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The winter sun was quickly going down and the shadows were rapidly stretching across the little run - off, backwater which I was fishing that afternoon. Big bream, tailor and pike were the targeted species that afternoon, but despite changing flies constantly, so far all I'd managed to hook were trees, the fence and a wide variety of grasses and the occasional rock or two.

Being new to the "art" of fly fishing; in the last few months', I was going through that awkward stage when you think you know what your doing but somehow something always goes wrong. It was on one such occasion when I thought that I was doing things correctly but how was I to know that a rock would jump up and tangle the line.

As I said earlier I was only new to fly fishing but was quickly becoming an expert at untangling knots and I was forced to practise this frustrating skill once again as the stripped line had twisted up and formed a nice tight knot just in front of the first guide (on my new Aurora Conquest IM6). Using a floating line (Talon rapier 6w WF) I didn't feel that I would have to retrieve the fly through fear of it sinking and becoming snagged and so set about untangling my line. With the dieing light making things hard to see the tangle took a little bit longer to untie than I had hoped.

Having undone the knot and made sure that I wasn't standing on any of the line I started to retrieve my line only to find a great unmoveable weight on the other end," Great, another snag". Keeping the rod straight I gently pulled on the line only to find that with some pressure it would move, not much but still it would move. Great I thought to myself I've become snagged in a clump of weed or a branch. Imagine my great surprise when as the 'branch' came up to the surface near my bare feet there were these two big claws waving about, one with 6lbs mono wrapped around it and the fly hook was in the crabs mouth !