Out near the centre the big fish sulks. It is seemingly collecting it’s thoughts after taking him in all directions because of the light-action Abu’s lack of grunt. On land, he cautiously leans back on the rod and feels gradual movement towards him, like the times he’s hooked a log or similar and attempted to slowly drag it close enough to free whichever lure it’s tried to claim. Then the fish starts to move left again but not with the purpose of before. Is it tiring? It’s put in enough effort over the last five solid minutes to need a rest. How old must it be? He hadn’t considered that until now. He has no concept of how many summers and winters the epic fish has seen. It obviously can’t be young any more. And perhaps, like an aging heavyweight who can still start the first few rounds strongly, it’s there for the taking by the seventh. Then another thought concerns him; what if it’s too tired after fighting too long to be able to swim away afterwards? Bloody hell, if it died that would be worse than losing it. He would rather the fish threw the lure and lived due to his lack of skilful playing of it than stayed hooked but couldn’t recover because he’d played it carefully. So he decides to go against all his learned angling behaviour and horse the fish to shore as quickly as he dares. And if it escapes because of that......well.....he’ll lose sleep for years, but so be it.
He tightens the drag on the Citica and leans
the rod back, much harder than before.
This already feels completely wrong but he’s chosen it as the way
forward and resists the urge to steady up again. The line starts to travel slowly right and he
pitches the rod leftwards to side strain in the opposite direction. He feels the fish turn and for the first time
since he hooked it he feels progress in his favour. As he draws the fish towards him he winds the
gained line onto the reel and now anticipates no threat of it being taken back
from him. The sheer weight of the perch
still feels for the entire world like a snag but the gradual movement, as he
draws to what feels like breaking point while winding line onto the spool,
tells him it’s all fish. And it’s
getting nearer. A vast swirling boil in
the water just ahead of the line’s entry point jolts him as the reality of
potentially physically holding this fish sinks in. The blood is pounding in his ears again and
he can feel his heart beating in his throat.
This is scarier now because he’s so close. Injury time. The final lap.
The short span of minutes when losing hurts way, way more than back at the
start of the match or the race. The
eternal knowledge that it was right there
and won’t be again. Another almighty
swirl of water, closer now, and he physically sees the vast back of the perch,
clear of the surface and not far in front of him, with it’s mast-like dorsal
dominant. The fish is almost stationary
and he barely knows how to proceed because the spectacle of the scene is
causing a lack of brain function like never before. He stands with the line
just tight and the perch like a dog, static on the end of a barely adequate
lead. The fish has no more fight. He can clearly see that. But he’s fumbling his thoughts. Draw it nearer? It’s too shallow now; the fish is in the last
of the deeper water that his net would need.
Go in for it, then? The lake bed
looks more stony here and he would
risk walking on it. He takes his first steps to the edge and, as slowly as he
can, his first steps into the pond. He
feels the slight chill of the autumnal water going in through his boots and all
the time he’s braced to nervous breaking point for the fish surging away again
from in front of him. It holds,
mercifully, in situ.
Burned out by it’s efforts it can only
suspend with swaying tail and fins as he edges nearer, heart pounding and his
mouth drier than New Mexico
this-can-not-be-real......
this-can-not-be-real......
in a voice that sounds like it has stage
fright at a school play.
******************************
He’s up onto a thick bank of leaves deposited
over weeks by the prevailing wind. In
the absence of the mat (that he decided he would never need at a perch pond)
this will be the landing pad for the massive striped visitor during it’s short
stay away from it’s natural element. He
wants all this done as quickly as possible.
Weigh it in the net, photograph (next to the net for scale) then back in
the lake. The net is resting down on the leaves and he can barely take his eyes
from the vast area the mesh clad fish is covering in front of his feet. He’s dug the little Salter scale from a
pocket and is hooking it onto the net frame it’s zeroed for. It’s black metal hook rattles as his hand
trembles all through the procedure. Then
it’s the time. He starts to raise the
scale upwards and feels it strain against the net it’s trying to lift. The tiny white marker sails down the line of
numbers, past three pounds, four pounds then five pounds. Bloody hell. The net and it’s spiked captive are still firmly
grounded. The marker passes six pounds
and he feels what is almost anxiety course through him. Six pounds and the fish still hasn’t left the
leafy ground it seems rooted to. His
hands and the scale are wobbling with a mixture of effort and adrenalin. The familiar pulsing in his neck has
returned. The marker is down to seven
pounds. Seven. Pounds. It can’t go any further.
(Literally it can’t, because the
scale has bottomed out at that figure.)
Seven pounds. Whatever it weighs
beyond this will never be known because that’s as far as it goes, end of the
road. Seven pounds. He really may well be sick at any second. The
tackle shop owner’s voice is in his head;
catch a
perch that bottoms these out and you’ll be famous.
The marker is wedged down at seven. The fish is raised but still resting on
leaves. He lifts further and, with slightly
more effort, he feels the net and perch gently swing clear of the ground. How much more was that? He’s frantically trying to guess....four more
ounces? Five? No way to ever know and no way he ever
will. But one thing is doubtless.....the
fish went seven pounds and, in the knowledge of that, he needs to kneel down
before he keels over from the light-headed daze surrounding him.
Photograph.
