Male anglers may have been suffering, for three-quarters of a century, from an inferiority complex, due to the fact that the record for the biggest salmon caught in these islands fell to a woman. This was Georgina Ballantine, daughter of a head ghillie on the River Tay in Scotland in 1922. Now that record is challenged by the surfacing of a salmon caught 10 years earlier, in 1912, and apparently unknown to the world of salmon fishers. The man who caught that fish had it stuffed, and while it is an inch shorter than Miss Ballantine's monster, it could just be heavier - or have been heavier when taken. Unfortunately, it was not measured at the time, and so cannot qualify, it seems for the record.
According to the London Times, a spokesman for the British Record Fish Committee said that for a fish to be authenticated, it needs to be weighed on certificated scales in the presence of witnesses at the time of capture. This was not done. And while the editor of the Trout and Salmon magazine said that, judging by the photographs and measurements it could possibly be the biggest salmon in history, a photograph of a stuffed fish is not enough. In the stuffing, the depth of the fish could have been distorted. Anyway, we are on the dangerous territory of the sex war here.
It has been argued for some time that women have an advantage over men in angling, unfair, and due entirely to sexual emanations. So many of the biggest salmon have been caught by women, that the theory has been put forward that the fish are attracted by the scent of female pheromones. The word isn't in this edition of the Oxford Dictionary, but it means emanations of some kind. You would be right in suspecting that this is a lame excuse from the hugely preponderant number of male anglers to female, but it is being taken to great lengths. For according to the Times a scientist has come up with a pheromone spray to be used on flies and baits, said to give male anglers an equal chance!
George Dods, a bio-technologist says he has successfully isolated the correct female pheromones. He has mixed them with amino acids and alcohol, and his ultrabite is now on sale or about to go on sale in Britain.
An expert, asked to define pheromones said without hesitation: "They are smell hormones. Pig farmers know all about them. They spray; the appropriate part of the female pig, and the boar immediately gets on the job." So there is something in the old saw. Not just male jealousy. Wait and see. Y