Fishing and Shooting: A cautionary story - even experienced fisherman get caught in trees

The whole point of fishing, or at least some of it, is to be calm and at peace with the world, poised to kill, not to wrestle with clobber, but you have only to see what happened to Bill Cameron to reluctantly accept that the day of the life jacket draws nigh. It's either that or bottoms up in the estuary.

Mr Cameron, 71, had gone fishing on the Deveron in what used to be called Banffshire, near Rothiemay. I remember the day because it was perishing cold here and by all accounts perishing cold there. All the same, fish had been seen in the river and a big fly, anything orange seems to be the general idea, fished deep for spring monsters, might just have worked. Except Mr Cameron fell in.

He was trying to disentangle his fly which was caught in a tree. It is comforting to know that even experienced fishermen get caught in trees.

He said: "I didn't panic, and tried to stay afloat, but when water got into my chest-high waders, I was tipped backwards. My feet went up and my head went under the water." Actually I'd have thought it might have been the other way about – waders a dead weight dragging you down feet first. But there you go. He should know.

"At that point, just before I lost consciousness, I remember thinking, 'you've had it; this is the end'." In a docudrama the scene would now cut to an idyllic fishing hut downstream, and three codgers with Thermos flasks.

As they chew over life and cheese and ham softies, along bobs Mr Cameron looking like a bit of driftwood or a drowned sheep. Blow me, they say to one to another, it's a body.

As luck would have it they had just launched the boat for the season's fishing and out they go, into the current, to haul Mr Cameron, by now a very nasty blue colour, onto the bank.

Here's the extraordinary bit – the three are retired nurses from what used to be called a mental hospital, so trained to deal with unforeseen circumstances. In no time they are jiggling Mr Cameron up and down, pumping his chest and doing all the things you are meant to do but, shamefully, most people probably wouldn't know how.

It took eight to ten minutes to get a pulse which is astonishing perseverance. After about five I'm afraid I'd have said that's your lot pal and chucked him back. When he came to, he said, as you do, that he was absolutely fine and where was the car because he had to get home. When they recovered his gear it was a mile upstream.

"I'm going to get a life jacket and be a bit more careful in the future," he said. Well, you would, wouldn't you?

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This article was first published in The Scotsman on 15 May.