The big one gets away - twice
THE one that got away! Well we have all heard that story and we have all told that story, but surely the story has been topped on the South Esk in the last few days or should I say a week past Thursday.
First inkling of a story came from Donald Webster the Kinnaird Ghillie who phoned me at work with this yarn.
I took myself from work to the hut on the Kinnaird Middle Beat, a place very familiar to me, a place where many of my stories have been spawned but never in this manner. I was met by the tenant, Harry Rothwell who was the major player, a man who I had never met before strangely but a man easy to speak to and obviously an angler of considerable experience.
"I have been fishing the Kinnaird beats for 28 years he told me and have had considerable success topped by a 35.5 lb fish in 1996".
Well he hurried into the story and it starts on the morning of Thursday when he hooked a salmon just opposite the hut which he immediately became aware of as a very big fish, which was swimming deep upstream, downstream into the Haughs pool, turning with amazing regularity in a relentless pattern.
This went on for an eternity and never did the fish break the surface and not a sight of it at all until two walkers of the high south bank arrived and they from their vantage point could see the fish way below them in the clear water.
They signalled to Harry that it was gigantic, I think he already knew but not the size that they were signalling. The fight went on for 55 minutes in the same pendulum fashion until the downward drive went further into the pool and something had to be done before all the line was gone. Harry checked the fishes run and it was off….end of story, well no.
In the early evening a young friend, David Cargill from Dundee arrived and he sat enthralled as Harry told him the story and he would have sat there all night had Harry not urged him to have a go. He chose a size for tube fly and under Harry's direction covered the same lie as had bee successful in the morning.
Harry turned and went back to the hut only to be stopped in his tracks by "fish on" and David's rod was bent into a good fish, as it turned out a very good fish indeed, indeed the same fish and the battle recommenced for nearly another hour. It was a very similar fight deep and dogged, strong runs and never a break of the surface.
Harry determined that it was time to have it out and he tutored David and finally the fish came up and they could only gasp. It was hauled eventually to the net which Harry was holding deep and he lifted with some assistance only to see a foot long stick jam in the net and it contacted the fish freeing it and despite gargantuan effort to keep it in the net it fell back into the river.
It is still there, Harry's estimate well over forty pounds and he should know, he has been there before. I have to go now, there is a big fish in the river and I have dreamt of that all my days!
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Weather for Brechin
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 15 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: East
