Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 6, 1990                   TAG: 9006060186
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

ONE FISH THAT DIDN'T GET AWAY

We're talking of course about July 5, which marks the anniversary of the capture and slaying of the world's second-largest carp - maybe the third, don't split hairs - right here in Wytheville.

This was no mortal carp. It lurked in Silk Mill Pond, now part of the Wytheville Community College campus. It is a modest pond, 20 yards by 40 yards, that would have made Ernest Hemingway roar with derisive laughter.

But it is a wonderful goofing-off, killing-a-Sunday-afternoon place for little boys, which is exactly what Tam Topham was doing on July 5, 1970.

Tam was 10 years old then. His brother Tim was 12. They lived just a few hundred yards from the pond.

"We were just fishing, hanging out, and we saw something really big out in the middle, but we couldn't tell what it was," said Tam, who is now 20 years older than a 10-year-old.

They fetched an aluminum boat and their dad, the late Ben Topham, and set sail in search of the elusive monster.

It didn't take long to spy the threatening dorsal fins slashing the pond's surface.

Spencer Tracy could play Ben Topham. The Atlantic Ocean could play the pond. Orca the Killer Whale could portray the World's Second or Third Largest Carp. This has movie potential.

And the nominations for Best Mammal Portrayal of a Carp (Cyprinus carpio) are . . .

Ben Topham slung an arrow through the carp, and the reel mounted on the boat sang as the fish bolted.

"It's hard to remember because it was 20 years ago, but I'm pretty sure that fish pulled the boat a ways," says Tam.

All hands on deck helped hoist the mortally wounded mutant, ending the watery drama.

It weighed 60 pounds and it was 45 inches long. Say what you will about carp - about their bottom-feeding, about their bony meat, about their ruthless destruction of fishing fleets. Sixty pounds of carp meat, any way you slice it, is a lot of carp meat.

An 83-pound carp was supposedly caught once in South Africa. Nobody knows much about it. I say we strike it from the records. Leo van der Gugten bagged a 75 1/2-pounder in France in 1987.

Then comes the Topham Terror.

Wytheville taxidermist Bill Six stuffed the carp, and for years it hung in Topham's sporting goods store/tavern. Ben died in 1984 and the stuffed pond behemoth was relegated to the Topham basement.

Don Linzey, an associate professor of biology at the community college, caught wind of the legend last summer. He specializes in vertebrates, and the idea of a fish with a plow-horse-sized backbone caught his fancy.

Linzey tracked down the fish, the college paid for some taxidermic repairs, and now the world's second- or third-largest carp hangs inside Fincastle Hall.

Waves of tourists are expected any time now. They'll probably show up July 5 - when most people are throwing firecrackers, grilling burgers and thinking about large carp.