Such variation is no luxury,
never treat it as such.
Wonderful things should exist
beyond the petty trivia
of those games played at fêtes
in which you have to guess their number
or collective weight.
More appropriate was the exercise
laid down by our English teacher:
‘Next lesson, bring a button, any button,
And we’ll build a life around it
paragraph by paragraph’
which I did, no difficult task
given the medley in my mother’s jar
and the time I’d spend mulling them,
reaching in to hold a fistful for a second
before it slackened and tipped
like rain through my fingers;
a multi-coloured cascade of shapes and sizes
connected only by their four open spaces,
dead centre, regular as compass points or seasons,
all the things we might use to plot a journey
across those wonky, tumbledown inclines
balanced against the sleek glass sides,
sloping upward to one small, bright foothold.
Image created with DAL-E AI
Down I dug, and the objects kept coming, so that it seemed almost like digging down into some ancient well site and lifting out votive offerings – a key; a number of coins both old and new.
A slight move to the right continued to turn up these little curios - a clothes peg, a small rubber bouncy ball and a little plastic toy figure, until I realised with a start that I actually recognised these last few things. The toys belonged to my daughter, no doubt left out at the end of a day’s play only to sink down slowly into the earth. The peg was one of a set we were last using regularly five or six years ago, recognisable by its colourful plastic design, and no doubt pinged down to the grass from its tenuous grip on a towel or a bed sheet on some breezy summer’s day long since passed. It’s already begun, then, I thought. Earlier than I thought we might, we were already becoming our own history.
I continued to dig. But why all this effort? Even though I would be fishing carefully manicured lakes, the wilder element in me still clung stubbornly to the untameable. Searching desperately for any vestigial link with the sea, I become fixated upon one fish: the perch. Perhaps it was a throwback to my coarse roots, the bristling have-a-go likeness to the bass or even just the olive and black jungle wildness of its colour scheme that attracted me. Whatever it was, through the twenty years I have been wetting a line, and all the hundreds of monthly angling periodicals I have read, the perch has been one of the few fish that has lodged itself firmly in my thoughts, its tiger stripes searing into my imagination.
I have actually caught a perch some time ago. Bored with the endless tedium of taking roach after roach on feeder and float tactics, I decided to regress to boyhood (can any angler really ever claim to have actually grown up?) and tie a hook, via a three-foot length of mono, onto a gnarled old stick laying at hand, dropping this very basic rig down alongside the bank in front of me.
Within seconds, a fin-perfect three-ounce perch was in my hand and I immediately thought that I’d never seen anything quite so glorious in my life. A beautiful miniature that, despite its predicament, seemed to stare me out as though saying Come down here, longshanks, and I’ll chew yer face off. Ever since that moment I’ve hankered after a big perch, an obsession which, in a roundabout way, explains my current predicament. I have decided that, if I must endure the torment that awaits me, I might as well take a pot of lobworms with me and at least give myself a fighting chance of fulfilling my long-held dream at the same time.
Which was all very well and good, but in the meantime, my good lady returned home and began surveying the carnage.
This was frightening.
Shouting I could put up with, threats even, but she stood there, silently shaking her head, scanning back and forth over the crater with the look of a cod that has just been smacked around the head. I think she was probably looking for shards of shrapnel, survivors or any other evidence of the bomb that must have caused this muddy chaos.
I decided that I may be in trouble, so thought it best not to speak. Ever again.
One sweat-grimed hour, a garden that would take three weeks to put back together, and a look frosty enough to chill an eskimo’s whatsits later, I had eight worms. Eight. This had better be worth it.
The big day dawned clear and cloudless and, despite the events of the previous day, I found myself in a surprisingly buoyant mood. I arrived at school for half past eight where the group of intrepid would-be piscators stood waiting in a kind of ramshackle parade, their motley array of cobbled-together tackle, much of which looked like it hadn’t seen the light of day for at least a few years, making me smile at the memory of my own early fishing days. A few pairs of wellies and a dozen carrier bags filled with sandwiches and pop were loaded onto the minibus and we were on our way with no problems. Everyone here? Everyone buckled up? So far so good.
It was only when we were halfway to our destination that one of the boys (let us refer to him for now as Bobo. It just seems to fit, as you’ll discover) sidled forward.
“Sir.”
“Yes, Bobo?”
