Miss Ballantine’s magnificent fish
As a child ALASTAIR BLAIR had the privilege of an encounter with the famous Miss Ballantine, who holds the UK record for landing an Atlantic salmon.
Posted by Elderjuice
on July 9, 2012. Filed under Lifestyle,Memory Lane,Outdoors.
Posted with the tags:Fishing, nostalgiaYou can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Salmon fishing on the River Tay in Perthshire courtesy of Gordon Brown geograph.org.uk
As a child ALASTAIR BLAIR had the privilege of an encounter with the famous Miss Ballantine, who holds the UK record for landing an Atlantic salmon.
When you are a small boy, keen on fishing and living in Perth, on the all-powerful river Tay, there is one fish that you soon learn about above all others.
Miss Ballantine’s 64lb of magnificent Salmo Salar, a wild Atlantic salmon in all its natural glory which was, and still is, the UK record at which we all must aim.
To date, no-one has surpassed her. Given that this fish was caught in 1922, it’s quite possible that no-one ever will.
Perth
However and please excuse the pun, if I cast my mind back to 1968, we had just moved to Perth two years earlier.
I was at primary school, a member of the local angling association and as enthusiastic as only a small boy can be about fishing, football, Subbuteo, Action Man and all the rest of the things that today would be supplanted by a computer game.
My father, who is still very much with us, was a surgeon at Perth Royal Infirmary. One day, he came home and told me that he had an elderly lady as a patient. An elderly lady called Miss Ballantine.
Autographs
At that time I had begun to collect autographs, a pastime that, I’m glad to say, small boys still indulge in despite the fierce competition of Playstations et al. So, with a small boy’s impertinence, I asked my Dad if he could ‘get me her autograph’.
A few days later, he returned bearing a medium sized manilla envelope. Opening it I found a piece of Tayside Health Board headed letterhead, wrapped inside a page extolling the virtues of George Outram’s Colour Calendars and Desk Diaries.
Photograph
And on the letterhead, not just an autograph, but, in Georgina Ballantine’s clear hand, details of the full day’s fishing and, most wonderfully, attached by stamp hinges, a small, business card-sized original photograph of her, the famous fish and an older man (who I suspect is her father). And, at the foot, she has signed it, G W Ballantine.
The monster of a fish can be seen today in the Natural History Gallery at Perth Museum. The details are fascinating and for the record, Miss Ballantine wrote:
Record Tay Salmon
Caught in the Boat Pool, Glendelvine Water, River Tay, 7th October 1922. Hooked at 6.15 pm and landed in the dark on an Island at 8.20, almost half a mile downstream.
Baits – Natural Dace
Weight – 64 lbs
Length – 54”
Girth – 28”
Day’s Catch 64, 25, 17, 11 = 127 lbs
Caputh G W Ballantine
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One Response to Miss Ballantine’s magnificent fish
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John Archibald
July 9, 2012 at 11:25 am
The UK records for a Spring salmon and a salmon caught on a fly are also held by women. They say it’s the smell of a women’s pheromones that attracts the fish. Others would say that women are just better fishers. But given the relatively low number of female salmon fishers compared to men, it does seem extraordinary that all three of these records are held by women. So I’m going for the pheromones theory and a sex change!