How a spoon can land a shark

Mid-20th Century expat Dundee jute wallah Kenneth Miln was something of an angler supreme in South Asia – as this entertaining yarn from yesteryear makes clear.

The Monifieth dweller recalls: “Walking along the jheel (small lake) bank on a hot May afternoon held a singular fascination

for me when living in Bengal, India.

“There was always a deal of activity in the jheel’s jade-coloured water, with its multitudinous inhabitants on the hunt for prey. Small skimmer fish, their protruding eyes pushing up the water’s surface film to locate minute floating insects, swam in vast shoals causing thousands of ripples.

“During one particularly hot afternoon and while observing a large shoal of skimmers going about their business, the

tranquil scene was shattered as a great silver-sided form leapt through the shoal with a sizeable skimmer clamped in its jaws.

“Falling back with a loud splash, the big fish caused a wild scattering of skimmers, many of them surface tail-walking in sheer terror. Moments later all was quiet again, leaving only rows of expanding rings on the surface as evidence of the lethal disturbance.

“That such a commotion should not pass unchallenged, I set about planning how best to ‘bank’ whatever species of fish was devouring the jheel’s skimmer fish. Having some knowledge of ‘spinning’ as a method of angling, I was determined to adopt this technique to catch the large predator.

“At that time few artificial lures were available to anglers in Bengal and I improvised with the business end of a nickel-plated table spoon, attaching a fairsized hook. As fixed spool spinning reels had yet to be invented, I made use of a locally made brass reel filled with 100 yards of ‘mooga soota’ – a hand-spun silk line.

“Thus equipped and with a number of onlookers in attendance, I made for a channel connecting the jheel to the close-by River Hooghly, where a shoal of skimmer fish awaited the inflow of high-tide water.

“Although over 60 miles from the sea (Bay of Bengal), this region is well within tidal influence due to the land’s extreme flatness. Not a leaf stirred as I cast into the shoal of skimmers and all was quiet apart from the plopping sound made by my metal

spoon hitting the water. All was still in the afternoon’s heat – only mad dogs and jute wallahs go daft during May in Bengal.

“Having made a number of fruitless casts I noticed that my audience began to disperse, with a number of individuals shaking their heads while muttering, ‘What a fool that topi-wearing sahib must be to fish using a piece of metal for bait!’

“However, another cast and – wham! – with a mighty jerk the bamboo rod was almost torn from my grasp, the old brass reel screeched as good line disappeared at an alarming rate. As the big fish shot off at speed a wake formed where the line ripped through the water, the fish then twisted to leap high into the air before diving deep.

“During the contest I lost all sense of time – intense concentration seems to have a strange effect on the passage of time!

“Only after a lengthy battle during which the big fish made several violent ‘runs’, did I manage to bring the silver-side close into shallow water, now aware that my audience had returned and had grown in number.

“Helping hands soon had my fish up on to the bank, where the ‘predator’ was identified as a silond, to use a Bengali name. At last, the jheel prowler and skimmer-fish exterminator for all to see – caught by a topiwearing jute wallah with a piece of metal!

“Although my fish weighed close to 30lbs, this Silonda gangetica – known as a freshwater shark – can grow to over six feet in length and attain close to 100lbs in weight.”

Craigie fan Jane Turnbull took this picture of a heron in her garden at Scotlandwell in Kinross-shire. She says the visiting bird was “scouting out the nearby garden ponds”.