Until today, I knew only that it was hauled from the bed of the Frazer River in Canada, but a ten-minute chat with Her Wyeness provided the literary grout to the story’s foundation.
“I think it was 1993…I was with Geoff visiting his friend, Martin, who lived in Crescent Beach, near Vancouver. Naturally, Geoff wanted to exploit our visit to Canada so he got Martin to book a boat and tackle on the Frazer River. No, I don’t think we were married at that time. To tell you the truth we have a problem remembering which year we were married, only that it was the 30th of June, possibly 1995 or 1996, we’re not too sure. Yes, it was a memorable day! The Pimms was excellent! I think I was invited along mainly because Martin found me funny; he clicked with my sense of humour. Tragically, Martin succumbed to depression and took his own life last year; I am glad that the memories of that trip are still strong; we had some good laughs that day.
The tackle? [Maggie’s humour kicks in] I used the skipper’s tackle as Geoff’s wasn’t up to the job – even he admitted that! I was handed a rod – it was really big! – and Geoff fiddled about with the line and the weight and the hook and everything. Bait? Errr…it was salmon eggs! Very smelly they were…the skipper had knotted them into a ball of tights-nylon and hooked them onto my hook…big one it was. When I tried lifting it all up I nearly fell over to one side so I got Geoff to cast it out and he handed the rod back to me. ‘Had you caught anything at that point, Geoff?’ Oh, no…we were taking turns and I was first with the lucky rod. I hadn’t been holding it long when my arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets! Everybody got very excited – they DID, Geoff! YOU were more excited than anyone!! You were!! Anyway, they put a leather belt around me with one of those things you stick the rod into – that’s it, a fighting butt – and I started to play this fish. I can tell you that later that evening I found my belly to be black and blue with all the pulling and thumping; it went on for around twenty minutes in all and it towed us down-river. Martin, bless him, grabbed his video camera and asked me to look his way for a second, but when I saw what he was up to I shouted at him to stop…he wasn’t going to video me without a bit of lippy! So he had to hang fire for a minute or so while my left hand hung onto the rod and my right hand applied the Max Factor – no, I didn’t have a mirror but a girl can do her lips instinctively. No, Cliff, it wasn’t bright red lipstick! It was a very subtle shade. I never go anywhere without my lipstick and, yes, once I was made-up I felt happy to carry on so long as Martin got my best side. He was a film script-writer and producer so I was getting all these instructions on how to hold my head and the best posture and all that. When I finally got this beast to the side of the boat all the blokes converged on me like knights in shining armour with offers of help, saying ‘you’re only a woman’ and all that – it was still the nineties – but I told them to go away in no uncertain terms! But before we could slide it into the boat it made a last lunge that took it right under the boat and out the other side! I really had to hang on!! I won. They were all sick as parrots. That was the only fish we caught and I caught it!”
Have I fished since? Of course! I had a 78lb catfish in Spain, the River Ebro. Geoff and his mate had gone into town to buy some provisions and when they got back they asked what we’d caught – not expecting to be shown this bloody great pussy – stop it, you two! – we’d put on a piece of rope. A stringer, that’s right. I caught a mahseer too, in India. It was only about 4lbs but it fought like crazy on a fly rod, and my first-ever fish was a 22lb carp, in France.
But that sturgeon! I showed ‘em!
