IS SIZE IMPORTANT WHEN THE CATCH IS A ‘FLUKE’?

MANY people reading last week’s story about Alan Scotthorne catching a crocodile of a pike from Lindholme Lakes would have asked the question: “Why didn’t he weigh it?” After all, the venue has plenty of scales.

Then I thought back to some of the big fish I’d caught either in matches or practising and considered how many I’d weighed. The answer was two, both roach. The first was in July 1973 when I had a whacker from the tidal Thames that I wrapped in a wet towel and carried to my then future in-laws’ house and weighed on kitchen scales, before returning it to the river and watching it swim away. It weighed 2lb 2oz.

The other was a few years earlier at Dolphin Meadow on the Great Ouse. That went in my canvas bucket and was taken to the local butcher’s shop and weighed at 2-1-8 on their scales.

I suppose the weight of individual fish caught in matches, or when practising, isn’t the objective, but when I’m fishing for, say, barbel on a pleasure day, I always take my scales, and weigh anything I estimate to be over 7lb.

Was it 30lb? Alan thinks it might have been, but does it matter?