When Derby Evening Telegraph sports reporter Kerry Slack was invited to try her hand at fly-fishing at Press Manor Fishery in Derbyshire, her first dilemma was what to wear - but worse was to come when the vegetarian finally got a catch. Here she tells how she got on in her first lesson with fishery owner Bernie Maher, which began with learning how to cast...

I picked up the rod and was shown how to grip it properly. Apparently, the way you hold the rod is very important if you're to cast correctly.

Bernie taught me first how to cast overhead and then how to do a roll cast - in which you flick the rod up, move it slowly out to the side of you, so that it forms a D shape and quickly cast back.

It all sounds very complicated and, believe me, it isn't as simple as it looks!

But Bernie seemed genuinely pleased with my casting and we moved on to what happens if you get a bite.

Now secretly, I was hoping not to catch.

I'd forgotten to mention to Bernie that for the past 20 years, I've been a vegetarian and even the smell of fish turns my stomach.

Now, however, was not the time. I decided I would cross that bridge when, and indeed if, we came to it.

After a brief lesson on reeling in, followed by an introduction to types of fly - a whole case full of wet flies, dry flies, nymphs and emergers which all resemble something that you would see in a sewing shop - it was time to go out in the boat.

I was passed a lifejacket, which was so not my colour and clashed with my jacket, but was told it could save my life should we fall in the water.

I could see the fish jumping out of the water, showing off, Bernie told me. Taunting me more like.

"Now I'll cast out for you and we'll see if we can catch anything," said Bernie.

"The lake is full of trout so I'd be surprised if you didn't."

Gulp.

Much to my relief, after about half an hour, neither Bernie nor myself had had one single bite. Not a sausage.

Photographer Simon Bolton was keen to get a picture of me with a fish, so we headed down to the coarse lake where Bernie assured me we would get something.

In contrast to trout fishing, where artificial flies are used, the fish in the coarse lake, mainly roach, perch and gudgeon, prefer live bait.

And so it was here that I was introduced to a box of maggots.

There they were wriggling around in an old margarine tub at the side of the lake, waiting for me to throw them to the fish.

"You're okay with maggots are you?" asked Bernie. Maybe now I should mention the fact that I'm a vegetarian?

"I'd prefer it if you showed me how to do it," I said. Phew, got myself out of that situation.

With some reluctance, I took the rod and, almost straight away, I felt something tug on the end.

"I've got a fish, I've got a fish!" I screamed, causing the other anglers on the lake to give me stern looks.

"Now reel it in nice and slow and I'll be here with the landing net," said Bernie.

I tried, I really did, to do it slowly, just like he said.

But as soon as the fish reared its ugly, wet head out of the water, I screamed and ran back from the bank, still clutching the rod.

"Slowly," warned Bernie, "you still have it on the end of your rod."

However, I failed to pay any attention to what he was saying and whacked the poor fish first against one tree, and then against another so that by the time it was out of the water, it was dead.

"I'm a vegetarian!" was all I could say as the spectators around me, eager to see what I had caught, collapsed in fits of laughter.

The plan was to release the fish back into the water but this poor fella was only fit for the local heron to eat.

Still Simon continued to snap away and encouraged me to pose with the fish.

"There is no way that I am holding that thing," I protested, to which Bernie took hold of my catch so it could have its picture taken.

Tentatively, I posed with the fish, standing around a foot away from it in case it jumped out of Bernie's hands and into my lap.

"While you did okay on your casting, I don't think you'll make an angler," laughed Bernie, after our five-hour session.