I don´t know which one of us is thicker, me or my dog Sable. We have not had her for very long and I suspect that if you asked those who know us both which of the two of us was the brighter most would say that it is very likely the dog. Sable, they might tell you, has the edge in terms of cerebral firepower, if only by a whisker.

We went fishing again yesterday, Sable and I. On our only previous outing she disgraced herself by going berserk and running around in the shallows and, in the process, scaring off any margin-patrolling carp I was hoping to catch. Yesterday it was only a little different.

Again I caught nothing, but I did make progress of sorts. When it was time to focus my stalking I attached an extensible leash to my belt and clipped the dog´s collar to it. In that way she wouldn´t go charging into the water and I had a reasonable shot at a fish should it come into view. My cunning plan was to “reel in” the dog, so to speak, so that when the critical moment came I could get a half decent shot at catching a fish.

It nearly worked once or twice when we came across carp in the shallows. In each instance though the fish spooked which, I have come to learn, is par for the course. There is nobody to blame here but me. Catching carp in the shallow clear margins is tricky. The terrain is underfoot quite stony and a backcast complicated by the slope. The temptation is always to get a little closer to the carp than they are willing to tolerate.

The only lost opportunity I can actually blame Sable for happened when, feeling sorry for the dog straining on the leash, I briefly untethered her. I was hoping she would leg it “inland” rather that run down to the reservoir and that is what happened, at least for a little while. During the moments that she was galloping happily around I saw a fish silhouette take shape beside an underwater rock and worked myself slowly within comfortable range and was shaping up to cast. At that moment the dog came charging down to the water´s edge and started noisily drinking about two metres from the fish.

And then, predictably, the fish was gone.

I guess the question about which of us is thicker has now been settled for once and for all.

Sable has it all – the beauty and the brains! She has just surfaced here from some energetic digging in the dirt and so is not quite at her coiffured best.