The title of this true episode is the salmon of a lifetime but before Idescribe it some background information might be useful. Fishing has tobe the most unfair sport of all for in almost every other sport thesportsman has to serve a long apprenticeship before he can hope to tryfor the greatest prize of all. In angling it really is a gamble, the chance of the ultimateprize can come right at the very beginning of a career when thefisherman is far too inexperienced to cope with what faces him. Almostalways the ultimate prize that every fisherman dreams of is a hugefish, a dream it must be said that is all too rarely fulfilled for thesimple reason that huge fish are, by their nature, rare. Here inIreland we have only one species of salmon, the Atlantic salmon.Compared to king salmon and some other breeds Atlantic salmon are ingeneral relatively small and due to cyclical changes big fish havebecome rarer over the last fifty years or so. These days a nice salmonwould weigh 10lbs, a good fish 15lbs and for most anglers a 20lb salmonwould be the fish of a lifetime, in fact few Irish anglers will evercatch a salmon of this weight. A fish of 30lbs or slightly more mightturn up once in five years and when they do they make national news.Some, usually rivers are noted for producing large salmon but in theorywherever salmon run and regardless of the size of the river a very bigsalmon could turn up at anytime. There are little mountain streams outdoorswhere the run of salmon is made up entirely of grilse, fish of 3lb to5lb but perhaps once in ten or fifteen years a salmon of 20lbs mightturn up..a fish who for some unknown reason had decided to stay feedingat sea for a few extra years...Now to my story. I have been very luckyin my angling life with eight small rivers and streams all of whichhave runs of salmon and seatrout withing twenty miles of where I live.When I was young I was surrounded by relatives and neighbors who allfished for trout and salmon and it must be said that some of thesepeople were none too particular by which method they extracted the fishfrom the rivers. One of these guys was a man of seventy one who, whilestill sprightly, was not the man he had been some years previously andhis strength had largely deserted him. However he loved to walk alongthe riverbank near our home and when the opportunity presented itselfhe was still able to take a salmon from the river. This old fellow wasthe proverbial lovable rogue and his favorite fishing method was asfollows. He cut a straight hazel rod about seven feet long and to oneend he attached a large gaff hook. When he spotted a salmon he lay onthe bank and placing the hook in position under the salmons head hedrove the gaff in and lifted the fish from the water. This of coursewas a very brutal way of taking any kind of fish and I must hasten toadd that it has been many decades since this was employed in even thewildest parts of Ireland. One evening when I was about thirteen yearsold I met our old friend coming home from the river. Not only was hewas in a state of extreme agitation but he was soaking wet from head totoe. He blurted out his story and soon I was as excited as he was. Hehad been walking along the riverbank as usual and looking into afavored pool he spotted a huge salmon like shape. There had been rain afew days previously and while the river had fallen it was stillslightly colored and he couldn't really tell for sure if the shape hewas looking at was a salmon or not. He decided to take a chance andwading into the water he placed his hook under where he thought thehead should be and pulled the hazel rod upwards driving the home. Theriver exploded as a huge salmon felt the pain of the steel in its fleshand the old man could only hold his ground for a few seconds before hewas pulled off balance and he was still holding onto his hazel rod whenthe salmon turned and snapped it in two escaping with gaff in it's sideand trailing four feet of hazel. Naturally I was beside myself withexcitement and this increased further when my old friend said thattogether we would bring about the big fishes downfall the next morning.I had to keep this to myself as my father would have tanned my hide ifhe thought I was involved in a business such as this. As it turned outit was to be a very painful experience and I have a scar to this veryday to prove it. We were at the river bright and early, the morning wascalm, crisp and clear.. perfect. The old man needed me,for physicallyhe would be unable to land such a salmon and in any case he was wornout from the day before. This time he was taking no chances and forinsurance in case the salmon broke the rod he tied strong twine ontothe hook and attached the other end to my wrist. Instructing me on whatto do we searched for the salmon. The old man spotted him first. Thefish was resting unseen beneath a large overhanging bank but the hazelrod still attached to him gave his position away. After finalinstructions I waded quietly into the river and slowly made my waytowards where the salmon was lying. The only part of the fish that Icould see was his tail and about a foot of his body, but his tailstunned me, a huge wide grey tail which seem so much bigger than thetails of those salmon of eight and ten pounds my father often caught. Igot the hook into position and holding my breath I drew the hazel rodupwards with all the strength I could muster. For a second nothinghappened, all was solid..then just as the day before the big fish cameout of the water in a great shower of spray and churned up the water asI struggled to hold him with the hazel rod. The old man was jumping upand down on the bank and shouting but I couldn't hear what he wassaying...even if I could it would have made no difference. The hazelrod broke and now I was attached to the fish with the twine which waswrapped round my wrist. The river was small, twenty feet wide. Thegreat salmon made up his mind to head upstream and soon unable to stophim and with the twine starting to cut into my wrist I was stumblingafter him. I managed to follow the salmon for about ten yards before Istumbled over some stones and while I fell the fish kept going untilthe twine snapped. My last memory of that salmon of a lifetime is thesound of him crashing through the shallow stream at the head of thepool and splashing into the next pool and vanishing forever. My wristwas cut and bleeding badly and I still bear the scar of the encounterwith that salmon to this day. The old man cried..not for my pain butfor losing the greatest salmon of all our lives. Looking back throughall those years and with several thousand salmon I have caught sincethen I'd say that fish was between thirty and forty pounds..in a riverwhere the average is usually around 6lbs. After the salmon had spawnedthat year a huge spent cockfish was found dead at the side of theriver..he had two wounds on his body. A great salmon who had beaten theodds twice survived and spawned successfully....what better way to endthis story.

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