“What do you reckon to these, sir? Think I’ll catch a load of fish using these?” at which point he produced a large box of hand tied flies in and endless combination of colours, sizes and opalescent tints.
“They won’t be any good to you today, Bobo. We’re going to a coarse fishery; there’s no fly fishing there.”
“Oh.”
Although I’m no fly fisherman, even I could see that this was an impressive collection, so how a young lad had come to be in possession of at least two hundred hand-tied flies was making me extremely curious. “Where did you get them, Bobo?”
“My mother gave them to me to bring. They belonged to her first husband. He died.”
That lightened the mood nicely.
At this point I looked over Bobo’s shoulder and noticed that, on our day trip to what is regarded as one of the finest coarse fisheries in Wales, he had come armed with a twelve foot, four to eight-ounce rated beachcaster that probably possessed enough grunt to relieve a whale of its spine. My mood began to resemble the last balloon left at the party – lifeless, limp and draped pathetically over my shoulder.
It was going to be a long day.
*
We arrived at our destination without further incident and, to be fair, it did make a pretty impressive sight. From our high vantage point in the car park we had a panoramic view down over much of the six-acre expanse of the fishery, with its numerous small lakes spread out before us, looking like pools of chocolate after the recent rain. To our right stood a series of log cabins built for the serious carpers who come to spend weekends and, occasionally, even weeks here.
It was a striking place alright, and many of the ingredients were there for any nature lover – an abundance of overgrown flora bursting with life and colour, dragonflies sparking in and out of the margins, kingfishers perched amongst the reeds and even a buzzard, working the sky in its long, lazy loops over one of the further lakes. But something didn’t quite sit right.
It wasn’t simply the fact that this was a coarse fishing venue. I love sea fishing but could often happily picture myself wasting a few hours beside some overhung, trilling stretch of the Wye, Avon or Stour, but when it comes to these commercial fisheries, I can’t seem to get past the fact that all of this is man-made, a created fantasy borne of the designs of one man rather than a series of interlinking natural processes.
Let me put it another way. Imagine, if you will, that some panel of cultural gurus had commissioned Botticelli to depict, in paint, the perfect woman, a woman so gloriously stunning that she would make Venus croak like a jealous old crone and stagger off her shell. He paints with love and painstakingly laborious care, lavishing her with a master’s focus so that, when gazing at the painting, your brain is tricked into believing that this is more than it seems to be: this is art made flesh – the eye can’t help but linger a moment too long upon a pair of smooth legs, running over milky thighs and up to the exquisitely feminine curves of the torso that catch the light like polished alabaster. At this point, though, you discover that somewhere along the line, old Botticelli has been given his marching orders and they’ve drafted in Picasso to finish off the head. Interesting, yes, but something doesn’t quite gel, the elements don’t fit together. This, in a nutshell, is how I feel about commercial coarse fisheries.
“What are you fancying today, mate?” my colleague Steve asked. My last experience of coarse fishing had been a decade before, and then it had only been roach fishing under a waggler, so I was deferring to his greater experience.
“I don’t mind mate,” I replied. “As long as there’s a bend in the rod.”
We descended en masse upon the office to pay and check in, the boys buzzing excitedly around us like something out of The Lord of the Flies. Each of us paid in turn and walked away with a free pot of maggots that would be of little use if we were to feeder fish here, the fish displaying a preference for sweetcorn and small boilies.
Glancing at the map of the venue while strolling in to the office, we had spied a small lake tucked away at the back of the fishery, in a neglected corner far from the more popular specimen and match lakes, ignored for these more appealing, better stocked lakes closer to the amenities. Passing a few anglers on the way down, we made enquiries as to what could be caught in this lake, picking up replies like ‘Bits’ and ‘A few F1s.’ Now, I’m no snob, but the thought of fishing for something that fell off the back of an algebraic formula left me feeling somewhat cold until Steve hissed in my direction “They’re carp, mate”, which immediately perked me up no end.
Now here was something I can work with, a target I can really get my teeth into, as I had never before caught a carp. Ah well, if the perch didn’t fancy it at least I had a back-up plan.
I trundled on with the blind faith of a pilgrim, determined to find the perch swim I knew was waiting for me somewhere out there. After a short time, and to my utter amazement, I found it, and it was perfect, just as it had been in my imaginings. To my left lay a shaded corner wearing a patchwork quilt of leaves and dappled by the shade of an alder, with a small bed of lily pads just beyond; right in front of me, about twenty yards away, lay a couple of small overgrown islands that were densely populated with reeds and grasses. If there were predators about, then surely this was where I was going to find them.
