Why do I still potter about in rock pools? Perhaps it is to mark a change from wading in the murkier waters of rock music, although the two aren’t mutually exclusive. So many songs are littered with sea references, and there are many musicians who fish: Eric Clapton, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden, and Roger Daltry, who went as far as creating his own trout farm.

My love affair with fishing started in the Seventies when my family migrated whenever we could to the coastline of Pembrokeshire where my father’s relatives lived.

The flickering sun in the shallows of Aberfelin, the cheap fishing nets that always broke, the smelly wellies drying in front of a kerosene heater and that poor, poor collection of animals and seaweed that we’d take back to our caravan in buckets. Pity the periwinkles that would end up boiled on the end of our pins before being swallowed whole, with a giggle.

But apart from dropping the odd crab line (has anyone ever caught a crab on a crab line?), I didn’t try fishing with a rod until much later though I had, for years, watched my brother and grandfather vie for the best spot on the rocks in the quarry at Porthgain. There, on the flat sticky outshelf where the black tar lichen thrives at the sea-spray line, they would bonk the poor mackerel on the head, creating an arc of blood and guts that stains a T-shirt very well. It didn’t endear me to the sport, but it didn’t put me off completely.

A few years later and very pregnant with my first child, I persuaded one of the local fishermen, Rob Jones, to let me on his boat, anything to help ease away the last long three weeks of pregnancy. I clambered as gracefully as a I could from the jetty to his boat and off we went.

“Fishy, fishy, jump on my line,” I prayed. And they did. Several hours and several fish later, I heaved myself back on to the quay with a bucket of fine food and a new hobby.

That was six years ago. Since then I’ve tried to fit in as much fishing as I can between touring, writing songs and being a mother. I’ve been coarse fishing with the former world coarse-fishing champion Ian Heaps on his lakes in Llawhaden for golden tench and crucian and common carp; fly fishing with Rob Starr on the River Kennet for grayling and brown and rainbow trout; fly fishing on the Irish Sea with Vaughn Thomas for mackerel, wrasse, pollack and sea bass.

I’ve collected mud bugs, used crabbing pots, lobster pots and gone shrimping with nets you throw by hand in the creeks around Edisto Island, South Carolina. Best of all, I’ve gone offshore fishing in the nearby warm waters of the Atlantic — catching wahoo, king mackerel, dolphin (dorado) and marlin and been astonished by the flying fish — and in the colder waters of the Irish Sea off Pembrokeshire. There, with Andrew Alsop, I fished for blue shark and porbeagles after mushing up mackerel and old, dried-up, smelly sardines in oil to make chum trails that followed our boat, White Waters, attracting sharks.

What is it that I love? I say I like the quiet . . . except that it’s not quiet. It is where the horrid electronic urgency of day-to-day life is for once silenced and the sounds of Nature wash its remains away as the shore gets smaller. The doing nothing while doing something. The sinking into the tiniest piece of universe, the one that’s right there immediately around you; seeing the insects flashing in the ripples of a clean river; the sun flickering off the ripples of the sea; the deep lapping of the water against the side of the boat. Even the seagulls, greedy and strong, and the painted ladies on the way from Africa to breed (all the way from Africa, butterflies). And the relaxed company where it doesn’t matter what you do most of the year round. Water makes everyone equal — except the captain — so there’s group exhalation when a fish gets away, group elation when you land a fighter and shared relief when a big fish or shark is released back into the dark blue with an up-yours flick of its tail.

Then there’s sun on your face. And the smell of the petrol from the engine, and watching the wake on the way home and face burning with sea air, wind and salt.

I love the cooking afterwards too. We’d often return to my friend Andrea’s Italian restaurant to cook our catch. Roasted bass with lemon and cherry tomatoes, or charcoal-grilled mackerel served with hand-picked mussels and home-grown parsley.

By now, thanks to my good fishing friend Dave Lewis, I have my own beautiful Shimano travelling rod in a lustrous bronze, a reel and some fine memories.

What of the future? I’ll go fishing for salmon in the Arctic one day and, hopefully, go offshore fishing again in warmer climes. For now I’ll write this, on the train back to city life, with head filled to the brim with the magic of fishing, and ready once more to face the music.

Cerys can be heard on Radio 6 Music on weekday afternoons. Her new album will be released in September with a UK tour following in October.

www.cerysmatthews.co.uk