How big do you reckon this perch was..?

How big do you reckon this perch was..? I don't know either. In the 10 years or so since I caught it, I've even gone back once or twice to try and catch one on purpose.

I caught it accidentally, trolling a spoon over the back of the boat as my mate rowed us home after we'd emptied the battery on the Minn. I thought it was a jack, but when I went to chin it I found a stripey full of spawn the size of a rugby ball with spikes on the end.

I knew it was big, but I slipped it back without weighing it.

It turned and faced the boat, flaring its dorsal fin as I returned it - still guarding its spawning area against two hairy-arsed interlopers - before it swam off to make more perch.

I wish I'd weighed it now. I know the distance from my elbow to my fingertips is around 18", so this was one big perch. I did weigh one I caught on a livebait on the same stretch a week or two earlier and it was nudging 3lbs.

That fish didn't look anywhere like as big as this one. But a float went as I was rummaging for the camera, so I dropped it back without a picture. I found a shoal of half a dozen big perch the following season, tucked tight against a feature.

I tried and tried to catch one, but the best I could manage was half-hearted follows. Perhaps I just got the day right - totally by accident - as this perch and its peers got ready to spawn. As my lure zig-zagged past them, one lashed out to defend its territory.