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Trout 'n' About

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  • Posted at 11:32am
  • 26 November 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT

I've gone to preposterous lengths to try and review this programme. You don't really need to know the boring details, but because of some extraordinarily bad planning on my part, I'm currently sitting in the passenger seat of a Fiat Punto, going down the M4 towards Carmarthen, while watching Discovery Real Time on the screen of my mobile phone.

It's only thanks to an extraordinary innovation called a Slingbox that I'm able to do this, although I can't help wondering whether the inventors might have been better off focusing their efforts on, I dunno, combating Third World hunger than allowing me to watch a programme about fishing while travelling through south Wales at 70mph. It has truly put me at the cutting edge of pointless mobile internet technology.

Trout 'n' About concentrates, as you might expect, on trout. It forms the centrepiece of Real Time's Saturday morning programming, which is 100 per cent devoted to the noble art of angling. A bloke called Paul and another bloke called Greg travel around in their car - which they've called Iris - stop here and there, and, well, try and catch some trout. On this particular show, they were in Argyll, a picturesque area famous for its sea trout, although the magical beauty of the lochs was diluted a bit on a screen measuring 2in x 1in.

Also, the rumble of the engine drowned out some of the sound, so it wasn't always entirely clear what was going on. At one point the duo were standing waist-deep in a river, which shows a level of commitment to catching fish that leaves me speechless. I've never even sat on the bank of a river with a fishing rod: my main interest in watching fishing on the telly is that it pushes all my relaxation buttons.

You don't ever get extreme fishing shows where some bloke tries to catch some red mullet while someone else fires at him from a nearby speedboat with an air rifle. It's always fantastically calm. Although my viewing experience would be a bit calmer if I wasn't having to advise my girlfriend when she can pull out and overtake a National Express coach.

"I've caught some seaweed," said Paul, or maybe it was Greg, it was hard to tell. "You have to celebrate everything you've caught, when you're fishing," said their guide. I'm guessing that doesn't include chlamydia.

By the end of part one, no-one on screen had succeeded in catching a single fish, which is, or so I thought, the primary aim of fishing. But everyone seemed remarkably unconcerned, which made me think that perhaps standing waist-deep in water is in fact the primary aim of fishing - but that's something you can do more easily and safely in the shallow end of your local swimming baths. One exchange between two anglers went as follows:

A: How's it going? B: Great! A: Caught any fish? B: No!

Weird.

There were some handy tips given to anyone wishing to take up this hobby of wading around Scottish rivers, which included wearing a life jacket, carrying a whistle and a mobile phone, and presumably not trying to watch Discovery Real Time on said mobile phone. I'm sure Trout 'n' About ended satisfactorily and with no loss of life, but I've had to turn it off now because I'm feeling a bit queasy and I need to watch the road. Apologies. Normal service - whatever that means - will resume tomorrow.

You can catch Trout 'n' About on Discovery Real Time (Sky 250, Virgin 271).

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