As much as anything, I look forward to fly-fishing trips because they take me into some of the most dramatic and unspoilt landscapes in the British isles. From the wild and remote hill lochs of Sutherland in north-west Scotland, to the gentle water meadows and gin-clear chalkstreams of Hampshire, just 90 minutes outside London.
It's a good excuse to slip the leash of our hi-tech lives and get back to nature, if only for a while. You often get to see and hear things that surprise and please - a flyby of swallows skimming the water's surface for insects at dusk, a kingfisher's iridescent dart along the river's edge, or a stoat disappearing into a clump of rushes. You can also add into the mix some charming places to stay and enough good pubs to eat and drink in at the end of the day.
So, even if you don't fancy taking up the rod as a hobby, you can pretty much follow a river's route, where access isn't a problem, and enjoy a good day out in the country.
River Moyola, Northern Ireland
"The Moyola is the most shamelessly poached river in Ulster... the fish are very small although the river runs over a gravelly bed (in which there are grains of gold) and through some of the best land in the country," wrote TJ Hanna in Fly-Fishing in Ireland in 1935.
That was then. Now it is one of my favourite places to fish. Rising in the rolling Sperrin Mountains in Co Derry, the Moyola twists and turns for 27 miles through moors and lush fields before it empties into the biggest freshwater lake in Britain, Lough Neagh. The lake also lays claim to the largest wild eel fishery in Europe as well as being the home of the dollaghan, a freshwater trout unique to these parts which behaves like a salmon or sea trout by swimming up the rivers to spawn in spring and summer.
Though I've never caught a dollaghan or a brownie bigger than the span of my hand, I am assured there are decent ones in the deep pools. Lack of guile and success has never dampened my enthusiasm for the place, however.
You're no more than 40 minutes' drive from Belfast here, but the banks of the Moyola are high in stretches, and you are enveloped by nature when standing in the middle of the river about to cast a fly on a warm summer's day. All you can see are clouds scudding overhead, the odd glimpse of Slieve Gallion - one of Ireland's highest mountains, ie not very - and, God willing, a trout rising up ahead. All you can hear is the rumble of the tractor circling the field above as it cuts silage for winter feed.
Afterwards, driving back into Magherafelt, where I stay, you wind through narrow country lanes and high hedgerows with only a tractor or a 50s-style, single-decker Ulster Bus to slow you down. You pass bungalows and farmhouses, villages and market towns, Union flags and Tricolours, churches and pubs along the way.
Breakfast and lunch will have been potato cakes, freshly-cut sandwiches and cake from Ditty's Home Bakery in Castledawson, but refreshment at the end of the day is a cone of homemade ice cream from Agnew's Cafe in Magherafelt. Better still, acouple of pre-dinner pints at Bryson's bar with Seamy D, my riverside guide.
Where to book fishing: Tom Maguire (tom.maguire@lineone.net) can organise local gillies from £75 a day. A day permit on the Moyola costs £5 and a local rod licence £5 a day.
Where to stay: Laurel Villa Guest House, Magherafelt, Co Derry, (028 796 32238/02879). B&B £25pp sharing, £30 single. Five en suite bedrooms.
River Wye, Derbyshire
This is Izaak Walton country, of The Compleat Angler fame - strictly the River Dove at Dovedale rather than the Wye at Monsal Head - and it provides one of the finest views in Derbyshire.
You are less than an hour's drive from cities like Derby and Sheffield, but again you are dwarfed and silenced by nature, the river threading its way through a deep and narrow gorge in the heart of the rugged Peak District.
The three-quarter-mile stretch of the Wye upstream from Upperdale bridge is owned by the Chatsworth Estate in Bakewell and is one of the few places in Britain where rainbow trout, originally imported from the US, successfully breed. Problem is the water's so clear that they usually see you before you spot them and are off at speed before you can shake a carbon fibre stick at them. But the fishing is good and you can usually go home with a couple of rainbows or brown trout for the pot.
If not, drive back up the steep lane to the Monsal Head Hotel and console yourself with a shandy, a lunch of local lamb and the view back down the valley.
The journey to the motorway takes you through the pretty village of Ashford-in-the-Water, complete with cricket green, and into Bakewell, where you can stop off for essentials such as the local speciality from the Bakewell Pudding Shop, which bears no resemblance to Mr Kipling's trifling tarts.
