I have never really gotten into fishing, but I tried it. Well, I got someone to hook the bait on and then someone else to cast the line into the water, but I did the actual sitting and contemplating part beautifully.
I can sit and contemplate for hours.
The wharf was busy with fellow fisher-people. There was a supportive vibe in the air as someone would hook a little fish, admire their own prowess before throwing it back. The sky was cloudy and the water was still.
I sat on the wharf, doing my contemplating while eating a packet of sour cream and onion chips. Uberkate was across the other side of the wharf, pulling in little fish on a hand line before expertly unhooking them and releasing them back to their waiting mothers in the sea.
Fishing is weird like that. The thought of actually killing anything fills me with sadness, but because I am crap at most "sports" I thought I was just taking up valuable real estate on that wharf.
Eating my chips.
My rod jerked violently. I began to yell. I was pretty sure I was going to let go of the rod, rather than my bag of chips, but somehow I managed to stuff the bag down my cleavage and wind the reel like mad.
The fish broke through the water and I promptly crapped my dacks. It was large and heavy and ugly. I literally threw the rod at Mr Woog and ran over to where my Mum was standing. Someone told me it was a leather jacket, so I quickly christened it Fonzie. A local man, an elderly Italian gentleman called Michael who had been fishing that wharf for thirty years, took charge of the hysterical situation and drew from his pocket a large knife.
I thought he was going to cut Fonzie free, but he was actually about to commit fisher-cide. I yelled at him.....
"Don't you dare...... "
Michael was of the opinion that Fonzie was of eating size, but concurred that as I had caught him, I should decide his fate.
"Release him!" I ordered, dramatically.
By this stage my antics had drawn quite to crowd on the wharf. Michael said something softly under his breathe in Italian, which if I were a betting woman would have been something about me, before Frisbee-ing The Fonze out into the ocean.
Fonzie lay still on top of the water.
The crowd started rumours on whether Fonzie had already perished from shock. I stood there with Mum, willing that ugly motherfucker to show some sign of life.
After about ten seconds, a little fin started to wobble a bit. It reminded me a bit of a scene in a movie, you know when there is a single person in the onlooking crowd that starts doing a slow clap because they believe so much and have faith in the underdog the turns out to be the hero in the end. Then everyone else joins in and creates a rapturous applause.
Well, that was me on the wharf. The single slow clapper who ended up cheering like a mad woman as Fonzie awoke from his coma and swam off into the inky darkness.
And so ends the beginning and the end of my life a a fisher person.
THE END
Some of the onlookers,
including Michael on the right.
