Mr Dickison (67), who caught the monster fish near the Kurow bridge on Wednesday, said he had been fishing for years and it was ''easily'' his biggest catch.
''I've heard of guys catching 28-pound and 30-pound salmon, but 35 pounds is a fairly good sort of a fish,'' he said. The fish put up quite the fight and it took Mr Dickison about 30 minutes to get it to the shore.
The catch capped off a great day's fishing. Mr Dickison, his brother-law Mike Slemint, who was visiting from Australia, and a friend caught three salmon.
''To get three out of this particular pond - and they were all caught within about 45 minutes of one another ... was pretty spectacular.''
Mr Dickison said the salmon season had ''just started'', with salmon beginning to run up the Waitaki River in the past couple of days.
''From what I gather from the local people there has only been one salmon caught prior to the ones that we caught.''
After learning about their haul, the locals were out in force yesterday, he said.
