If you believe horror movies, ghosts lurk in the
dark halls and stairways of old manor houses. There they wait, ready
to lurch out and scare the living daylights out of an unsuspecting visitor.
Some wait to remind the perpetrator of their foul deeds and sins.
My ghosts have none of this movie magic, instead
they lurk in the stark black and white type of the stories I have
had published. They wait, ready to leap out and make me pay for
some of the content of my stories past.
Many fishing magazine writers, myself included,
try to incorporate into their tomes, some of their fishing knowledge,
techniques, and how-to’s. A recurring theme in many of my articles
over the past five years has been the need to attend to the details
of fishing, before fishing. Check, and double check, before you
are on the water, has been something of a catch cry for me.
The ghouls and demons of these pieces of advice
haunt me often. Too often. How come I ignore my own advice so
often? The adage, ‘do as I say, not as I do,’ springs to mind.
What follows is a small but telling sample of some
of my ghosts.
My family’s piece of Xmas holiday Northland paradise
has appeared in this magazine before. This day Ed the lad and
I were sitting in the tiny tinny, bobbing in the swell and backwash
from an offshore rock. We were surrounded by a good berley trail,
zillions of mao mao, trevally,
and kahawai. Under this aquarium
lurked some big kingis.
In the middle of all this bobbed two balloons being
further bobbed by the frantic manoeuvres of a couple of live baits.
The live baits could see the kingis, and so vice was versa. The
balloons did not bob for long. One, suddenly dipped deep, the
restraining cotton broke, and the balloon floated free. My line
went tight and then tighter as I buttoned up the drag to strike
force.
Ed reeled in his line, clipped a buoy to the anchor
warp, started up the motor, threw the anchor warp over the side,
and the dance began.
Much huffing, puffing, grunting and groaning later,
the kingi came into view. It was big, perhaps very big.
"Grab the gaff," I tiredly mumbled to
Ed.
"What gaff," enquired Ed?.
"The gaff that is always in the boat,"
I replied. Well, nearly replied. For the sake of delicacy, my
reply has been more than a little sanitised.
Ed’s look said it all. The day before he had gone
out in another tinny, and ‘borrowed’ the gaff. It did not require
the brains of a whitebait to work out where the gaff lay.
What followed is now politically correctly called
a ‘full, frank and meaningful exchange of views.’ In fact, to
err on the side of honesty, what followed was a full and frank
explosion of my views.
It transpired that fathers never forget gear, sons
do. More specifically, sons forget father’s gear. Sons it appeared,
forcefully put, are irresponsible, with no thought for others.
The discussion became even more wide ranging, if not particularly
pertinent to the original point. It included dissertations on
the state of the bathroom after sons use it, the state of the
bomb-site called son’s bedroom, and similar. All highly germane
to the problem of the forgotten gaff, you notice.
Young Ed mumbled an enquiry as to whether fathers
knowing so much about son’s behavioural characteristics, should
have checked on the whereabouts of the gaff prior to leaving the
beach. This question was met by the full verbal assault
that fathers keep in reserve for overpowering sons when there
is some remote chance that sons may be at least partially right.
There is a small river, about an hour drive from
Auckland, that holds good numbers of smallish trout. This water
is close enough to allow for a mid afternoon bolt for a few hours
fishing till dark. Great for those times when the brain needs
some panel beating from the dents and dings of city life.
My routine had become just that, a routine. A quick
trip home, grab the vest, flyrod, and waders, and off to the river.
On this trip, the routine varied very slightly.
On a previous expedition I had noticed a large shape lurking at
the far side of a very deep slow moving pool. There was a chance
this might be one of the rumoured large brown trout. So I made
sure there was a spare spool containing a wet line in my vest.
I arrived at the river, and from my car park on
the bank of the river I could see a good trout, a brown, working
the weed line along my bank.
I was instantly out of the car, into waders, rod
assembled, the spare spool out of the vest, and my hand grabbing
for the reel. Oh no! No, no, a thousand times, no! Not now. No
ghosts, please.
A frantic search of the inside of the car, my vest,
and around the car, revealed no reel.
