He was perhaps fifty. This estimate is subject
to a too-long-ago early teenage memory. Everyone over 20 seemed
old at that time.
Fishing a wet-line, he had moved to halfway down
the pool. Permission to enter the pool requested and granted,
and I waded out to mid-thigh at the head of the pool above him.
My first cast nearly fell on the opposite bank. Back then, to
my immature mind, casting long distances seemed to be the prime
distinguishing feature between a real fisherman and a duffer.
"Fush yer feet firrst", he grunted.
"I beg your pardon?" I said, in the deference
to age that was still quite common in those days.
"Fish your feet first", he slowly and
more clearly enunciated, "you have just put down some good
fish".
I did not have a clue what he was on about, but
all was soon revealed.
He backed out of the pool, and asked me to join
him up on the bank, 5 meters above the pool. There he carefully,
and patiently pointed out prime trout ‘lies’ in the pool, and
suggested some of the best ways to swing my flies through those
lies.
However the thing that turned his theoretical explanations
into indelible experience, was the sight of a shadow moving from
the deep water, across to place where I had been standing. The
shadow solidified into a trout, which took up station behind a
rock very close to where I had been standing, casting. Another
shadow moved into view and slid alongside a clump of weed just
below the first seen trout. The fish had been right at my feet.
Well, they were, until I had blundered into their lie.
He quietly explained, that the first thing a good
angler should do approaching a pool, is nothing. Nothing in the
water that is. I should from a good vantage point, study the water,
and try and identify where fish would most likely to be holding.
To prove his points he guided me back down to the
head of the pool. Under his close supervision and in no more than
ankle deep water, I began casting, at first short, then longer
casts. Covering the water completely and very thoroughly, we worked
our way down the pool in close tandem, sometimes wading shallow,
sometimes waist deep. All the time we were conscious of the need
to place ourselves in careful position to best present the fly
to probable lies. We caught fish.
At home time I thanked my mentor. He replied that
thanks were unnecessary as he was only helping himself. My bumbling
into the pool had not only put down my fish but their panic had
most likely put down his fish as well. His tuition would reduce
the chances of a novice ruining his fishing again. A great attitude,
and one that would solve a lot of problems on the more crowded
rivers of today.
The fish your feet message, I found, applied to
other forms of fishing.
On moving to Auckland in my late teens, I took up
rock fishing. For a time I followed the herd and tossed heavy
sinkers into the middle distance. I quickly came to believe in
the old put-down that the great thing about surfcasting is that
you never have to worry about cleaning the fish.
It was not until I watched some Alvey men throwing
unweighted baits into the wash close to the rocks, and catching
fish, that the ‘fish your feet’ advice for trout fishing came
to a new home on the rocks. It did not take too long to work out
that bait fish used the wash from the rocks as a food source and
cover from predators. Predators are where the prey is, so where
should I be casting? Simple really.
Sinkers spurned, fish cleaning in the kitchen sink,
once again tested my mothers fish-smell hating patience.
Letting the brain work a little more laterally,
the ‘fish your feet’ theory can be applied to fishing from a boat
as well.
My family spent 15 summer holidays, at a little piece
of paradise, just south of Cape Brett. Tinnys are the only boats
able to be launched off the beach. The Lad and I probed the coast
for miles around our bay.
This night, a late start constrained my usual inclination
to zoom up the coast a mile or so to one of my ‘spots’. Instead
we dropped anchor not 100 meters from the beach, over a small
patch of reef. In the fading light we could see the bottom clearly
below. Did we catch some fish? Well, she did. I spent a busy
hour or so baiting her hand line and removing fish. There were
some good fish too.
As we sat there, she hauling in fish after fish,
we watched the other tinnys tearing past us to reach spots up
and down the coast. This little reef has yielded many fish, since
then, and still the other tinnys roar past.
Closer to home, one of the spots that consistently,
produces fish, is not 500 meters from the Takapuna boat ramp.
The Lad and I have spent many evenings there pulling a feed of
snapper, watching boats speed past on their way to far distant
fishing grounds.
As a brief aside, I find there is something
magical about the ability to sit in a boat, close to shore, surrounded
by the lights of a big city, catching fish. Something about, we
don’t know how lucky we are, springs to mind.
I guess that fishing your feet is an attitude of
mind about fishing in general. Sometimes it requires a quick reassessment
of our fishing objectives, and the strategies we apply, to achieve
those objectives. Too often excitement and anticipation sweep
common sense to the very back of the brain.
Nowadays I find that before I blunder into a pool,
before I try to cast to the far bank, before I try to cast to
Australia, before I motor into the deep blue beyond, a quick glance
at my feet slows down the adrenaline rush.
There is something extraordinarily satisfying about
quietly contemplating a course of action and then, a plan hatched
putting it into practice and achieving a measure of success. But
then, maybe all this is some form of passing the baton received
in that trout pool so many years ago.My
fiftieth is now just months away.
Postscript: can it really be over
ten years since I wrote this piece, having just past my 60th?