“IN TODAY’S AGE, WHERE SOCIAL MEDIA IS INUNDATED WITH TROPHY SHOTS OF GIANT CARP, IT’S EASY TO LET YOUR PERCEPTION OF “SPECIMEN” BE SKEWED BY OTHERS’ SUCCESSES.”

Some carp anglers claim that weight means nothing to them, but if we’re honest, we were all drawn to the pursuit by the allure of catching impossibly large specimens. Depending on where you live, you might consider a forty- or fifty-pounder to be a serious leviathan. If you’re more fortunate, you perhaps set your standards even higher than that! But in today’s age, where social media is inundated with trophy shots of giant carp, it’s easy to let your perception of “specimen” be skewed by others’ successes. 

Fundamentally, the term should only be relevant to your own desires, depending on what’s available to you, in your angling environment. That of course varies depending on the part of the world you live in, and can also be influenced by the accessibility (or exclusivity) of the big-fish venues around you.

In my case, I cut my teeth in the chilly climes of Scotland, where low water temperatures suppress carp weights and kept my standards modest. Living in a region devoid of giants, my angling bore no resemblance to the legends I read about in books and magazines – tales of hallowed places like Wraysbury, for example. Those stories concerned distant lakes I’d never fish, people I’d never cross paths with, and carp so unimaginably huge that they seemed like another species to the ten-pounders I was chasing. 

Being young and impressionable, that did bother me; I will not lie – I’d been inspired by feats of angling that I’d never have the opportunity to emulate. My chance of encountering giant carp like Wraysbury’s Mary was nil and I’d probably never set foot on a water bearing such eminence. But after a while, I stopped caring about it so much – I learned to just enjoy my fishing for what it was and realised my good fortune to angle on such quiet and untapped waters, regardless of the carp’s size. In time, they gained their own eminence in my perspective.

To a southerner, a twenty-pounder might seem run-of-the-mill, but to a Scotsman, it would be coveted in the same way a southerner treats a forty. It took me nigh-on eight years to catch my first twenty, so when it rolled into my net at first light one February morning, I held that capture in such high regard that all my previous frustrations faded. In my eyes, funnily enough, that carp held some resemblance to Mary after all, and I was content to realise that my adrenaline could flow as fast for a twenty-pounder as it could if I’d caught Mary myself.

As the years passed, my angling lead me on many an adventure. Few carp were caught, but in that time, captures were only a small part in what it meant for me to be a Scottish carp angler. I sat in beautiful surroundings where I could dream of catching beautiful fish. I was in no hurry to chase monsters, but in time, I eventually caught what I considered a specimen of a lifetime. It was a highly coveted mid-twenty common from a historic water, and one of the few carp in the country that had grown so huge. I was elated, but thereafter, I still was content to pursue smaller fish for the pure pleasure that angling offers – for a while at least. 

My standards remained steadfast for a few more years, until I chanced my luck at an outlandishly large Scottish carp. Paw Print was Scotland’s first mirror to breach the thirty-pound threshold, although that was never the main reason for commencing my quest for it. Paw’s elusive nature, and the water’s rock-solid reputation was enough to set the course of my angling for the coming years and I wasn’t to be disappointed. Eighteen months later, I emerged out the other side of the most ball-busting campaign I’ve ever executed, having finally put Paw in the net. It was a side-note in the moment, but he weighed in at over thirty-five pounds, making him (at the time) Scotland’s second largest known carp. Regardless, I didn’t want that capture to warp my perception of size, knowing full-well I’d never catch a larger fish in Scottish waters.

As fate would have it, I caught Paw Print right on the cusp of leaving Scotland for good and emigrating to the Netherlands. Life changed, so I changed with it. From then on, my whole idea of big fish angling was turned on its head as I was dropped into an environment where huge carp were in abundance. In my first twelve months abroad, I landed several fish over the magical forty-pound barrier. As surreal as that was, I could hardly pat myself on the back for it. It wasn’t my angling skills that had improved; only the fish I angled for had changed. I quickly got used to it, and one morning I caught myself slipping back a lovely mid-twenty mirror without a photo, as if it meant nothing to me. I surprised myself there, and felt uncomfortable with how nonchalant I was about it. I took note to keep that attitude in check.

The next time my perspective on big fish angling was truly challenged was when I moved to a different city in the Netherlands. On an early reconnaissance of a new local lake, I spotted the most colossal carp I’d ever clapped eyes on surging away from the margins where I’d spooked it. I knew then she was big and I suspected she could be at least sixty pounds. Getting to know a few locals, I later learned that she had in fact gone seventy, and was still growing. I wasn’t fixating on her in the beginning – truthfully, she was so ridiculously big that I found it off-putting. Targeting something so large felt like targeting a new species, and that would require a completely different skillset. Was I even capable of safely handling such a beast out of the water, for example? 

With many a good angler vying for her, the lake was understandably busy, so I took my limited angling time and concentrated elsewhere for a while, until her allure drew me back. This spring, I settled into the way of things on the lake and executed my campaign with surprising efficiency. I ended up catching the big one twice in quick succession – first, on the April full moon while pissing into a biting northerly wind, then accidentally again a month later while trying to stalk a big common out of the edge. I’m not one for recaptures, and my first reaction was guilt for taking away somebody else’s chance at catching her, but that second time, she really was huge. At an all-time top weight of eighty-six pounds, it made her without doubt one of the largest carp in the Netherlands.

It was a humbling moment, but I can’t help but recall my roots on reflection, where carp a fraction of her size were regarded as monsters. Does my capture of a Dutch giant make me a better angler than the guy pursuing twenties on a sparsely-stocked Scottish loch? Absolutely not. It just happens that larger fish are accessible to me now. To put it bluntly, I wouldn’t have caught an eighty fishing the pit next door – “specimen” is that relative to what’s in front of you.

And ultimately, size alone does not define the essence of angling. Each capture bears its own story, resulting from its own challenges. That all holds sentiment, whereas the distance the needle swings around the weigh-scale really is quite insignificant, uncontrollable, and for the most part, meaningless. For sure, there’s something breathtaking about an enormous carp filling out an unhooking mat, and the infinitesimal possibility of it happening will keep us forever infatuated with the pursuit. But they’re all incredible. In my eyes, some of those small, hard-won Scottish fish from their unique environments will forever feel just as monumental as the larger ones. 

As I write, a mate has been texting me about his endeavours on an immensely vast Highland loch with next-to-no reputation for producing carp. If he catches one this year (be it six pounds or thirty-six), he will be ecstatic and I will be for him. In the end, big fish captures are awe-inspiring, but only superficially – the truly remarkable ones are those that most profoundly resonate with your own angling journey, regardless of their size, or where in the world they may come from.

Good luck on your next session, no matter what you might be fishing for.