Without a doubt — just as certain gardeners have “green fingers”, some anglers just seem to have “hands” and are predisposed to effortless superiority. It is still better to be lucky than good, but I envy those with natural talent.

I think so: fly-dressing is one of fishing’s beautiful ancillary skills and there’s much potential for experimentation and modification, but it’s simply a bonus — not many golfers make their own balls.

I rarely practice the Euro (or tight-line) but I acknowledge its expertise and the fact that it can be wildly effective. There is a school of thought that if you’re not actually casting a fly-line then you might as well be trotting bait, but it doesn’t bother me.

As a consummate sponger, I usually persuade someone else to get the first round in. Choice of tipple is dependent on climate — in Cuba, a mojito “con cojones” is peerless if constructed with the correct spearmint, whereas in Ireland, as an author, I stick to Writers’ Tears whiskey.

I have been lucky enough to know many celebrated and skilful fisherfolk (from Falkus and Buller to Mr Crabtree) but I would stake my life on the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, an occasional sporting companion of mine, who rarely gave up before he had something on the bank.

My first-hand experience of the competition scene is fairly limited, though back in the ’90s (as Fishing Correspondent of The Telegraph) I did fish practice sessions with both male and female England fly squads, and was awed by their prowess. But it’s not my sort of thing — I fear it reduces angling to the equivalent of skeet shooting. Having said that, I did once win a gudgeon tournament on the River Kennet.

I’ve tried Jeep, Audi and Mercedes but for the last 26 years I have driven a Land Rover Defender. The most impressive one I ever saw belonged to chef Marco Pierre White, totally rigged out for pike fishing. During one inner-city dawn raid on esox he dished up Pot Noodles for breakfast.

In 1991, I joined an exploratory trip to the recently opened Umba River on Russia’s Kola peninsula. It was July, and we fished for salmon through the cool “white nights” as the daytime was blazing and there were mosquitoes big enough to hump a turkey. Around one in the morning, on the fourth, I was wading just above an isthmus where the river divided into several streams and debouched into a lake, when I heard the singing — high, ethereal female voices on the wind, although in that taiga wilderness there wasn’t another human soul to be seen for miles around. It was entrancing rather than spooky. After a long while, I reeled in and went back upstream a couple of miles to where my pal Simon had been fishing. “So, you heard it too,” he said. That spot had previously for centuries been a seasonal netting place for the semi-nomadic Saami people, and I think their ritual chanting had somehow engrained itself into the stones and the atmosphere. I do believe there are “thin places” where this world of ours is but narrowly separated from other times and spaces. I was also on the Kola on the same date — July 4 — in 2001, when one morning I strapped myself into the co-pilot’s seat of our Mi-2 helicopter which was due to transport our party of seven to the Sidorovka River. Shortly thereafter we were involved in a spectacular and gruesome crash landing (no fatalities, fortunately, but plenty of injuries requiring hospital). So I feel I have seen Mother Russia quite close enough for one lifetime.

I like to think so, as I am an absolute “tackle tart” (over a hundred rods in my collection, including two excellent Loop models this season alone); but I think the advantages may be largely psychological. As Lefty Kreh once observed, most modern tackle is too good for the majority of casters to exploit to its true potential.

It’s perseverance rather than patience. Cultivate a sense of irony and gallows humour. Choose your companions with care, as the context within which fishing occurs is vitally important. Become a “possibilitarian” (make the most of every opportunity). And remember, as Qui-Gon Jinn noted (in Star Wars Episode 1), “There’s always a bigger fish.”

I am ethically conflicted about mandatory “catch-and-release”: if you have absolutely no intention of retaining any fish whatsoever to eat, then are you justified in interfering with the lives of these wonderful wild creatures in the first place? I know of course the conservation arguments, but every angler needs to square this with his or her conscience. Personally, I sleep sound at night.

Bad luck on the environment, folks — I would still fish on until my dying day, I’m afraid… 