Personal Beast

‘Personal bests' are funny things. They come and they go. Actually, sometimes they don't go at all. Sometimes they stay for ever. The thing is, you never really know. 

Some personal bests are obtained by hard graft, some by pure luck, some by shameless interrogation of more competent anglers. But always they define our fishing. After catching a fish nudging up our previous best, we are entitled to feel the warm glow of smug self-satisfaction, a validation of thought process - Hurrah! We were doing it right! 

But if one is fortunate enough to catch a fish that is exceedingly more than one's compass is calibrated to - what then? What if that 'once in a lifetime fish' really is .. well.. just that, how do we resolve the dilemma that no future fish will ever match up? 

My perch pictured here weighed in at a whopping four pounds and six ounces. I had set out with the intention of catching it and catch it I did. I well remember how excited I was, like a child at Christmas in fact. The next morning I arose especially early just to go downstairs and look again at its photograph. I wondered how it was doing now, after release, whether it would call me or maybe write. 

But after the self congratulation and peer group adulation faded away as fade away it must, I was left with a strange feeling of hollow anti-climax. In time, it turned out that my catch had cured me of perch fishing, if not for good then at least for a few years. Which left me free to adopt new and exciting angling challenges like the quest for the perfect Kelley Kettle Brew. Which was good.    

But for some anglers the pursuit of ever larger 'specimens' may fuel a self-destructive obsession, where the personal best has truly become a 'personal beast' - a monkey on the back so to speak. Marriages falter, businesses founder, and the infected wear a permanent thousand yard stare. I've seen it all in some unlucky souls. 

And this isn't the sole preserve of the specimen fish cult either (though I understand that the modern term is 'trophy' fish - how terribly transatlantic). The 'less is less and more is best' mindset does of course beset the competition scene too. I wondered if this is a modern malaise until I remembered the words of dear old Izaak: 'I envy nobody but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do'