King George V and the salmon

By Bruce Sandison

Published:

IT IS a well-known truth that anglers never tell lies. Some of the stories we recount may seem far-fetched but I can assure you they are invariably true.

However, even I was sceptical when, some years ago, I discovered this tale about King George V (1865-1936) landing a salmon.

It was published in a French newspaper on July 20, 1917 and gives a remarkable “Gallic-eye view” of how we fish in Scotland.

“He is an angler of the first force, this king of Britain. Behold him there, as he sits motionless under his umbrella, patiently regarding his many coloured floats.

How obstinately he contends with the elements. It is a summer day of Britain. That is to say, it is a day of sleet, and fog and tempest. But what would you? It is as they love it, those who follow the sport.

Presently the king’s float begins to descend. The king strikes. My god, how he strikes. The hook is implanted in the very bowels of the salmon. The king rises. He spurns aside his footstool. He strides strongly and swiftly towards the rear. In due time the salmon comes to approach himself to the bank. Aha. The king has cast aside his rod.

He hurls himself flat on the ground on his victim. They splash and struggle in the icy water. Name of a dog. But it is a braw laddie! The gillie, a kind of outdoor domestic, administers the coup de grace with a pistol. “The king! Hip-hurrah.”

On these red-letter days His Majesty George dines on a haggis and a whisky grog. Like a true Scotsman, he wears only the kilt.”

The gillie shot the salmon? Perhaps the story has lost something in translation, but it is a classic of its kind and just the sort of tale to enliven a dismal, fishless winter evening. The only other account that I know of concerning the dispatch of a fish in a less that normal fashion, in this case a small trout, was told to me by a keeper I interviewed for a book I wrote in 1987 about Scottish gillies.

The keeper had taken a novice to the river to introduce him to the gentle art of fly fishing. His pupil caught a fish but, in spite of the advice being directed at him by his mentor, simply kept winding in until the trout was eye-ball to eye-ball with the top ring on the rod.

“What shall I do now, Hamish,” he asked. “Well sir,” Hamish replied, “Why don’t you just climb up the rod and stab the poor thing to death.”

Yes, indeed, it is a well-known truth that we anglers never lie. Well, almost never.