IT'S hard enough to see the odd salmon from the banks of the River Tamar — but spotting a 25lb shell, now that certainly is something else!
Nick Cowen, landlord of the Cornish Inn, Gunnislake, was walking along the riverside with friends Mick Smith and Paul Donaghue on Saturday when they saw a strange shape about eight feet from the bank.
'Mike saw it and I went into the water and picked it up,' said Nick, 40.
'It looked like a stone. It didn't look like a shell. It's shape aroused our interest.'
Once the shell was brought ashore Mick contacted the police on his mobile phone.
'First he had to convince them he was called Smith before they would believe there was a shell!' said Nick.
The police arrived and called the Bomb Disposal Squad who later removed the shell.
'An ex-naval commander who comes into the pub reckoned the shell could have come from of a tank. It was green with a purple strip along it and a blue band around it. The tip was still on it,' said Nick.
'It was a dummy shell — but I wouldn't have wanted it dropped on my toe.'
A spokesman for the Bomb Disposal Squad said the item was a practice bomb — but how it got there he was unable to say.
'A lot of this sort of stuff has been abandoned from the second world war. Things are found all over the country and their origins don't always relate to where they are found — especially in rivers and open water,' said the spokesman.