pulling the rod tip down into the mesh and separating hook from fish and its gone. It even has the audacity to take the sweetcorn with it. I'm left with a glimpse of black tail as it disappears, my only evidence that it was a fish and not a mini-submarine.

Still shaking and swearing, five minutes later the float zips under again. The pound-and-a-quarter tench is a beautiful little fish, but with the greatest of respect to it, no substitute

Writing this piece up eight hours on, I've thought of little else but that lost fish and still feel nauseous. Even Chelsea losing the Cup Final last week didn't feel quite this bad.

As for the landing net, it's only three weeks old, or else I would have taken it to the flame.

Gutted.