Too much of a good thing
Among
my many memories of angling days in the past is one of a certain day when
a planned day fishing for grayling on the river Derwent in winter coincided
with an incapacitating illness for friend Richard and myself.
We decided that despite our ill health we would fish anyway in the hope
that the fresh air would benefit our state despite my bad migraine and
Richard’s flu.
We began to fish side by side close to the car and both tackled up float
fishing gear.
Despite the freezing cold we weakly dropped our floats close together
almost at our feet and were surprised when we both hooked a grayling instantly.
We did not know how to react when it became obvious that we had quite
by chance picked a spot that held a huge shoal of hungry grayling. So
much for the restful day that we wanted.
It must have been a similar day’s fishing that once caused well-known
veteran angler Fred J. Taylor to announce “Oh I shall be glad when
I have had enough!”
When I wrote in this column recently about ladies who fish, often very
keenly and expertly, I failed to mention a very significant fact.
When I was a schoolboy I could easily tell you about every fish on the
freshwater record list. Where and when and how each fish was caught and
by whom.
Now I would struggle to remember the facts about current record fish.
Some have been removed from the record list, and with fish growing so
much heavier these days records are tumbling frequently.
However, out of all the record fish that I learned about only one remains
on the current list and it was landed by a female angler.
Miss Georgina W. Ballantyne (18) fished the river Tay accompanied by her
father.
It was on the Boat Pool on the Glendelvine water that the fish was hooked
at 6.15pm.
The date was October 7, 1922, and the fish took a spinning mount on which
was mounted a dead dace.
Little is known about Miss Ballantyne’s life after this momentous
event.