To have known Kevin Linnane was to have known one of angling's true gentlemen. I had the privilege to have fished with Kevin on numerous occasions, both for shark and, believe it or not, pike. For he was a legend in sea angling, particularly when it came to catching and tagging porbeagle and blue shark.

Kevin's favourite fishing grounds centred on the deep waters of the Atlantic ocean, under the towering Cliffs of Moher, close to his home town of Lahinch in Co Clare. Indeed, his name was synonymous in big-game angling along the west coast.

I can recall many late night discussions with Kevin over the odd glass of malt reminiscing about encounters with mammoth shark, estimated at that time to be bigger than the present Irish record.

In fact, in the late 1960s he predicted that in years to come anglers would catch bigger fish, especially blue fin tuna close to the west coast. How right he was.

I'm sure it brought tremendous satisfaction to him to see these predictions come true, particularly in the last few years when the great man's angling days were coming to a premature end.

Kevin would have celebrated his 60th birthday next month.

He will never be forgotten for his work as angling manager of the Central Fisheries Board, his tremendous work and dedication to the Irish Specimen Fish Committee. Also his brilliant 8mm film (before the days of video) of "Porgie and Blue" that contained underwater footage of a porbeagle shark taking a baited hook.

Surely this will never be equalled?

It saddens me deeply to think this great man and friend is no longer with us. But his contribution to angling, his writing, films and the friends he made will make the memory of Kevin Linnane live on in angling folklore for ever.

A quote from Longfellow, who once said about the secret of the sea and those who held a deep affection for it:

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me

As I gaze upon the sea!

All the romantic legends (Kevin),

All my dreams, come back to me.

To Kevin's wife, Maeve, sons Barry and Louis, daughter-in-law Anna, granddaughter Aoife and his sister, Bega.

Ar Dheis De go raibh anam.

L.K