Joys of fishing: Days gone by

George Jones in front of one of his paintings Photo: Nick Drayson

'Well I remember this particular day. The fish that I spotted just wasn't interested. I'd just moved on to the top of this area where there was a slight bend in the river, an undercut bank, and quite a deep corner. I remember just a half-hearted effort putting the fly out and up rose this giant trout, sucked the fly in; I struck, and nothing. I missed, I mistimed it completely. And I sat down and I said, "Well, what a fool I am". And quite innocently my girlfriend said "Have another try, George." I said, "You don't get a second chance with these". "Oh," she said, "I would, you know". She said, "Did you actually feel anything?" I said "No, it probably sucked it into its mouth." Well I still wasn't keen. I cast once, I cast twice, three or four times and on the last cast, out it come. Well, this time I just let it take the fly and I didn't strike until it was head-down with just its tail at the surface of the water. And of course I only had to tighten once.

'It was a huge trout, about six pound actually, and there were people on the other side and some of them were clapping because there was a fast current here and she was a good fight. After quite a few minutes at one stage I thought I was going to lose it. It was nip and tuck and I wasn't too worried if I did, but it would have been nice just to bring it up close and to see it. Anyway, I got it up close, put the net underneath it and released the hook and let it go back. You know, by the look of it I could tell it was every bit a six-pound brown. Hook jaw, big male, but I always recall that because with a big fish, that just doesn't happen. I had never done that before, and I can never recall doing it since.'

Listen to another one of George's fishing tales and view the audio transcript (Quicktime embedded file 228kb)

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