HUNTIN’ SHOOTIN’ AND TIPPIN’

 

There was a craze not long ago

A kind of country pursuit

A sport known as cow tipping

Perpetrated by callow youth

 

Now due to the recession

There is a new craze to report

A rural epidemic, fly tipping

It’s popular but not much of a sport

Uncanny Tales – (019) Tales of a Young Angler

 

My father was a very keen angler and my older brother followed suit and in the fullness of time, so did I.

There was however a vast difference between my brother and I, namely that he was a good fisherman like my Dad, and I was hopeless.

Amongst other things I couldn’t bait my hook properly, I was hapless, noisy and terribly clumsy.

If I managed to avoid falling in the river, lake, or stream. I would drop something in the water instead.

The inherent problem with fishing for me was (A) the fishing rod was twice as long as I was and (B) the line had a hook on the end.

I would get snagged in weeds or bushes or trees, passers-by, my Dad, my brother, a boat, in fact you name it and I would get hooked on it.

But if all of that wasn’t enough to qualify me as a useless angler then the fact that I had never caught a fish would have sealed it for certain.

For three years I fished with my Dad or my brother or with mates and nothing, and the longer my drought went on the smaller my angling peer group became.

I was so desperate to catch a fish, but the harder I tried the worse I got.

I even dreamed of catching fish and in those dreams, I caught them by the dozen on unbaited hooks and I reeled them in effortlessly,

But when I woke again next morning, I was the same crap angler I was the night before who nobody wanted to fish with.

So, it was for this reason that I found myself fishing alone at the age of nine on Southgate Boating Lake.

I had been there all day and hadn’t even got a bite so just before I decided to call it a day, I cast my line in again, this time from the boat jetty.

My float went plop about forty feet from the jetty and I nodded to myself with satisfaction.

Within a minute or two I became aware of something digging into my foot.

I waggled my wellied foot in an effort to dislodge the source of the discomfort, but when I put my foot down, I realised I had just succeeded in moving the offending article more securely under my foot.

There was only one solution to the problem and that was to remove my boot and shake out the debris.

I lay my rod on the jetty and sat down next to it and removed my welly.

As I shook it a small pebble bounced off the jetty and splashed in the water which was when I realised my float was bobbing franticly in the still water.

I had a bite, and it was a bloody good one.

I didn’t have time to replace my welly, so I quickly stood up and snatched up my rod and line and struck.

I felt instinctively I had it hooked and began reeling it in, my maiden catch.

And there I stood on the Southgate Lake boat jetty reeling in my catch wearing only one welly.

Moments later I landed the thrashing writhing monster of the deep, a three-inch-long Gudgeon the most beautiful fish I had ever seen.

And in timely fashion just as the fish appeared a small group of angling friends were passing the jetty to verify the breaking of my angling duck and as a result I would no longer have to fish alone.

It is a day that is etched into my memory and I was so grateful for that tiny fish and incidentally that was the one and only Gudgeon I ever caught.