Perhaps, like me, you have never heard the reverse debate. If you had to discard one item of tackle, what would it be? It is a fair question and I cannot wait to hand my personal answer on to you.

Each of us will have his own opinion and many of you will not agree with mine. In my view, the most superfluous item of gear is a set of scales.

Do they really supply such invaluable information that an angler cannot live without it? I have often argued against the need for arithmetic in angling. I have encountered instances that ridicule bankside facts and figures.

I remember well a fish caught by one of a group of young men. It was a lovely mirror carp and they bundled it into a weigh-sling and gathered to look at the dial, which indicated 19lb10oz.

Condolences were muttered all round. ‘Hard luck Shaun.’ ‘Come back in a couple of months time’.

This beautiful fish was returned to the water without a single admiring glance or further comment. I could not believe it. It was treated like it was an outcast.

I am not saying that those chaps mistreated it in any way, but I know that if it had weighed about 8oz more, it would have been photographed, fondled, stroked and really made a fuss of – as would Shaun for having attained the ‘magic’ 20.

If it had reached that weight it would have been lauded, measured, celebrated and had its picture taken from every conceivable angle with its captor. I suppose one might reflect that perhaps for its own sake it was better for this ‘inferior’ fish to have been found wanting.

I know an angler who freely admitted to me that he had had an otherwise memorable day of fishing ruined because a roach he had caught weighed only 1lb 15oz, and not the magic 2lb that he had longed for all his life.

It would be all right if these anglers were only a small minority, but alas they are not and those that play the numbers game are on the increase. I find this obsession with statistics absolutely crazy.

I have not carried scales with me for many, many years. I have not missed them, nor regretted not having them with me.

Instead of gazing at the dial I sink in the colours, the perfect body shape and the fins. The sheer beauty of the creature that I had caught. Who needs figures and numbers? Who needs scales?

p p p

When the sun comes out and the wind drops, coastal waters turn clear and the fish tend to move out of range of beach fishermen. But, under the cover of darkness, fish move back inshore to feed. That is why, of course, beach angling is normally more productive at night.

Anglers unaccustomed to this nocturnal carry-on, but intending to give it a go, should bear one or two things in mind.