Where to book fishing: Monsal Dale Fisheries (01629 640159), £25 for a day ticket.
Where to stay: Monsal Head Hotel (01629 640250, monsalhead.com). Double en suite room with the view of the Monsal Dale from £55 a night.
River Teifi, mid-Wales
Sea trout are a totally different kettle of fish, a breed which, at some evolutionary stage, left the freshwater behind and headed out to sea. Like salmon, they come back to spawn in the rivers, but I fear the saltwater may have driven them mad, because they only move and feed at night. Which is when you to try to catch them.
Wales has some the finest sea trout fishing in the world - except they call them sewin (the white fish) there. So it's not surprising that fishermen compete for the best pools on the river. And that's where a little local knowledge comes in handy. Will Mains knows all about sewin - he fishes for them on the stretch of Teifi running through his back garden, and he had us sitting on the banks of Rhyd-y-galfe pool at 9.30pm one July night staking our claim and waiting for darkness to fall.
As vision fails, other senses sharpen, and you start at the splashes of what you assume to be water rats on the move, but are in fact sewin boiling beneath the surface. But casting a fly has a lot to do with hand-eye coordination, which is one of the things that disappears in the dark, so, if you're a novice, you spend a lot of time thrashing about trying to get your fly on to water, but actually end up pruning back the trees on either side of the bank. If you are lucky enough to catch a sewin, as I did (with a lot of help from Will), I recommend serving it baked with a dollop of hollandaise sauce. Delicious.
Around Lampeter and Llandysul, the Teifi runs through undulating farmland. But if you want more rugged backdrops, drive up to its source at Teifi Pools in the Cambrian mountains. There are three lakes with wild brown trout, set in the high, wild moorland sometimes referred to as the "great Welsh desert". The scenery is bleak and windswept, and it's a good place to blow away the cobwebs. But visit soon, because this view is in danger of being blown away by the government's plans to build the biggest wind power station in Britain at Cefn Croes, outside Aberystwyth, which will see 39 towering wind turbines marching across the spine of mid-Wales.
Where to book fishing: Will Mains (01559 363700) can advise on the best beats to fish in the area. Day tickets, £17, through DR Jones and Son, Llandysul (01559 363700). Teifi Pools: £5 day permits from the newsagent in Tregaron.
Where to stay: Falcondale Mansion Hotel, Lampeter, Ceredigion (01570 422910, falcondalehotel.com). Single from £60, double from £90. Porth Hotel, Llandysul (01559 362202), twin £38 a night.
Ayr River, Scotland
With Royal Troon and Turnberry golf courses among Ayrshire's sporting credentials, you could be forgiven for thinking that you'd got off the plane too soon when it landed at Glasgow airport. Rest assured, though, that there is salmon fishing on the Ayr River 20 minutes down the road to the east coast. And, given how fickle salmon fishing can be, there's plenty of alternative entertainment around in the form of the Robert Burns heritage trail in Mauchline, and principally Poosie Nansie's Tavern.
Which is just as well, because the day that we cast our spinners on the water, overnight rain had turned it the colour of drinking chocolate, and the salmon could see no further than their snouts.
No complaints about the setting, though. The river runs beneath Sorn castle, part of which dates back to the 15th century, and you fish the tumbling Ayr within its densely wooded grounds. However, as nothing much was doing that day, we decided to go to Moscow instead - the one on the road to Kilmarnock. Up here, you can fish for stocked rainbow and brown trout on the Cowans Law four-acre lake. Clay-pigeon shooting is also available on site - though the temptation to put yourself out of the misery the midges cause could prove too much.
With Scotland's curse out in full strength, I wasn't tempted to venture down through the hotel's gardens to see how the Ayr would be running in the morning, but ordered salmon from the award-winning menu just in case.
Where to stay and book fishing: Enterkine House, Annbank, By Ayr (01292 521608, enterkine.com) has six bedrooms and offers two-night salmon-fishing breaks for £440pp, including a day's fishing, transport, gillie and lunch plus two nights B&B and dinner. Moscow Pools, Cowans Law (01560 700666, cowanslaw.com) from £15.
