This book is definitely one of my favourites. If you can find it, I advise you to buy it, after all, where else can you read stories like this?

"A more imaginative man might have become frightened at that stage. His line was jerking out under a momentum he had never experienced. In the darkness of the pool he had hooked something which moved with the force of a shark.
He played it for twenty minutes, letting the line move out when it went away. When it came back he retreated up the bank. But there was no channel of deep water leading away from the pool. If there had been, no salmon line made would have held his catch.

Then he saw it.

Suddenly the creature leapt out of the water. Maddened, it crashed into a shallow run. It was there under them, threshing in the low water. Allen was confronted by a bulk that was just not possible. The sightseer ran shouting for his life.

But Lewis ran forward with the gaff. He stuck it into the fish, but the fish moved. It straightened the steel gaff. Then the great tail flicked up and caught Lewis, and threw him into the air on to the bank. Just one flick, but it nearly broke the man's leg."

It was a 388 pound sturgeon, nine foot two inches long, 59 inches around and it was caught in a small pool on the Towy in 1933. We should be so lucky, eh?

Other stories in the collection include Georgina Ballantine's account of catching the record Tay salmon, which isn't that easy to find, unless you buy Fred Buller's Domesday Book of Giant Salmon.