I’m a great believer in this. If you do the right things, in the right places, the right number of times then a fish of your dreams will eventually come to the net. The key is not to be disheartened, not to give up. You’ve got to fish with a hope in your heart and a certainty that it will all come right one day. This philosophy of mine was gloriously confirmed the other day by young friend Lambo! Lambo is thirty now though I’ve known him since he was a late teenager. During that time he’s proved himself to be a wonderfully sensitive and resourceful angler and he’s caught some very, very special fish, often with me in attendance. Pike are one of Lambo’s ‘things’. He understands them intimately, and above all, he knows how to care for them and get them back in the water with as little stress and damage done as possible.

Lambo’s skill and dedication have both seen him land endless numbers of big fish. I guess in my photograph library, I’ve probably got twenty or even thirty photographs of him cradling pike up to a stunning twenty-nine pounds in weight. But this seems to have been Lambo’s ceiling. Year upon year, he’s amassed more and more twenty pounders without that thirty ever quite coming his way.

At times, I know, Lambo’s been a bit down in the dumps, heart a little bit in his boots, especially when he’s seen me or others around him catch yet another thirty. Yet, he’s always known that thirties are very special, very rare beasts and he’s just smiled, nodded and carried on doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time.

So it was, on a wintry Saturday morning, that he called across the lake for help with a fish. That’s not like Lambo. He’s capable to the point of ultra expert and I realised, as I ran around the bankside, that this fish must be special. Indeed it was. As soon as I saw it roll deep down in the clear water, I knew we had a monster on our hands.

The power of a really big pike is awesome. You cannot afford to take risks with fish like this. Their weight gives them an ‘unstopability’ if there is such a word. (I’m sure Mr Venables would not have approved!) However, again and again, Lambo’s big fish surged away whenever it saw the net or my expectant face. Only when it rolled into the folds did Lambo let out a whoop of joy.

We both knew. He danced on the landing stage, exultant. I had just one pang when I looked at it in the water, in the net, as Lambo put together the unhooking mat and the weigh scales. But then we lifted it out into the bright air and, I could see at once, as the stomach unfolded that we had the fish of his dreams.

Thirty-two pounds eight ounces that pike weighed. Above all, she was in glorious, pristine, sparkling condition, a wondrous fish of dreams. That fish was caught some weeks ago now but Lambo is still somewhere over the moon. It would have been so easy for him to have given up and moved on to other targets, even other sports. But he stuck with it, his deep belief that his time would come was rewarded in magnificent style.

A lesson for us all on our journey through our fishing life.