Stuffy government fisheries scientist Fred is asked by a fishing-obsessed Arab sheik to do the seemingly impossible - introduce British salmon to the wadis of the Yemen. Despite considerable trepidation, Fred is finally won over by the charismatic Arab, who reveals that fishing brings him closer to God, and he hopes it will have the same effect on his countrymen. Fred also begins to fall for the sheik's beautiful legal representative Harriet; and so he rises to the sheik's eccentric challenge, casting off his English reserve on a transformative journey of self-discovery and late-blooming love.