In January of 2016, I ran into my mentor and friend Lefty Kreh at The Fly Show in Sommerset, NJ. He called me from across the aisle, shooing fans away in the process, telling them he had to “talk” to me with that little grin and his trademark chuckle. “Sit down, Meredith, we need to chat”, he said with a pretty serious expression on his face. “First I want to tell you well done on your recent Muskie records. Blane told me all about them and said you handled yourself well.” I glowed in the presence of such praise from Lefty, but what he said next humbled me to no end. “Now, let’s talk about all these “crap” records you are putting up on the board. Meredith, you are a good angler and I expect more from you.” I had a feeling I knew what he was referring to, but the little girl inside of me could only respond as a scolded child. “What do you mean?”, I asked sincerely afraid of what I was about to hear.

Well the next 20 minutes, I got a real up and down “talk to” from who I refer to as the “Godfather of Flyfishing and the IGFA”. Lefty knows records and in fact was responsible for the record keeping at its beginning.

Bottomline was this: Lefty and many others believe a record is a record when the weight of the fish outweighs the size/weight of the line or tippet. So for example: “Crap” Records would be all my White Bass Records where the fish weighs about 1.5lbs and my lines are between 2-12lbs tippet. A “real” record, what I now dub as a “Lefty Record” are ones like my Black Drum where I landed a 43lbs fish on 12lbs tippet or my 37lbs Redfish on 16lbs. Since our “chat” and now with Lefty holding me at a higher standard, I have upped my game and am working hard on only posting those records in which he would be proud of me.