LUCKY OR WHAT.

It was a day in late March at the Nyth.  Recent snow had melted in milder conditions but the river was up a little and carrying coloured snow melt.   Things did not look promising.

I did a few jobs and as thing warmed up I decided to have half an hour or so with the spinning rod    On the business end was a 3 inch wooden devon minnow I found on the bank after a recent spate.   Mostly yellow and red with a series of black stripes down each side.

I started at the pool just above the lodge at the head of the 300 yards or so of fast rocky salmon pools.   I was so confident I did not put any waders on or take out the net and was merely going through the motions  when I had a solid take much to my surprise. It felt a heavy fish and responded to being walked up as far as I could go from the danger area and for a while played deep and powerful.  Eventually it decided it had had enough of this and turned downstream, fast,  with me in hot pursuit.  I was using either 15 or 18 lb Maximan on the reel at the time and this was to be important.   Despite my best efforts the fish made it into the first pool, the Cafn.    I knew if it exited the tail of this pool it was almost certainly all over so I clamped everything solid and waited for  something to give, at which point the fish kited across the current towards my own bank where there was a small area of slackish water.

I scrambled down the bank and got the fish close in but it was nowhere near played out. Again I decided it was it or me and I  just held on.  For some time, which felt like age it twisted and turned and thrashed away in front of me.   No finesse was involved and the trusty Maxima held.. Eventually it slowed down and I got it near enough to step in with my boots and  I grabbed it’s wrist though it was too big for a secure hold so I  slipped my other hand under the fishes gill cover.  I picked it up and somehow staggered up the bank with the rod trailing behind me and laid it on the lawn in front of the lodge.   Only then did I realise how big it was. Apart from size it was the fattest best conditioned springer I had ever seen then or since.  It weighed 32lbs.

I rang my boss who suggested I take it to Hereford to be smoked. It was then I decided to try and make a cast of the fish so I got some plaster of Paris, made a mould and so started another hobby of making fibreglass casts of fish of which I did many over the years.