Back again

Obsessive and selfish abandonment ?


We're just back from a week in Limone on the shores of  Lake Garda. 
Lake Garda is apparently typical of a moraine valley, having been formed under the action of a Paleolithic glacier. It is Italy's largest lake at 51.6 kilometers long with an average depth of 135 metres. 346 metres at it's deepest point!
Anyway, I thought I would put that bit in because I think it's  relevant to what follows.
As is usual for me on holidays where I have a chance to do nothing most of the time, I take books along to read.
One book in particular which I picked up to read whilst sitting on the hotel veranda over looking the lake,in the company a bottle of Chianti, was Jon Berry's 190 page Beneath the black water.

The room's view!

 I say picked up, what I really mean is, I couldn't put it down!
It took me about three and a half hours to read, my location probably helped.
The Chianti was quite warm by the time the bottle needed to be emptied!


Basically it's about Jon's, initially obsessive hunt, trolling for salmo ferox, over perhaps a serious three year period in the glacial created lochs of the Scottish highlands.



From sometime in 1997, he abandons friends, girl friends and a wife,he also mounts up substantial debts to hunt down ferox trout. 
He also writes about his on and off quest over 12 years, including fishing the lakes of Cumbria and the loughs of Ireland for ferox. 



Sitting by Garda it set me wondering, and this is where the relevance comes in, if such creatures exist within it's waters, it's certainly known for it's charr and  trout, so maybe?
Jon certainly describes the Scottish lochs in much the same way, except this one, apart from it's beauty, is far from the desolate highlands described, it is choc a block with tourists.
Even so my mind did wander a little whether people fished Garda for ferox


I picked the book again a couple of days later, and for the first time since reading Johann Wyss's, Swiss Family Robinson in my youth, I read a book again.Three hours from start to finish non stop.
So as you can imagine I found the book highly readable,  perhaps for me mostly thought provoking!
Whatever happened to Martin? I asked myself after both reads.A very close friend of Jon's who started on the quest with him, and suddenly, "I never saw Martin again".
It takes all sorts, and none of this is a knock against Jon personally, he admits it himself.
I tried to see myself in his shoes and to be honest I couldn't, my temperament is perhaps far from selfish, I certainly have never been obsessed enough with anything to abandon people/family.
Certainly not fishing!
Fishing for me, is not about one species, or even really worrying about catching fish, it's not life changing, well it shouldn't be.Should it?
Get hold of a copy, whatever your views on catching fish may be, it is a very good read

I didn't take my travel rods with me by the way, sitting on a lake in temperatures well into the mid 30's, although tempting,didn't appeal. Plenty of chub about, awaiting the tourist crust!