Can you picture God threading a maggot onto a hook? And trying to catch a carp? It is not fastidiousness that compels Him to use a fly – it’s just a nice way of doing things. There are those who might argue that, just because he favours fly fisherman, it doesn’t necessarily mean He’s one of them. But if you read what the experts have to say you’d reach the inevitable conclusion that He was (and is) and is not merely an interested bystander.

Take Thomas Mc Guane, for example, writing in his book, The Longest Silence, who says “The motto of every serious angler is ‘Nearer my God to thee’. Humans” he tells us, “have suspected for thousands of years that angling and religion are connected.”

U S Medical Doctor Larry Dossey, in his book, Healing Beyond the Body, says “The act of fishing is always a venture into the mythic unknown. That is why it is irreverent to refer to fishing as mere recreation... Fishing is suffused with mythic power and is one of the most common activities in which mythic reality strays into ordinary life.”

Further, he quotes Lyall Watson, who writes in The Nature of Things: The Secret Life of inanimate Objects, “The thing about fish is that they are heavily symbolic of motherhood and the womb from which all treasures flow.”

I have the distinct impression that fish respond to fisher-persons, that they can be tuned on, as well as off by forces beyond our control – not necessarily always the case. I have not only suffered monumental failures when all about me were taking fish – but have succeeded in turning others off who had been doing well until I arrived.

Was God laughing at me? I had the feeling that He was. By why me? What had I done? other than express some reservations about His actual existence. I really don’t think I am on my own in these unexplained fly fishing occurrences – it probably happens to everybody – only they choose not to talk about it. Is it a jealous god? You’re catching fish, and He isn’t?

Does God get frustrated too? Well, probably, if he started out His fly fishing life on the sea of Galilee, as seems likely. Those St Peter’s fish for which this piece of water became known, won’t take a fly, God’s or anybody else’s, since they are strict vegetarians.

Under the circumstances He didn’t encourage His Son to take up fly fishing, according to those who claim to know. But the Son did some guiding for the commercial lads who were busy trying to feed the “Five Thousand”. He said to Simon of Tabgha, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch” and when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish (Luke 5:1-7). They were of course St Peter’s fish of Biblical renown.

I might be the only person in this whole world who ever put down a Peter Ross, as well as a bunch of other flies, on this holy water – the Sea of Galilee. I caught what they said were Galilee barbel, or maybe they were Galilee catfish depending on whom you talk to. They were pretty selective about what fly they were prepared to take – but they were definitely not vegetarians, and not very big either – mainly in the ten-inch category. Maybe there were some bigger ones around.

Here, in this Holy Land where it all began, it is obvious that God has to be a fly fisherman. He didn’t find the fly fishing too rewarding around there – so He came to England, and He was really excited about the still-water trout fishing, and so has remained in England ever since.