Writing to the Field of March 31st, Mr. W. B. Thornhill, Castle Cosey, Castle Billingham, gives the following account of the remarkable capture of a salmon: “The following may be of interest to your readers, and I shall be glad to hear if such a thing has ever occurred before to your knowledge. On Wednesday, March 21st, I was with a certain noble lord trying for a salmon in this neighbourhood; he only had a trout-line with him, and put up a single gut trace and a blue phantom; he got into a fish, but his trout-line broke, and the fish got away with phantom, trace, and a small piece of line. I was fishing the same water on Monday, 26th, with a single hook and worm for a salmon. I got what felt like a nibble and then a run. I raised my point slowly, as I did not wish to break in a stone, when to my surprise my hook came out of the water with a bit of gut attached. At first I thought, of course, of the lost fish, and supposed that the gut would slip off my hook when it became tight, but it did not. My hook had got into the loop of the broken trace, two feet behind the fish. I saw the position then, and played and landed the fish, which scaled 15 lb. As this seems such a tall story, I may add that I can produce half a dozen eye-witnesses to the fact if necessary, and vouch for it myself.”
In the following issue of the same paper Mr. Caryl Ramsden, writing from White’s, relates another strange experience. “It is with no desire to ‘cap’ your correspondent’s story that I relate the following true story, which can be vouched for by a salmon-fisher of much experience. On a well-known beat on a Welsh river a salmon was hooked on a prawn. The angler had a long line out, and the line broke. Standing at the time far back on a long slab of rock, the angler had time to seize the broken piece, and after hand-lining the fish, joined it again to the line on the rod. Again he broke the line, and the fish was apparently gone for ever with prawn, hooks, wire trace, and line. While he had luncheon he told his gillie to try down again with a prawn, and although it may seem incredible, the barb of one of the gillie’s hooks fastened itself in the small eye of one of the swivels of the trace which was still fixed in the lost fish. The gillie played and landed the lost salmon, and then this remarkable discovery was made. Compare the size of the eye of a swivel and the loop of a gut cast, and the deduction as to which is the greater chance is clear.”
There was a large attendance of polo men at Albert Gate on April 2nd, when Messrs. Tattersall sold the polo pony stud of Messrs. E. D. and G. A. Miller. Twenty-nine lots were catalogued, and sold without reserve, yielding an average of 137 gs., the total being 3,992 gs. Heartsease made top price, 380 gs. Others: Mavourneen, b., 200 gs.; Sobriety, b., 240gs.; Dolly Grey, gr., 210 gs.; Quickstep, ch., 130 gs.; Free Trader, b., 135 gs.; Miss Gordon, ch., 110 gs.; Tintack, bk., 135 gs.; Wallflower, br., 200 gs.: The Cub, br., 200 gs.; Miss Doris, b., 105gs.; Number Four, ch., 91 gs.; Lady Dorothy, br., 115 gs.; Sylvia, gr., 160 gs.; Country Girl, br., 80 gs.; Winsome, b., 150 gs.; Rose, b., 150 gs.; Miss Robinson, br., 110 gs.; Melayer, ch., 125 gs.; Blair, br., 86 gs.; Socialist, br., 150 gs.; Radical, br., 120 gs.; Ladysmith, ch., 100 gs.; Butterfly, b., 54 gs.; Rake, b., 76 gs.; Swift, br., 145 gs.; Life Buoy, ch., 81 gs.; Pretty Boy, br., 54 gs.; Pretty Girl, ch., 160 gs.
The members and supporters of the Taunton Vale Fox Hunt and the Taunton Vale Harriers, at a dinner held at Taunton on April 2nd, presented Sam Brice, the retiring huntsman of the Harriers, with an illuminated address and a cheque for £150. Brice has for some time past been the oldest active harrier huntsman in England, and has held his position with the Taunton Vale pack for thirty-two years.
As the result of injuries received when riding Seymour in the Lydd Steeplechase at the Folkestone Meeting, on April 9th, Richard Woodland died at the local infirmary on the following Saturday.