The main problem with this swim, however, was that it was, quite literally, a dump. Either there was a small herd of deer roaming the grounds nearby or the angler who had used this swim before me had very innovatively tried to break the monotony of a fishless session by conducting their own poop-a-thon. The swim was littered, nay, festooned, in faeces of all the various natural (and some quite unnatural) shades of brown. I hadn’t brought any form of seatbox as I had decided to travel light, carrying my gear in a rucksack. On the balance of things though, the swim really was too good to turn up, so I decided to take my chances, pulling up and unloading my gear at Crap Central.
With trembling fingers, I threaded the line through the rings, setting up a basic feeder rig, planning to offer up a bed of wriggling fat maggots on which to lay my worms. Despite my misgivings I was almost at the point of contributing to the poop-a-thon with excitement as I reached into my bag…and discovered that my worms, all eight of them, were still wriggling around in lively pristine condition. The main problem with this was that they were still in my fridge. Right, compose yourself. Not to worry; I also had a full half pint pot of maggots, enough to tempt any self-respecting perch within casting distance.
I cast in, landing the rig no more than twelve inches from the first of the small islands and, with a little air punch, settled back into the session. As always, the urgency and tension that builds up before the first cast washes away the moment it’s in the water. The building heat of the morning and the gentle buzz of the flies lulled me immediately into a semi-doze so that the half breeze block I’d salvaged for a seat was digging into my backside began to creak with the soft give of a wicker creel underneath me and Bobo, now attired in tank top and short trousers, hair carefully brylcreemed into a middle parting, materialised at my feet, gazing up awestruck at a master at work.
“Now watch carefully young Bobo, and you too may one day master such a noble adversary.”
“Gosh! Do you really think so, Sir? Could it possibly be?”
“Maybe lad, maybe.”
At this, my split cane rod hooped over, the reel screamed out in alarm and I resolutely tucked my pipe into the corner of my mouth (luckily, the tweed jacket with leather elbow patches is neatly folded beside me, leaving my arms, shirtsleeves rolled up, free) in readiness for the fight ahead.
“By golly, it’s a big one, it’s magnificent, it’s…”
I never got to see that fish because at that precise moment, the voice of the real Bobo shredded the air, making mincemeat of the tranquil atmosphere and this fragile dream-image.
“Sir! Siiiiiiiiiiirrrrr!!!!”
“Eh? Wha..? What is it, Bobo?” I asked, casually flicking another turd from my sandwich.
“I fell in!”
There was no need to explain. As he waddled around the lake toward me, I could see that everything from the nipples down was now a uniform shade of grey-brown. Amazing; we’d only been at the place for twenty minutes, were miles from the sea, and still he had managed to establish his own high tide mark.
With a flourish, Bobo stated the obvious – “I don’t think I like fishing, Sir”, and with that, promptly trundled into my pot of maggots, launching it into a beautiful parabolic arc to land six or seven feet behind me, minus the contents which instantly begin to attract the attention of the sparrows. Oblivious to what he and his meaty trotters had done, Bobo then flumped down on his back next to me, resembling a mortally wounded starfish. I hadn’t the heart to point out that he was lying in a latrine.
Okay, carp it was then.
After making sure that the pupils were set up with various float and feeder rigs, I set up an open-ended feeder rig and started to bait the swim, repeatedly casting feederfuls of hemp, crushed pellet and corn. Watching all of this was Beth, a young, timid year seven pupil who had kept herself apart from the rest of the group.
“You okay, Beth?”
“Yes sir.”
“Would you like me to set up a rod for you?”
“No thank you, sir. I’ll just watch.”
Try as I may, Beth couldn’t be persuaded to take a rod, choosing instead to sit on the bank and watch as I fished on.
An hour later, and finally the fuss had died down. All was peaceful with the world aside from the gentle plashes of kingfishers at work and the soft reverberations of Bobo’s snores threading the air.
The quiver tip, inactive for so long, had begun to gently merge into the background in the way that something that does not fulfil its only intended use will become just another part of the scenery, like dusty tools hung in the shed, or neglected cooking implements on the kitchen worktop of a takeaway addict.
