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Giant Fish Spotted in Barnes Lock Maurice Hyde spent his boyhood in Great Baddow. He describes the day when he and his friend, Mark Harrison found a "massive" mysterious fish swimming in Barnes Lock. Mark and I were about 10 or 11 years old at the time and spent a lot of our spare time playing along the river banks of the Chelmer. We would walk from my parents house in Longmead Avenue, Great Baddow, down Loves Walk Lane, that took us to the Al30 by-pass which was at the time under construction. Farmer Spalding had a access under- pass to his farm at Meadgate that took you through the fields and on to the banks of the river Chelmer. Sometimes the field at the gate of the underpass was so muddy it was a pretty hard job to walk to the Chelmer even with wellington boots on . I can remember, on more than one occasion, walking in thick slimy mud and lifting my foot with my wellie not moving-being stuck firm in the mud.! About half way from Spalding's farm to the river there used to be this brick building with a small opening 5 or 6 ft high. We used to climb up and you could see 50 or so bats hanging around as well as the sound of running water. I never did know what the function of this building was. It was latter demolished. I think the time we saw the giant fish in the locks was definitely summer time as near the Barnes Mill Lock was the large mill pool that many fisherman were fishing. So as the fishing season starts on June 16th and it was busy with fisherman it was summer. We were about 9 or 10 years old and quite often took Mark's pet labrador dog over, named "Honey" after the "Blue Peter" children's show pet dog. When we arrived at the locks we would sit down on the lock gates before we moved on. On this occasion I saw a giant fish surface in the lock between the two gates. Well, I screamed to Mark "Look a massive fish!". I was scared, I had never seen any thing like it before or since in a river. I took a few steps back from the water side. Perhaps I might have fell in and who knows what the fish would have done to me? (that was my thought at the time). "Bloody hell, look at the size of it!" we were saying. Mark said that when I recently spoke to him (on the phone from Australia) that he remembers the dorsal fin was a foot long and the total length of the fish was half the width of the lock and confirms it must have been 5 ft long.( the lock is 16ft wide-editor's note). It would disappear and slowly come up again turning in the lock slowly. We ran round to where several fisherman were fishing and told them of the giant fish: "Please mister, come and have a look at the giant fish in the locks, it's bigger than us!" The fishermen would say " Bugger off! We're not coming. Damn kids!" "No, really mister, you must come, please its true!" After a while we managed to get one fisherman over to check out the story. He was amazed and soon had all the other men over. So there must have been fifteen or so people looking at this monster fish in the locks and not one of them knew what it was. One man said that it must have been a sea fish that had come up stream when the water was high and now was trying to get back. Well that was the story. No one ever believed us but we know what we saw. Thanks to Maurice for his graphic account of their adventures. With all the excitement it's a relief that neither of them fell in! When Ted Pearson gave his recent talk to us about the River Stour he did say something about his former work in restocking local rivers with trout and salmon. He previously worked for the Anglian Water Authority .Perhaps he could help solve the mystery? It was suggested to him that Maurice's fish might have been a large salmon and this is what he had to say: With regard to Maurice Hyde's story I found it most interesting. I think it was unlikely that what he saw was a salmon as the deep sluggish waters of the canal, plus the number of obstructions, would not make it very conducive to a salmon running upstream to find suitable spawning grounds. However, the Blackwater with its faster flows carries less suspended solids(sediments) and has the advantages of shallow gravel reaches which are highly oxygenated, another reason why a returning salmon would find it more favourable when it entered the estuary. Going back to Maurice's fish, I suspect it was ,by his description, a pike, especially as 25-30 years ago the canal was noted for its large numbers of big pike. In carrying out our fish population surveys at around this period I have personally weighed pike in excess of 25lbs which would make them at least 3ft in length, so his fish could certainly been up to 4ft although I doubt it would be as much as 5ft. No other native freshwater fish would obtain that sort of length. Finally, if my supposition was wrong and the fish was a salmon it would inevitably have died from exhaustion following either successful or unsuccessful spawning. A dead fish rapidly fills with gasses as the internal organs decompose and they float to the surface. In an area as popular as Barnes Mill I suspect a salmon of this size would soon have been spotted and reported upon, even making a headline in the local press. Thank you for bringing this interesting mystery to my attention and I hope my comments on it are helpful. The mystery remains. The boys seemed sure that the monster stretched half way across the 16ft wide lock and who is going to disprove it? |
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Could this be the big fish? - Picture from Maurice Hyde |
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