Water under the bridge as Henderson lets his prize catch do a moonlight flit
Tales of salmon fishing on the Spey and a former trainer’s second attempt at marathon charity cycle ride
The primary function of this column may well have been as fish and chip paper, but if it has had a serious use it has been as a litmus test for the state of salmon fishing in Scotland.
Fly fishing is a popular pastime among racing folk for those who do not play golf, and every year, it seems, a number of racing professionals head north for Scotland’s once-great salmon rivers.
Their calamities have been reported here annually, although I spared you the gory details of the hospital visit occasioned by a tick attaching itself to Willie Jenks’s eponymous appendage.
There was the time when Johnny Ferrand, front of house at some stage of every pub that ever was in the Lambourn valley and universally known as Johnny the Fish, foulhooked his upper lip and had to go to hospital in Elgin to have it surgically removed.
There was also the moment when bloodstock agent Cormac Mccormack nearly drowned the ghillie who was trying to help him land a fish, and the “surface tension” caused by a kayaker not only disturbing the fish but hitting Nicky Henderson amidships in the middle of a river.
The reason all this has been reported, of course, is because fish, on the whole, were not being landed. No one is totally sure why salmon have declined so dramatically in the past couple of decades but one of the possible positives of lockdown from a fish’s point of view is that industrialsized trawlers have had to remain in port.
And there is good news on that front, after Henderson returned from his latest fishing venture having landed a PB; a 26lb cock salmon, while moonlight fishing on the Spey.
“There was nothing all day and at 11pm it was like someone flicked a switch for an hour,” said the trainer, although, as equine artist Peter Curling pointed out with disappointment having drawn a blank, the power cut seemed more permanent in his pool upstream.
Henderson, however, was not alone, which leads one to hope salmon are back.
Caroline Jenks caught a 19lb fish and Henderson’s wife, Sophie, was not to be outdone with a 16-pounder. In all, the party caught an aggregate of 164lb of salmon. Obviously, nowadays you have to pat them on the head and put them back rather than knock them on the head and stuff them in a cold bag.
Unfortunately a combination of Henderson’s handling of modern technology, the dark and his epic tussle means that, though there were witnesses, there is no photographic evidence of the 4ft fish which took half an hour to land. And while he lives to spawn again, Long Run and Bobs Worth can rest easy – framed images of their Gold Cup victories are not going to be replaced by a bigger fish anytime soon.
This morning, 25 cyclists will set out from Carlisle racecourse bound for Newton Abbot, where they are due to arrive on Saturday, in aid of Racing Welfare, the charity which costs £2million a year to run and scoops up some 4,500 people from the industry who have fallen on hard times.
For former trainer and now Henderson right-hand man Charlie Morlock, this was merely meant to be the second leg of his John O’groats to Land’s End marathon, but that went pear-shaped when his crank snapped 200 miles in, leaving bits of shattered metal across some Highland lane.
Though he had on him a number of spare parts, you might as well ride and lead a spare bike if you are going to carry a crank, so it was game over.
Consequently he had to catch the sleeper home from Inverness to get a replacement bike ahead of today’s grand depart.
“At my age it’s a bit late to call it character-building,” he said before departing for the north, again.