SIR - Your correspondent Marina Duffell should check her facts instead of writing spiteful letters.

We anglers (not just me) have never asked that the Swan Sanctuary be rescinded, as she claims, but that it be reduced.

The answer was no, which we accept, but if you don't ask, you don't get! The reason for our interest in the area of Worcester Bridge is the shoal of extremely large carp that has taken up residence there and which are difficult to locate elsewhere in the lower Severn.

As things stand, we will continue to respect the Swan Sanctuary, the existence of which we in fact support, but perhaps Marina could ask the swans to keep within their boundary!

With regard to Marina's sarcastic remark that I would be "better served concentrating on my other hobbies", I wasn't aware of having any. I earn my living as a war historian, author, publisher, lecturer and consultant; fishing for big carp is, and always has been, excepting a few years spent scuba diving, my hobby. Indeed, my professional and family life is so busy that there is no time for any other hobbies.

George Cowley asks whether fish relax "when they have a hook coming out of their eye." Well, George, so far as I am aware fish eat with their mouths, not their eyes.

DILIP SARKAR, Worcester.