MATHEW SEAL

1834–1897

Mr Seal was Chairman of the Fisheries Board from 1885 until his premature death in 1897. He is credited with taking the first trout (4lb) from the Great Lake on a small devon spinner in 1886. On the day prior to his death, possibly from a heart attack, Mr Seal caught the biggest trout ever taken from Great Lake at 25 1/4lb. Apparently, as he was playing and landing this fish, he swore a bigger fish was following the hooked trout into the shore. Anglers, in appreciation of Mr Seal’s work and influence in advancing the trout fishery in Tasmania, constructed a stone cairn on the site of his death along the Beehives southern shoreline of Great Lake. This cairn is still in existence, although now covered by water due to successive increases in the lake’s storage capacity. Mr Seal's personal fishing diary, held at the Museum of Trout Fishing, provides a graphic insight to fishing in the Derwent River and Great Lake in his era.