Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing | Series 8 Preview (BBC Two)

The return of the award-winning series promises even more of a personal edge, with each fishing location chosen by its relevance to Paul or Bob personally, following the broad journeys of their lives.

In the first episode, Paul takes Bob to one of his favourite rivers to fly fish – the beautiful chalk stream of the River Itchen in Hampshire. As it's Paul's birthday week, he gets to call all the shots, but the only present he really wants is to catch a wild brown trout in this idyllic location.

Later, Paul catches up with an old friend, actor and fellow angler James Murray, who is campaigning to save the precious salmon which are fast declining in our chalk streams, both on the Itchen and the neighbouring River Test.

Speaking ahead of the launch of the series Paul said: "The thrust of this series is that we go to places that we've either fished before or resonate with us from our past or mean a lot, and, and so I think there's maybe an extra level of poignancy to this series, it’s a little bit more heartfelt."

Bob added: "We wanted to be free to pick the places we’ve always wanted to go and places which, sort of, personally meant something to us. So, it's just a slightly different approach, you know, rather than just focusing on species of fish."

Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing returns Sunday 26th October at 9pm on BBC Two.