One day on the Gaspé in 1939 a man by the name of Esmond B. Martin caught the largest Atlantic salmon ever taken in North American waters, here on our own river the Grand Cascapedia. Although we take it for granted, this river is considered one of the ten best salmon fishing rivers in the world.
Esmond Martin was only a young man in his twenties when he came to the river in June of 1939. He was here visiting his Aunt Amy Guest, who at the time owned her own private fishing camp called New Derreen. Young Martin loved fly-fishing for Atlantic salmon, but he was a novice. Like so many other first-timers, Esmond failed to catch anything except a few trout in his first two weeks of fishing. The river was teeming with trout and he caught his share of them, but it was a salmon that he was trying to land. His Aunt Amy was an expert angler and spent most of her summer fishing the waters of the Cascapedia. Before young Esmond arrived she had spotted a large fish. It had first showed itself in Home Pool a couple of days before. Every guide on the river and just about everybody else, including his Aunt Amy, knew there was a giant fish somewhere in the river.
Esmond and his guides, Colin Gedeon and Lonnie Willett, had been fishing Maple Pool, a favourite one just above Home Pool. As they were covering the water halfway through, the guide thought he had seen some movement, so they decided to fish through the pool again. Everyone had the big fish on their minds. Everyone wanted to be the lucky angler to brag about it. At about the middle of the second pass through the pool, history took the fly. The fish never had a chance.
The record fish of 55 ½ pounds was caught on a Lady Amherst fly. The Lady Amherst was better known at the time as ‘Cascapedia’s favourite fly’. George Bonbright, a fisherman from the United States, created the famous fly while fishing on the Cascapedia in the early 1920’s. The trophy fish’s measurements were 49 ¾ inches long, also 30 1/8 inches in girth.
When Esmond went back to New Derreen Camp to proudly show off his prize catch, his Aunt Amy was not impressed. In fact she was very angry with him and felt that he should have left the fish in the river for her to catch. After he left the Cascapedia that year, his aunt did not invite him back.
After word got out, everybody wanted to see the famous fish. At every station on the return trip to New York, the fish had to be hauled out and exhibited to an admiring public. By the time the fish made it back to New York, Esmond had made arrangements to have the fish professionally stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist.
For a period of time this fish was in the American Museum of Natural History. Today the family of the late Mr. Martin still has the prize fish mounted proudly in their home.
The Martin fish became part of the fishing folklore of the Cascapedia. In the record books there have been approximately seventeen giants of 50 pounds and over taken from its waters. Today fishermen still come to this world famous river hoping to catch the ‘big one’.