There comes a time when a father must take his sons in hand and enlighten them in the art of fishing. It is a ritual, a rite of passage. And so, the time comes for me to take my boys, Freddie 6, and Jonny 4, fishing for the very first time. The age-old struggle between mankind and his environment can be distilled, in part, into the microcosm of Hunter versus the Hunted. Man v. Fish.
To defeat such a wily adversary, preparation is everything. Firstly, equipment must be checked. Rods, hooks, bait, bucket etc. must all be in good order. Essential supplemental equipment is also required. Cooler – check. Ice – check. Beer – check. Then there is the great debate over bait. Prompting cries of “urgh” and “aaah” in equal measure from my two hobbit-sized charges, we decide on squid.
Upon arrival at our local dock, a pre-determined target-rich zone, we unload and set up. By “we” I mean, of course, “me”. The boys’ excitement is at fever pitch as I sagely inform them that all things come to those who wait and that there are plenty more fish in the sea. Having run out of banal platitudes I hand each boy a rod. Naturally, a fatherly demonstration is required and as I cast the line it flies in a shimmering serpentine arc across the water, landing with a satisfying “plop” about ten metres from our position. The boys marvel at my prowess. So do I.
Fishing for little Jonny is not so much a contemplation but a deadly exercise in endurance and concentration. Ironically, he seems to have the attention span of a goldfish. No sooner has the bait hit the water than he is pulling in his line. As nothing has suicidally impaled itself upon his hook I encourage him to try again whilst I continue in mortal combat with a part-frozen squid and an annoyingly blunt knife. The squid is winning. My task is made all the harder when I am forced to duck for cover with a small fish-hook buzzing around my head like a lazy wasp on a late summer’s evening. Jonny is casually wafting his rod around and when he painfully snags my T-shirt it would appear I am his first catch of the day. We could be here a while!
It’s not long before Jonny’s inherent generosity of spirit takes hold. Clearly the fish are hungry and he decides to fling all the bait into the water. A frenzy of fish fighting follows as the food slowly descends to the sand. Like a one metre-tall Greenpeace eco-warrior he has single-handedly thwarted all my efforts to catch any fish at all.
We stand in contemplative silence looking into the water, the boys thinking, “Wow, that’s a LOT of fish!” I’m thinking, “Wow, that’s a LOT of bait!” After a quick slug or three of ice cold beer (thinking time you’ll understand) I remember I have another box of squid in my cooler.
Freshly baited, we try again. Jonny is handed the role of fish spotter, while Freddie casts his line and waits… and waits… and waits. His eternal patience runs out after about 30 seconds or so and he reels the line in. Empty. The bait is gone but no fish. Fish 1, Freddie 0. We try again. Same result. The fish go two-nil up. Hmmm. Try again. Three zip. We seem to be onto a bit of a hiding. Einstein’s definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result”. On the other hand, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again.” I philosophically debate this conundrum until Freddie gets a strong tug on the end of his line. Take that, Albert! The rod starts to bend. What mysterious leviathan tasks him beneath the waves? Come on son, heave. As a father I desperately want him to land his first catch, but as a man I am desperate that we don’t lose it and am dying to take over. It is that age-old struggle again. Man versus Fish. I gently offer to take the rod from Freddie and graciously he hands it over. Wow, this is a real street-fighter of a fish. It runs, I reel. It runs again. It must be tiring. I know I am. Eventually we catch our first glimpse of my adversary. “It’s not very big!” chimes Jonny. Funny how the simple words of a four-year-old can cut you in two. It is indeed not very big.
The fish is landed into our bucket and I am soon quizzed as to what kind of fish it is. “Erm… it’s a… um…” I embarrassingly reply. Turning adversity into an opportunity for some educational research I direct the boys toward our fish identification card. Why do the drawings on these cards bear so little resemblance to the actual fish in the sea? We decide it’s probably a grunt of some sort. Quite appropriate considering the noise I was making as I tried to pull it in. We spend a few minutes looking at the not very big fish before releasing back into the sea.
There can be few better ways for a father to spend time with his boys. Fishing may have been the reason but in truth it is all about the experience of just hanging out together. Learning. Laughing. Living.
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