The following email arrived from Nick Craigs of Morpeth, Northumberland, the successful angler which describes in some modesty his tale:-

"My fish was caught on Wednesday 8th feb and hooked around 4.15 opposite the Pumphouse on Lower Blackhall. I had been fishing with my son Cameron (who had his first Dee springer) and I decided to walk back to Inchmarlo (where we were staying) on the North bank and have a last cast. Unfortunately, this left me without a camera or mobile phone. I hooked the fish just behind a large rock in a `confined `pool with rapids below and resting lie just behind the rock which proved helpful in the fact that the fish just sulked there for 15 minutes. I had no net, but managed to guide the head of the fish between 2 rocks, when it tired and then,literally, jumped in alongside it and heaved it onto the grass bank where I measured it with nylon 53" in length and returned it. I apologise to all who might speculate about the size of the fish and look for harder evidence but bear in mind it was dusk when I landed it and suffice to say I had some big decisions to make!! I don`t regret releasing a hen fish but would recommend what I found out subsequently from Mark Bislby of the Dee Board that scale samples can give a fairly accurate weight as well as age to the fish. I have fished the Dee now for 12 years every spring and my hope is that this fish marks a resurgence of these unique species. My thanks go to my son Cameron as well as Pete Scarrott, Al, Dan and the rest of the party for putting up with the tale and also Colin the ghillie at Lower Blackhall . The fly which caught the fish was an `Absent Godkin` devised originally by Dr Andrew Godkin on the Spey,developed at Altries on the Dee and now much used by our party in his absence.......hence the name! The fly is basically a black, yellow and white bucktail fly with a black body and fine silver rib the important difference to all the other black and yellow variants is the mixing of equal thirds of each colour to create what Righyni described as `translucent illusion` . I hope the evidence of some larger fish on the Dee helps keep February on Deeside an exciting fishing destination."

Most charts of fish length to weight stop at 50" which equates, roughly, to 50lbs so there is every chance that this fish was closer to the 50lb mark but as Nick agreed there was no corroberating evidence and so a conservative estimate of 42lbs was decided.