Monster Salmon caught on the Ness

[brem]

Afternoon all.

The photo you can see ( Courtesy of Jones - please don't show it to anyone else Jones I'll be in touch) was taken by me !!

I was fishing with the 3 other guys and watched the fish being caught.

To say the photo does not do it justice is an understatement !! It was absolutely massive. I had just been shown some pics of fish from Alaska that had been caught this year and it was easily up there with them if not bigger !! Scott - did you see those pics - Bob had them when we were at Ness-side?

Anyway I hope they come back with an appropriate answer; but what I can say is that it was measured correctly and its girth was astounding, I have never seen such a fish.

All the Best

Robbie.

PS : Just aswell I left it alone the day before , when fishing that spot !! ;-)

[brem]

It is Donald not David - for reference

The lucky angler was Mr David Milne

"Just up from a very very late night with Grant Sutherland and David Brand, who were both present when the ness monster was landed.

I have to say regardless of the actual weight, this was a special day on the ness and something that may never happen again.

The fish was hooked in the tail of burnmouth and took a little under an hour to land. When netting the fish Grant had the head in the net and had to walk four foot forward to get the tail in something that he had never experienced, even with the few 30lb fish he has netter over the years.

The measurement of 56 inches is 100% accurate, with great care taken by the 6 gentlemen present at the time.

The hand in the mouth of the fish is David Brand, he is well over 6 ft and has hands like shovels, in the photo his hands look like that of a baby!!

After landing the fish, at around 2 o’clock, all four anglers and 2 ghillies spent the rest of the day in silence wandering about the river bank.

The actual weight will be decided by the boys at pitlochry in a couple of days, so until then I will have my fingers crossed"[/quote]

This capture is fantastic news and the stuff dreams are made of. If your surname is Milne you should be even more excited as according to my River Dee Map a fish was caught on Ballogie in 1995 by a Harvey Milne that was 56" in length, the girth 20" deep and 9 1/2" across the fish was returned and thought to be around 60lb.

Will need to think about changing my surname if I want to have a chance of capturing one of these monsters ;D[/quote]

[salmonfisher]

OMG thats a monster fish!!! Did it have a size 12 allys shrimp in the scissors?? If so can I have my fly back? ;D
Well done to the guy who landed this brute and hats off to him for returning such an awsome specimen. If fish genetics are the same as any other species then in 4 or 5 years we could be seing the offspring of this wopper returning to our shores. Just imagine a run of 70lb plus fish navigating their way upstream in your local river!

[brem]

Re: Monster Salmon caught on the Ness
« Reply #69 on Today at 2:28pm »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon all.

The photo you can see ( Courtesy of Jones - please don't show it to anyone else Jones I'll be in touch) was taken by me !!

I was fishing with the 3 other guys and watched the fish being caught.

To say the photo does not do it justice is an understatement !! It was absolutely massive. I had just been shown some pics of fish from Alaska that had been caught this year and it was easily up there with them if not bigger !! Scott - did you see those pics - Bob had them when we were at Ness-side?

Anyway I hope they come back with an appropriate answer; but what I can say is that it was measured correctly and its girth was astounding, I have never seen such a fish.

All the Best

Robbie.

PS : Just aswell I left it alone the day before , when fishing that spot !! ;-)

[jones]

If anyone is wondering why the photos are not on the site anymore, then I have to explain it is entirely my fault. Robbie (a couple of posts above), the photographer and hopefully still a friend of mine, did not give me permission to forward or post the photos and therefore they should not have been posted.

Robbie is keen to protect the copyright to what may become a very famous fish and is hopeful that some money can be raised to help improve the Ness system as a whole.

So apologies once again. My fault. Not springers, not the forums', just mine. Sorry for the disappointment.

Jones

[greenalert]

Just seen a report on BBC Scotland I think, the wife shouted me through, and they are stating it was 54in long so where has the other 2in gone?

[ibm59]

greenalert said:

Just seen a report on BBC Scotland I think, the wife shouted me through, and they are stating it was 54in long so where has the other 2in gone?

You don't believe everything you hear on the News surely.
ps It was quoted as 50" in the BeeB link above but I'm sure the guys wot did the measuring will have got it right Guv.

[macsalmo]

Apologies Jones,

Its a fantastic story and it all deserves to come out properly.
Its very exciting though, never thought I would see it happen in my time


Gary

[EuanM]

Fantastic to see such a fish being caught from the Ness. Shame the photo has gone (understandable though) and can't wait to see some other pics which will hopefully give a better idea of the true scale of this potential British record fish. Any more details so far on what it was caught on? Was also really good to see such positive press coverage on the BBC news tonight, near enough first headline. Hopefully the doubts from some interviewed can be proved wrong!

