Good action from Ross on Wye anglers,   No doubt they NRW made all the right noises but!!!!

Environment Agency task force meet with Ross Anglers to deliver emergency action to save River Wye - Ross-on-line

                                                       TAXIDERMY.

Following the cast I made of my big salmon I became interested in skin mounting fish rather than just making a fiberglass replica and went on to do a great many over the years of all sorts of fish including two 38lb salmon and a 30lb pike.

It started with a bang as it where one day on the Wye below Hereford where a friend was going pike fishing and I went to join him hoping to get a jack pike to practice on.  I was told pike and perch were the easiest fish to skin having very tough scales.  Anyway, John that was his name ,agreed to get me a pike if he could to practice on   Well it took some time but eventually he had a take and after a good fight I netted it for him,   It weighed 28lbs.   Well we looked at each other  and he said " do you want to have a go. I would mind seeing it in a case"  I think it was his biggest pike at that time.   I have to say I was a bit doubtful if I could take on something this size first time off but I agreed to have a go.    Well things went OK and I made a decent job of the fish and he still has it in his home to this day. This must have been 30 years or so ago.

That was the first of many and stopped a couple of years ago.  However recently a dead pike of 34lbs was found dead at Whitney and I was asked to do that.  Then came a ten pound barbel and recently a dead grass carp of 13lbs or so so what goes around comes around it seems.