People, Pike Fishing and Haemorriods

It is said that there is “Nowt funnier than folk” but what would we do without them?

Despite all of the problems associated with friendships you need them as much as the air we breathe.

In pike fishing, friends are with you when you discuss methods, plan trips away, they travel with you to face untold hardship, they photograph your fish, they pat you on the back when you do well and  knock you down when you don`t. They make it all worthwhile and that`s why I believe that pike fishing is all about people, it`s about you and me and we are important to each other as only we know the hardships involved in this most foolhardy pastime. 

Having stopped pike fishing for six seasons during the mid-eighties to work overseas it gave me the opportunity to look at what really made me go out year after year in the freezing cold to catch pike. After careful consideration of all the factors I concluded that many things are important but only one was vital, and that was people. People are the common denominator in all leisure activities and without them, and their conversation our interest in all things are diminished.

I can go back many years and the one thing that stands out above all is that even through the hardest blanks, people, by conversation, heated discussion and encouragement would get you through the bad times and rekindle the enthusiasm which would enable me to get back out pike fishing. I will try and persuade you by using what may seem an unrelated event which occurred during my exile in Southern Africa how people play a major part in my life and maybe yours.

After suffering a series of embarrassing appointments with the local Doctor it was decided that I needed an operation to drastically redesign my rear end in compliance with generally accepted gas emission standards, a complaint commonly known as haemorrhoids. Not a pretty subject I hear you say, painful to read maybe, but not half as painful as your orifice being cut and stretched by person or persons unknown who are doing it in the misguided belief that they are actually doing you a favour.      

I am writing this article in the interest of science and also to highlight the tenuous connection between People, Pike Fishing and Haemorrhoids. “Impossible” I hear you say, but read on and inwardly digest. 

I was admitted into a Johannesburg Clinic only to be told that I would have to wait two days for my operation. It was at this point that I was glad that I had remembered the bring some of my pike fishing books with me. This would give me time to reread my favourite literature. It had been many years since I had read “Fishing for Big Pike” and I was looking forward to the experience.

As I lay in bed thumbing through the first pages a fellow patient was returning from the theatre writhing in agony having just had a kidney removed. He was winging for what seemed ages when I snapped

“Will you please be quiet, for Gods sake it`s only a kidney, it`s not the end of the World”

The other patients looked me in horror but after all he was disturbing my reading and there are not many who would disagree with that. As I progressed through the book my memories were being revisited and the one thing that stood out in my mind above all was that no matter what I caught I could never remember all of the details, but I always remembered who I was with. I always remembered the people.

Just as I started to drift off into another wave of nostalgia, I was disturbed again by another whimpering patient who had just had a leg amputated. You can imagine my anger.

“For God`s sake, it’s only a leg mate, you have another one” I think you will agree that I was showing enormous compassion and restraint at this point considering the importance of my reminiscence. 

“They do wonderful thinks with artificials”. He didn`t get the joke, obviously not a lure man but I thought the connection quite clever. I laughed but the other patients looked at me with sheer hate. Anyway, I got back to my book which was doing a great job of taking my mind off my impeding date with the “Sowetan Butcher” or as the nurses knew him as Jim.  

The days passed quickly and I was nearing the end of the book when I was disturbed again by another sobbing inmate.

“What`s wrong with this one” I asked the nurse tenderly.

“Cataracts” was the reply, so with a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize imminent I quickly warned him that any noise for example screaming or howling was not permitted and the fact that he could lose an eye was irrelevant. Buck Up or Shut Up being the wards motto.

It was at this point that I suddenly felt isolated in the ward. Gone were the frowns from by fellow patients which were quickly replaced by huge grins as the word spread of my visit to the dreaded “Sowetan Butcher”.

I awoke soon after the operation and felt quite numb, you know the feeling after ten pints of Guinness. The operation was a complete success, no crying or moaning from me, no Sir.

Then it happened, my buttocks clamped together like a fully tightened vice. I was suffering from muscle spasms that can only be described as invigorating. All this and the plug was still in place.

“The rivets still in the hole” came a cry from behind a curtain. I bet it was that one-eyed bastard, anyway a small tear trickle down my cheek. My eyes were blurred and as they cleared, I could see three people standing at the bottom of my bed, one had a patch over his one eye, one holding a glass full of kidney stones, and the other standing with the aid of a crutch.

As our eyes met (or eye as the case may be) I thought for one second, they were going to offer me words of reassurance and friendship, words that would I would remember for the rest of my life

Then it suddenly dawned on me that after the pain had gone, after the spasms had stopped, after all of the memories of these two dreadful day`s had drifted into obscurity I would still remember the people, these people who were about to utter the words I was longing for. The people who had brought together Pike fishing and Piles by just being there.

Then they leaned forward and in unison said.

“Donovan, you are a pain in the arse” and considering my present position I think they were right.

Chris Donovan.