If golf is a good walk ruined, fishing makes the act of sitting around and not doing very much a supreme test of human endurance. My grandfather was a keen fisherman. He could plunge his bare hands into a glass of water and come out with a twelve-inch trout, he was that good. My father missed out on the fishing gene and it soon became clear that it’d skipped more than one generation. Suffice to say, my father is a terrible fisherman. I, on the other hand, am not quite as good as he is. Truth is, I always found it easier to catch a cold than I ever did a fish.
If golf is a good walk ruined, fishing makes the act of sitting around and not doing very much a supreme test of human endurance. My grandfather was a keen fisherman. He could plunge his bare hands into a glass of water and come out with a twelve-inch trout, he was that good. My father missed out on the fishing gene and it soon became clear that it’d skipped more than one generation. Suffice to say, my father is a terrible fisherman. I, on the other hand, am not quite as good as he is. Truth is, I always found it easier to catch a cold than I ever did a fish.
Despite an absence of aptitude, we were required to try our hand and, if that failed, fishing rod. I would have been no more than six years old when I received a rod of my own. In fact, it wasn’t so much a rod as it was a giant cork with fishing wire wrapped around. Apparently, I wasn’t to be trusted with a proper rod. I spent hours staring at my oversized cork, wondering just how large the bottle must have been. My brother and I were taken to a variety of windswept, desolate locations where we expectantly lowered our hooks in the water and began the long and interminable wait to go home.
When it came to fishing I was useless at everything. To start, I found the idea of baiting a hook repulsive. This was attributable to the fact that, in an effort to be thrifty, we used live worms dug up in the backyard. Trying to thread one of those suckers onto the hook was not only difficult but downright nauseating also. In the end, I resorted to tying my worms on with cotton to avoid harpooning them. Getting the bait on was the first of many problems. It seems I was incapable of unspooling my fishing line without it becoming an intractable Gordian knot. No sooner had it dropped off my giant cork than it was a bird’s nest, useless for fishing.
Despite the fact that I showed little in the way of aptitude or interest, I was eventually promoted from cork to rod. Whilst you might think this kind of upgrade would better my chances, it was not to be. About the same time I received the rod, I was given my own tackle box. It was blue with lots of compartments for hooks and sinkers. There was little variety. As men of substance, we didn’t go in for frippery like lures or anything that might increase our chances of actually catching a fish. We were, in that sense, purists.
Had the object of fishing been to imbed the hook as deeply as possible into a sunken tree trunk, I would have been an out and out champion. I’d go so far as to say that there’s not a fisherman alive who can capture a lump of wood as quickly as me. I wouldn’t even wait to wet my line before hooking a hapless eucalypt when attempting to cast off. It’s a shame that more meals don’t feature wood as a key ingredient. We would have feasted like kings. Sadly, every lump of timber I hauled in was, in the traditional fishing manner, kissed and returned to the water from whence it came.
As for the fish, the sight of me picking up a rod gave them a much needed chance to relax. But we kept on trying all the same, perhaps in the hope that genetics would kick in and I would suddenly get good. The day never arrived. We’d stand by the side of a river, a huge supply of replacement hooks and sinkers by our sides, and wait for the sun to disappear. At some point, the bait on our lines would vanish, as if stolen by a master thief.
We were staying on the Goulburn River, outside of Shepparton. I was as adept at camping as I was at fishing and, after twenty-four hours, was waiting for the chance to load up the car and go home. But first we had to fish. With our rods in our hands and fishing lines limply dipping into the water, we waited as swarms of mosquitoes feasted on our faces and arms. Without warning, my line drew tight and I got the shock of my life. In all my years of fishing, I had never seen a tree branch fight like this before. But then the unthinkable occurred to me – what if, instead of a tree, this was an actual fish? I tried not to panic as I reeled it in.
As the beast was hauled from the water my father pulled a face, saying, ‘It’s only a European carp’. It was, so he told me, barely edible. I told him I didn’t mean to carp – European or otherwise – but that we would either be eating this fish or having it stuffed and mounted in the living room. We ate it. Frankly, the whole experience left a bitter taste in my mouth, although that could easily have been the carp. I should have let it go.
It’s often said that to spare the rod is to spoil the child but if that rod is a fishing rod, you’d be doing the kid a huge favour. As for me, my fishing days are long gone and the rod and reel have gone to that great shed up in the sky. Tellingly, our father never went fishing without us. I think he was as relieved as we were when it was over. Fishing is so hugely popular that I feel a little guilty for disliking it. Still, I tried my best. But it was only a matter of time before fate would unhook me and send me back on my way.