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Carp are cunning, a very fox of the river, as Izaak Walton said.



 
 
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Old August 15th, 2009, 11:02 PM posted to alt.fishing.catfish
Garrison Hilliard
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Default Carp are cunning, a very fox of the river, as Izaak Walton said.

Benson

Aug 13th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Benson, England’s best-loved fish, died on July 29th, aged about 25


PETERBOROUGH, in the English Midlands, is a red-brick town, best known as the
midway point on the line between King’s Cross and York. But from the bottom of
Kingfisher Lake, just outside it, urban toil seems far away. There, all is most
delightful silt and slime. A push of your probing nose sends up puffs and clouds
of fine mud through the water. A riff of bubbles rises, silvery, towards the
surface. The green reeds quiver, and sunlight ripples down almost to the depths
where you are lurking, plump and still.

Such was mostly the life, and such was the address, of Benson, England’s most
famous fish. Her actual place of birth, as a wriggling, transparent fry prey to
every frog, pike and heron, was never known. But at ten, when she was stocked in
Kingfisher, she was already a bruiser. And there, among the willow-shaded banks,
she grew. And grew. At her peak weight, in 2006, she was 64lb 2oz (29kg), and
was almost circular, like a puffed-up plaice. Bigger carp have been seen in
Thailand and in France; but she still amounted to a lot of gefilte fish.

In her glory days she reminded some of Marilyn Monroe, others of Raquel Welch.
She was lither than either as she cruised through the water-weed, a lazy twist
of gold. Her gleaming scales, said one fan, were as perfect as if they had been
painted on. Some wag had named her after a small black hole in her dorsal fin
which looked, to him, like a cigarette burn. It was as beautiful and distinctive
as a mole on an 18th-century belle. Her lips were full, sultry or sulking, her
expression unblinking; she seldom smiled. Yet the reeds held fond memories of
her friend Hedges, her companion in slinky swimming until she, or he, was
carried away in 1998 by the waters of the River Nene.

Abandoned, she ate more. She devoured everything. Worms, plankton, crayfish,
lily roots, disappeared down her toothed, capacious throat. She was a one-fish
Hoover, motoring through the food-packed sludge and through rich layers of
sedimentary smells. But she was offered daintier and more exotic fare. Cubes of
cheese, scraps of luncheon meat, bread crusts, Peperami, dog biscuits and
tutti-frutti balls all came down invitingly through the water. She sampled most
of them.

Of course, she was not fool enough to think they came from heaven. Carp are
cunning, a very fox of the river, as Izaak Walton said. She could see the lines,
and at the end of them the trembling shadows of Bert, or Mike, or Stan, spending
an idle Sunday away from the wife with a brolly and a can of beer. Often she
continued to lurk, roiling the mud to conceal herself and basking in her own
scaled beauty, as carp will. On hot days she would rise to the surface, glowing
and tantalising, with a lily-leaf shading her like a parasol. She played
hard-to-get, or the One That Got Away, nudging the line before drifting down
towards the dark serene. But then, just for the hell of it, she would take the
bait.

The first hookings hurt like hell, the whole weight of her body tearing her
tongue like a razor blade. But over the years she got used to it, and her
leathery mouth would seize the bait as a prize. Hauled to the limelight, she was
admirably unphased. This was, after all, the homage beauty was owed. She would
submit to the scales and then pose for the photographer, unmoving, holding her
breath. She had her picture taken with Tony, owner of her lake, who confessed to
the Wall Street Journal that he had “quite a rapport” with her; with Ray, who
caught her at two in the morning, disturbing her beauty sleep; with Matt, of the
shy smile and the woolly hat; with bearded Kyle, for whom she looked especially
dark and pouting; and with Steve, who ungallantly told Peterborough Today that
she felt like “a sack of potatoes” and was “available to everyone”. She was not,
but at least 50 others held her, or gripped her, for a moment or so.
Uncomplainingly, she nestled in their arms before she was lowered to her element
again.

These men had a knowledgeable air about them. They might have been a secret
society, meeting at odd hours in hidden nooks around the lake. Each had his spot
for anoracked meditation. When they spoke, it was of wagglers and clips, spods
and backbiters, size 14s and number 8 elastic. Dates and weights were bandied
about, an arcane code. For a while, Benson imbibed the philosophy of a gaudier
and more complex sphere, heard the tinny music of their radios and stared into
the dazzle of the day. There was much that she herself might have imparted, of
the mystery of reflected and inverted things. But her anglers needed to get home
to the football and their tea.
The fatal nut

Greed probably undid her in the end. She was said to have taken a bait of
uncooked tiger nuts, which swelled inside her until she floated upwards.
Telltale empty paper bags were found on the bank of the river. Or she may have
been pregnant, with 300,000 eggs causing complications, or stressed after so
much catching and releasing, those constant brushes with extinction. On the line
between life and death, at Kingfisher Lake, she breathed the fatal air and did
not sink again. And there she lay, like Wisdom drawn up from the deep: as
golden, and as quiet.

(Photo at website)

http://www.economist.com/obituary/di...ry_id=14209766
 




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