He goes to the chest pocket he slid the camera into. Not there.
Oh shit, no. The jetty. The camera dug into his ribs and he placed it
on the jetty. He looks back along the
shore. Jagged wooden legs jut from the
water to show where the jetty (and his camera) used to be. That. Cannot. Have. Happened......
But it has.
So....phone camera. Which is on
his phone. Which had no signal. So stayed in the car to make more room for
the actual camera. Which is at the
bottom of the lake. You. Are. Kidding.
You know what? Balls to it.
He wants the huge fish back in the water now and staggers to his feet
then heaves the net and fish off the leaves and up. He reverses the journey
with the net, grasping the frame with both hands again, back to the water’s
edge. He sets off slowly into the lake
once more and sees his rod and reel lying on the bottom ahead of him. He passes them and stops when he’s knee deep
in the pond. Then he lowers the net
slowly down to the surface and beyond and sees the fish stir as the water
immerses it’s hefty body. After a minute
of letting it acclimatise he tilts the net down and back while reaching in and
supporting the fish from below. He
realises this is the first time he has physically touched the almighty
creature. Then he slides the net away
and drops the handle to let it fall back to join the already submerged rod
behind him and he’s left cradling a perch so immense that it renders him
speechless by it’s might. He sways it
gently back and forth in the water. The
fish puffs it’s gills and lake debris discharges from it’s giant mouth,
collected when it inhaled the Castaic crayfish currently lying on the lakebed
near his feet. He raises the fish’s vast
spiked dorsal and gazes in disbelief at how it does indeed match his hand for
size. A seven pound perch. That’s what he’s holding. That’s what he’s rocking to and fro in the
cool water and that is what is now starting to show signs of recovery. The big body has a fresh tenseness, as though
muscles have renewed strength. The amber
fins are rippling and the dorsal is raised unaided. He continues to sway it and the water makes a
subtle flowing sound as he does so. He
feels the first flex from the fish but keeps hold. He wants a couple more of those before he
releases it’s huge frame from his hands.
He knows it’s leaving soon and he strokes it’s vast thuggish head
because he also knows he’s going to make a point of never seeing it again. The perch flexes once more, now with renewed
strength, and he suddenly feels how it was able to power away from him with
such ease when he hooked it. He slowly
removes his hands from the fish’s flanks and instead holds only the thick wrist
of it’s tail. The perch stays perfectly
upright in the water and begins to sway itself against the gentle restraint
he’s using to make sure it’s energy is restored. It flexes powerfully now, it’s bearings regained,
and he opens his fingers to release the tail he’s been holding. He feels that
tail flow from his hand. Then he stands
fully upright to watch it’s progress, willing to wade in (hell, swim in)
if he has to in order to help it further if need be. But that won’t be necessary, because it
glides away like a ship moving off after getting launched on the Clyde . He strains
to see it for as long as he can below the gentle bow-wave it cannot fail to
cause. Then it’s lost to him, blending
in to the deeps as the wave peters out.
No trace exists. No sign to even
show that the startling event he has just experienced ever took place. His
brain is absorbing a barrage of mixed emotions; jubilation, despair, anxiety
and disbelief. Then after standing and
staring at the surface of the lake for longer than he’ll ever realise he turns,
reaches down to retrieve rod, reel, lure and net and swishes his feet towards
shore where he badly needs to sit down.
******************************
He watches water drip from the Citica and
vaguely accepts he’ll need to take it apart to clean. He’s got most of his gear
packed and is readying himself for the thorny struggle back to the car. He
looks again to where the jetty once stood and briefly contemplates an attempt
at retrieving his camera from the lake but disregards the idea. It shall
forever remain an offering to The God Of Striped Fish. He pledges a media blackout. None of the angling comics will hear about
this. In fact, nobody will. The circus will not descend. There’s no photographs, so no catch. A blank, in fact. Bloody
crayfish everywhere, he’ll say.....ruined
the place.
Then one last shake of the watery reel and
the Citica is back in his largest pocket.
So, where does he go from here?
What will motivate him after that
fish? Will he really head out, on a wet day, to the muddy canal with it’s
dog-crap riddled towpath, to jig for perch that weigh ounces and can be swung
to hand and held between finger and thumb?
Oh, this is going to be difficult.
This does not bode well at all for what has been his primary focus (and
enjoyment) for decades. He briefly
remembers a history lesson at school and the ancient words from a book about
Alexander the Great that he was forced to plough through;
And when Alexander saw the breadth
of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.
No
more worlds to conquer. The elation from
today’s event is caving in to hard reality. The slump after the peak. What does he aim for now? An eight pounder?
At
the moment, getting back through the savage undergrowth, as uninjured as
possible....that can be the start and he’ll take the future from there. He manages a last look at the surface of the
lake. The silence and calm seem to bizarrely contradict the events of the day. He
takes one final moment to pat a waistcoat pocket, checking a particular small
lure box is securely packed there. It
is. This small lure box is the one thing he must NOT forget to safely take
home. Because it
contains a now much treasured item.....the Castaic crayfish that never got to
ride a fast boat on
Then
he turns again to face the mass of branches, briars and brambles ahead of
him. It’s a long trek back to the car
and he knows Mother Nature has every intention of tearing him to pieces.
Jake Hamilton
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