Dink. Dink. The tip tapped over twice and was suddenly wrenched free of its surroundings, rocketing once more into the foreground of my vision.
Dink. Dink. DINK! The tip slammed over, stayed over, and instantly I swept the rod sideways until it hooped and locked down, causing the reel’s lightly set clutch to offer up half a yard of line with a satisfying, crotchety groan, making it immediately obvious that this was a half - decent fish.
The line planed back and forth under the water in a dogged but straightforward fight. Leading up to today, I had been preparing myself to hook into a jagged juggernaut that would slice the lake, bass-like, and fight me like some squat, angry, veteran boxer, but this fish was just…well…loping. To be fair, it did take line against the clutch, but after two minutes of fighting, my first ever carp slid over the net, its two-tone flanks relaxing into the grass like buttered toffee in the early light. Okay, it wasn’t a perch, but I still felt absolutely ecstatic. That first experience of anything in angling is always still the best feeling in the world, and one of its most effective opiates, driving the angler straight back for more. With trembling fingers, I quickly rebaited and recast, eager to get back amongst the fish. The rig plopped over the same spot and settled into the rest.
Within two minutes the rod hooped over again. YES! Again, I struck into the fish, it took line against the lightly set drag and after two minutes it slipped over the lip of the net looking like buttered to…hang on a minute...This looked like exactly the same fish. Maybe it was. How the bloody hell was I supposed to tell?!
Right. Hang on. Gently cradling the fish, I walked a few swims down the lake, about fifty yards in all, before releasing the fish then trotting back to my swim to rebait and recast back over the bait bed.
I didn’t have a chance to sit back down before I was connected to another fish, all tussle and shoulder, that scrapped away, zigging and zagging back and forth before slipping over the net like bu…oh, sod it. This was getting stupid now.
Just as I was pondering my way out of this hall of mirrors, I heard a plip followed by a fit of giggling; another plip and more giggling. I looked down to see Beth staring down into the water just out beyond the margins as it erupted once more to the surface -sucking action of a mob of tiny mouths. Some of the maggots so gracefully hoofed from their pot by Bobo earlier had managed to evade the attentions of the local bird life and wriggled their way to the edge of the bank, only to squirm into those waiting mouths.
Picking up a nearby stick, I tied off two feet of six-pound monofilament, all that I had lying around, to the smallest hook I could find, baited it with a stray maggot picked out of the grass and handed it to Beth.
“Go on then.”
“What? Me, sir? What do I do?” She resembled a tiny woodland creature that had just stumbled onto an A-road and become aware that it was about to become roadkill.
“Just lower it into the water slowly.” Gently, she lowered the baited hook and almost instantaneously was plugged into something, the shock jolting up her arm.
“Woah! What do I do?!” Her face flickered like a faulty computer monitor, her thoughts as frozen as a crashed website, stuck somewhere between utter panic and sheer joy.
“You just…” but already my words were redundant as that hidden instinct, there somewhere in all of us, kicked in, and she flipped a tiny fish into her palm with another of those little giggles. A perch.
As I looked down at the tiny fish in Beth’s palm, my own dream perch turned away and began to merge back into the silty depths of my imagination. That’s the funny thing about dreams like this. We develop an almost parental relationship with them – they are delivered to us suddenly one day, and we can do nothing but nurture them, watch them grow and develop and change over the years until they come to form a central part of our lives. And maybe, after all those long years, some of us achieve these dreams, catch the fish that we have loved and felt haunted by for all that time, and some of us have to watch as others achieve them in our place until one day, perhaps one day…
I looked around me and saw the same thing waiting to happen in some of the members of this small group, all of whom I’d known since they were trembling, petrified eleven-year olds in a uniform too big for them. In a few short months some of them would seem suddenly taller, voices a shade deeper, and in their swagger an increased confidence and hunger for the great wide world, ready to march out, chattering, through the doors for the last time in search of long-imagined futures of their own.
Somewhere on the bank behind us, the feeder rod, idle in the rest, sank slowly back into its surroundings again. Just before we had to wake Bobo there would be time for a few more. We impaled another maggot on the hook and began to lower it down into the margins, our blurry faces wobbling in the sunlit water as another host of tiny mouths rose to meet them.
Serialisation of ‘Waiting for a Hunter’s Moon’ by Simon Smith (with permission). This book is published by and can be purchased from Cambria Books HERE
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