Keith Arthur’s views on the news
That, and a photo, would make fiddling difficult to pull off
THIS won’t be the first time I’ve spoken about record fish and the absolute requirement for a new type of record list.
The International Game Fish Association has a record list a mile long, because it creates lineclass, all-tackle and fly-only with different tippet strengths among them, and now a measure-and release category. It is that last one that I believe the Angling Trust and BRFC should be working on.
Weights can be unreliable, if for no other reason than they can be manually adjusted and therefore people can cheat! However, producing an ‘official’ measuring tape or ruler and demanding that any claim is measured using that and photographed at the same time would be very difficult to fiddle. It could also raise some funds for the Trust and BRFC.
A shark, tope, bass or other sea fish that has to be returned, plus any coarse fish or catch-andrelease trout, can be accurately measured and photographed in a few seconds and released without damage, whereas setting up scales, zeroing (or not!) and transferring fish to slings is longwinded, messy and much more difficult to capture on camera.
There is even the potential to set up a ‘weight-for-length’ record list. After all, records are only comparisons, and if an accurate photographic presentation of length and girth is submitted and the BRFC calculates the estimated weight I can see nothing wrong with it at all.
Come on, this would hugely increase the interest in records. Look what happened when a tackle manufacturer awarded prizes for line-class ‘records’ a few years ago – plenty of anglers were obsessed with it.
And if you don’t believe that obsession, check out the IGFA record lists and see how many times the same names appear.
I once fished with an angler called Herb Rattner in the USA who held 163 world records at one time or another!