One that didn’t get away

Press, 26 April 1984, Page 1

One that didn’t get away

Tall stories are not uncommon among fishermen and most get taller with the telling, but Mr Denis Frampton, of Oxford now has one for the record and evidence to prove it.

On the afternoon of Easter Saturday Mr Frampton landed a brown trout weighing about 9kg (201 b on Lake Sumner, in North Canterbury. The fish, officially weighed in at the Fox and O’Quist sports store at 191 b 3oz, measured 89cm long and had a girth of 50cm.

The sports store runs a seasonal trout competition and Mr Frampton’s catch

looks likely to hold the record for some time. The previous heaviest catch was a fish of 111 b 12oz, caught in 1972.

“Any trout around the 101 b mark that’s caught in t North Canterbury is considered very big,” said Mr Bill O’Quist. “This is the biggest trout I’ve ever seen.”

Mr Frampton has been fishing since he was at high school. He and a friend had gone to Lake Sumner to hunt and to fill in time decided to go fishing. “We were just about to pack up when I hooked it. At first I thought I had a snag, but when the line took

off I realised it was a fish. It kept very deep and took about 15 minutes to land,” said Mr Frampton. Landing the fish was not the easiest — only half of it would fit in the landing net and there were a few moments of panic before a gaff was found and the fish could be brought into the boat.

“We took it back to the Lake Katrine settlement and weighed it at 211 b. The first scales we tried to use flew apart. Luckily someone was going out to town and they took it into the Lake Taylor station where there was a freezer.”

The whole week-end was a memorable one for Mr Frampton. He had trouble with his boat, trouble with his four-wheel-drive vehicle, a blown-out tyre, and he and his friend failed to shoot any game. “Catching the fish was the only good thing that happened,” he said. The fish has been taken to a taxidermist to be mounted.

Mr O’Quist said that it was good when such large fish were caught because they fed mainly on other trout and could eat about 12 small ones in a day.