Fishing lines: Our name is mud

My favourite writer, Ed Zern, attended regular meetings of an imaginary society called the Madison Avenue Rod, Gun, Bloody Mary and Labrador Retriever Benevolent Association. I've always thought that, if I was ever involved in setting up a club, it would have a worthwhile name like that. And now I've got the opportunity.

For some months I have been talking to David Profumo, the Daily Express's new angling columnist, about setting up a club for fishing writers. Last week, over a little food and a great deal of wine, we decided to go ahead and set up an inaugural meeting. The trouble is, we're flummoxed about what to call it.

You might reasonably suggest that angling writers need their own guild about as much as a rock needs a vanity mirror. But fishing journalists are quite happy to mix with each other - it is not a market where you compete for scoops. We're also happy to fish in each other's company. The outside world may believe we're experts at tying a size 22 Speckled Dun; landing huge barbel on 2lb line; casting a trout fly 40 yards and landing it beneath a particular willow branch in a howling downstreamer or hurling a sea lead farther than John Daly can hit a golf ball. The truth is very different.

With a few honourable exceptions, we're total duffers. The only difference between us and a very average angler is that we have learned how to write about our few small triumphs in a variety of ways. This leads readers to believe we're constantly making mighty catches, whereas actually it's the same few fish being hauled out, whether we're writing about rods, reels, holidays abroad or the meaning of life.

Watching angling writers fish together is not a pretty sight. Some, conscious of their status, never do it at all. Others will only fish with their fellows, on the assumption that they are unlikely to look foolish when the others are just as bad. It makes a lot of sense for us to stick together.

Profumo is much better than me at thinking up reasons why we need a club. He points out the threats to angling, our value as spokespeople, the information that we could share, the need to improve fishing's status. The only good reason I could think of was the chance to have fishing days with people who have access to better water than I do.

Anyway, having established the concept, argued about a suitable patron (The Queen Mother? Prince Charles? Spike Milligan?) and pondered over who would be eligible, we came to the toughest problem of all: what to call it. Even the familiar journalistic technique for inspiration (three bottles of Pouilly Fume) proved ineffective.

We played around with meaningful acronyms such as the Federation of Inventive Scribblers and Hacks or the Society of Angling Librettists and Men of Outdoor Narrations. None of them was quite right. In the end, we decided to leave it up to the meeting. At worst, we could become the UK branch of the Madison Avenue Rod, Gun, Bloody Mary and Labrador Retriever Benevolent Association.