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Gold Rush gold dealers proprietor Steve Gallagher shows a gold ring found inside a fish’s stomach by an angler fishing near Yarmouth. Picture by Robin Crossley.
THE one that didn’t get away held an unlikely surprise for a Ryde man.
It was a case of ‘cod almighty’ when a gold ring turned up inside the belly of a fish caught by an angler off Fort Victoria, near Yarmouth.
He discovered the sparkly ring as he prepared the ‘gold fish’ — which must have been suffering from serious indigestion — for his supper.
Jamie Bowley, of Gold Rush gold dealers, in Lower St James’s Street, Newport, who examined the ring, said it was one of the craziest stories he had ever heard.
“Ninety per cent of the stories we hear are people wanting to sell jewellery given to them by an ex-partner or left to them,” he said.
“This was the craziest story we’d ever heard but 100 per cent true. The ring holds very little monetary value but it is gold. The stones are not diamonds but are very sparkly, which obviously attracted the fish. Goodness knows how long it had been in its belly.”
Jamie is willing to return the ring to its rightful owner, who will be able to describe its distinguishing features.
In another fishy find earlier this year, a businessman who lost his mobile phone on a West Sussex beach was amazed when it turned up in the belly of a 25lb cod.
And in America, a Texas man was left gobsmacked after a ring engraved with his name turned up inside an eight-pound bass, 21 years after he lost it while out fishing.