A 52lb 8oz carved wooden salmon, caught in 1928 from the river Wye, will surely be the highlight for angling collectors at Copley’s winter auction. The fish is believed to be the largest ever taken on a fly from the river, though Fred Buller’s Domesday Book of Giant Salmon points out that John Ashley Cooper, one of the great authorities on salmon, said that most salmon caught in the Victorian era were caught on fly, and they included a 54-pounder. However, this fish, caught by RG Devereux, definitely fell to the fly. The largest Wye salmon ever was 63lb but it was caught in a net. The biggest on rod and line was – surprise, surprise – caught by a woman. It weighed 59lb 8oz and fell to Miss D Davey in 1923. The Copley auction also features a plaster cast of a brown trout in a barrel case by Peter Malloch of Perth, and several other carved fish, The sale, though dominated by duck decoys, also contains some fine fishing-related oils, watercolours and prints by artists like Lynn Bogue Hunt, John Whorf, Ogden Pleissner, Frank Benson, Aiden Ripley and Chet Reneson. It takes place on January 21 in New York. You can view the online catalogue here.