A record-breaking trout is set to go under the hammer during the Bonhams sporting sale in Edinburgh in November.
The cased fish was prepared by celebrated Perth naturalist and taxidermist Peter Malloch and is expected to fetch between £2000 and £3000.
The 29lb specimen was caught in Loch Stennes on mainland Orkney in March 1889 and for over 100 years held the record for a wild trout caught in British fresh water.
It was eventually overtaken by a 31lb Ferrox brown trout caught in Loch Awe in Argyll and Bute in 2002. The sale also offers three of Malloch’s cased salmon for sale at estimates of between £1500 and £3000.
A keen naturalist from childhood, Peter Malloch started his taxidermy business in Perth in 1871 at the age of 18 and it remained a fixture in the town until 1981.
Malloch was an authority on salmon and trout and wrote what is still the standard work on their habits and how to fish for them. Also among the items for sale is a fly-tying vice which belonged to the legendary Ms Megan Boyd who tied flies for Prince Charles.
Ms Boyd, who died in 2001 at the age of 86, was one of the best-known salmon fly specialists in Britain and widely acknowledged as having been the finest tyer of fishing flies in the world.
She worked for over 50 years in her bothy on the Kintradwell Estate, Sutherland-for most of that time without electricity, as it wasn’t installed until 1985.
The vice is estimated to fetch between £100 and £200.
The sporting sale takes place in Bonhams’ Queen Street auction rooms in Edinburgh on November 11.