[diggerdawg]

Still photos on the Leven forum website.
What a cracking fish. Plenty of sceptics there though. Perhaps in the interest of conservation, new categories for returned fish could be adopted by the British Records people where suitable measurements are taken and verified by others or by photographs.
Just a thought....

[mikeyb]

I've had a look at the pics before they were taken down, Amazing fish!!!! I was on the riverside at Dochfour on Friday and spoke to the guys fishing, asked if anything was doing? they said no. I took some shot's of them fiishing and judging by the clothing I think it the same guy's I spoke to that landed this beast. Well done anyway and like everyone else I'm looking forward to seeing the highly valuable 'official shots'. wish I'd gone for a wander along the river on Saturday while I was there. Doh!!

[uppertonbrace]

Photo still here:http://www.flyforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=15972

What is there to hide?

[salar]

Nice to hear that the fish was returned, but being a very coloured fish, surely there was no choice. (This would have made a very interesting legal test case as to definition of clean and unclean fish). Even if it was legal to take a fish like this, how could one justify it when it is clearly not fit for eating. The anti brigade would have had a field day.

[granitec]

uppertonbrace said:

Photo still here:http://www.flyforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=15972

What is there to hide?

It's called "copyright", and an infringement of those rights was committed by whoever posted the picture here (and elsewhere) as, I understand, that specific permission from the owner of the picture had not been given.

GC

[smokiesalmon]

does the same copyright stand for the qoute that the bbc used on my behalf ........................page 2 of this topic ......... news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7045032.stm lmaof

[storlaks]

Looks like Ballentines record will remain.

David Rowe, the secretary of the British Record Fish Committee, said: "Unfortunately, photographic evidence will not be enough to set a record.

news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1650962007

[mikeyb]

Ballentines record will remain... anyone killing a fish this size nowadays would be banned from every river in the land - Quite rightly...Unofficial records are fine by me! just wish I'd got a picture.....

[langshan]

Part of the discrepancy in the length is that maybe there are two measurements being used and quoted; one the full length including tail, and the other is to the end of the caudal pendicule i.e not including tail.

As for records I would accept any determination that the FRS at Pitlochry would make, and in time, given the circumstances, the Rod Caught Committee may just have to too.

Copyright - oh a mine field for the non-adept, but unless you claim it from the outset you will have a problem enforcing it in a civil action, and then ...

[fishy]

Picture this...



and another...



Why hide the photos ffs! Everybody wants to see em ah

Sorry but I have had to delete these pictures as without the owners permission posting them is a breach of Proboard rules. Since they host the site we have to work within their guidelines.

There is nothing I can do and would appreciate no other posts containing the pictures unless it is from the board member who owns them. Sorry once again

[castslikeaghille]

mikeyb said:

Ballentines record will remain... anyone killing a fish this size nowadays would be banned from every river in the land - Quite rightly...Unofficial records are fine by me! just wish I'd got a picture.....

To be banned you would normally have to have broken some rule/law. The vast majority of rivers in Scotland allow people to kill fish. I've come across rules/laws about limits, unclean fish, hens in the autumn etc, but I have not yet come across a rule that says you shouldn't kill a 'salmon' above a certain size. The closest to it I've met is when Park used to operate a policy of allowing you to kill a clean cock grilse in September, and the Dee rule on Sea Trout is to return anything over 3lbs, as I think it is on Macallanside.

My understanding of the Ness regs is that it would have been within his rights to kill the fish and to suggest he would be 'rightly banned' from every river in Scotland for doing so is completely OTT.

This is a truly exceptional fish probably of little value to the spawning stock. For the record, if it couldn't be weighed and returned, and it was legal to do so I would have seriously considered taking that fish. Many of my colleagues, and gillies I know, who are highly experienced fishers who return 95% + of the fish they catch each year would have taken the same view.

By not doing that we will now have a situation where going forward people will claim the record was broken. Well the record is based on weight (rightly or wrongly). Without being weighed that fish (even if it was bigger than 65lbs and we will never know now) is not the record and will now probably be equally cursed and blessed going forward.

In some ways, because of the fall out to come, its capture and return in the circumstances would better have stayed under wraps and become a salmon urban myth. However, the genie is out of the bottle now.

Regards

CLaG