THERE was something ?fishy? about angler Tony Short?s photographs of his most prized catch. The Okehampton fisherman had taken photographic evidence after catching a 27lb 4oz carp at Creedy Lake, Crediton, over the Bank Holiday weekend. Unfortunately, Tony had accidentally loaded his camera with a roll of film that had already been exposed. So when he brought his film into Cinnabar Photography in Okehampton, he was disheartened to find he had a series of pictures featuring ghostly double images of himself posing with his prize catch. Tony had gone fishing with his son Tim as he tries to every weekend. The father and son team started at 6.15am. Tim caught steadily throughout the day, landing respectable 16lb and 21lb catches, but Tony had no luck until he got his monster catch towards the end of a long day. It was a personal best for Tony as well as the heaviest surface-caught carp there had been at the lake, to the knowledge of those working there. Tony was faced with the agonising prospect of having no decent photographic evidence of the best day in his many years of fishing. However, staff at Cinnabar had come to the rescue, he explained and used digital technology to clean up the pictures and give Tony a permanent record of his achievement. Tony said he was ?absolutely delighted? with his very valuable catch and the ?top class? picture Cinnabar had managed to salvage. Tony said now he had a presentable picture, he would be able to submit the shots to the lake?s website and to Total Carp magazine. He said he was taken by surprise, when he reeled in the fish at around 5pm that day. ?At the time, I caught the fish, I was actually cooking bacon for our tea on the riverbank, when Tim spotted there was something on the line, so then we jumped into action.? l Tony is pictured left with his giant carp.
