We've all heard the insulting claim that not all liars are fishermen, but all fishermen are liars. I think it's time that base calumny was put to rest, and I propose to do it with a formula worked out 112 years ago by English author Jerome K. Jerome.

In his classic Three Men in a Boat, Jerome tells of the conscientious young angler who decided never to lie about his catches, but to simply exaggerate through a fixed formula. He would never claim to have caught more than a number 25 per cent above what he actually caught, he pledged. Alas--it didn't work, because in his first year on the Thames his biggest haul was three fish--and how can you apply 25 per cent to that?

Raising the exaggeration to a third also was pretty difficult when he caught only one or two, so he amended the formula to a simple doubling. This, too, was unsatisfactory because nobody believed that he only doubled, so boasting of taking six fish brought only sneers. How could he compete with his almost-honest story of six when a man who had been skunked claimed two dozen?

"So, eventually he made one final arrangement with himself, which he has religiously held to ever since," wrote Jerome, "and that was to count each fish he caught as ten, and to assume ten to begin with. For example, if he didn't catch any fish at all, then he said he had caught ten--you could never catch less than ten fish by his system; that was the foundation of it. Then if by any chance he really did catch one fish, he called it twenty, while two fish would count thirty, and so on . . . "

Jerome said the formula was recommended by the Committee of the Thames Anglers' Association, but some of the older members opposed it, and would consider it only if the base number were raised from ten to twenty.

Well, that's a bit much, and obviously not much better than outright lying, which is a sin. But since I almost always practice catch and release (sometimes using the sporting Long Line Release system), I have worked out an incremental equation, by which my catch (and release) simply doubles several times. It's amazing how quickly two fish can multiply to 32 or even 64, especially if there are no witnesses.

But we must all eschew the telling of lies. That's what we have politicians and lawyers for, isn't it?

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