In all fairness the beginning of the game is mostly window dressing and you aren't actually facing any of the "big enemies", just passing through.
Not to mention the Mind Flayer you "kill" early in the game is basically already an agonizing corpse when you meet him (and he still presents a deadly threat to the the player, somewhat).
Yeah, I've found it's a lot easier to just hit the mind flayer itself with a quick spell or attack rather than facing the mind controlled fishers anyway.
