In spring 1973, Michael Brown, a young freelance travel writer, took a phone call from a friend: 'Why don't you come down to Somerset and see these things called elvers - they migrate up river at night on the high tides and the local's fish for them. It's called elvering.'
And so began a lifetime's career, full of ups and downs, as a self- employed eel fisherman: from the enchantment of catching t...