The brown swam on, leisurely picking up whatever
he was picking up from the base of the weed. I drove off, homeward,
to find the reel right where I had left it, on the bench.
A week or so later, another opportunity arose for
me to play truant. With the vision of the brown in my mind I drove
home, grabbed the vest, waders, and with my attention focused
by bitter experience, carefully patting the vest to ensure the
reel was in its usual pocket, and then off to the river.
Down at the river, at much the same time, and exactly
the same place, and incredibly there he was, again. Up and down
the weed bank he meandered at a regulation lope, pausing often
to inhale some delicacy.
The play began again. Out of the car, into waders,
rod assembled, the reel on the rod. Yes, the reel was there, but
not the spool.
The trout, perhaps frightened by the vibrations
caused by the ferocity of the staccato burst of obscenities that
poured from my mouth, swung out into the middle of the pool. It
faded into the depths disappearing for all the world like a ghost
into the gloom.
There we were drifting along close to The Dog, just
off Cape Brett, Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Mark Kitteridge and I, with the Dean of
Kingfishing, Ross Davy. It had been a long day. Despite the collective ‘wisdom’
on the boat, the day to-date had not been interrupted by a kingi.
We were well prepared. Mark and I had spent the
previous evening, tying knots, setting drags, having a few beers,
telling stories, some true, others nearly true. Usual night before
stuff. I even went to the trouble of stripping the reel I was
going to use, oiling and greasing the parts that needed it.
It had to happen. One of the jigs we were dropping
to the bottom, and winding back again at full flank speed, got
knobbled. The kingi took off, and line fairly tore off my reel.
On and on it ran. A long way for a kingi.
This run was accompanied by the usual yahooing and
screeching that seems mandatory for an angler on what he thinks
is a good fish.
"Did you set the drag on that reel," gruffed
Ross, in his own laconic way?
"Yes," I confidently replied, "I
stripped the reel last night."
"There is not a hellava lot of bend in the
rod," Ross observed.
"This is a real brute of a rod," I replied,
but with just a smidgen of doubt invading my previously authoritative
confidence.
The rest was over quickly. The kingi, tired of this
silly game, swam around, over and through the rocks and weed as
kingis do, and that was that. Testing the drag, revealed about
2kg on 15kg line. Both Mark and Ross suggested that setting the
drag after stripping a reel was a good idea. Any reputation for
pre-fishing thoroughness I may have had, became a mere ghost of
its former small self.
Ghosts are great travellers. Weightlessness has
a lot going for it. They can reach the Three Kings Islands, 80km off the Northern tip
of NZ, in the blink of an eye, which is about how long it took haunt me
yet again.
The lure was a sure fire, dead certain marlin catcher.
I had waited some time for this particular head shape and skirt
colour combination. The obliging Mr. Pakula, of lure making fame, custom built it for
me.
I let the lure out over the side, ensuring the hooks
were riding up at 60 degrees in the approved Pakula way, and reassured,
let the leader slip through my hands.
The lure slipped back, and back, and then it was
gone.
Between screams of derision one of the crew asked
if you were supposed to clip the leader of the lure to the main line. My enquiry
as to whether his parents had ever managed to get around to getting
married, became lost in the babbling banter that followed. The
howls and cackles from the demented hordes of all the hounds of
hell could not have drowned out that lot.
Truly ghostly was the next episode.
Mark Kitteridge and I had been fly-fishing near Taupo,
and come home-time, I, in my lazy habit, pulled the rod in half
and laid it, still with the line through the guides, on the back
seat.
A couple of miles homeward, and suddenly the rod
on the back seat bucked and jumped off the seat, for no apparent
reason. Muttering about poltergeists and taniwhas we continued
on our way.
A couple of clicks down the road, the same thing
happened. The rod jumped up off the floor and banged into the
door. Strange, but still unexplained.
Twice more on the journey, the rod danced to its
own tune. Strange indeed. A rod with a life of its own and the
back seat of the car you are driving in, is the stuff of late
night movies.
On reaching the motel all was revealed, but no ghosts
were included in this revelation. A leader trailing out from under
the door, had intermittently wrapped around the rear wheel, causing
the rod to buck and heave. I lost about 3 metres off the fly line.
I was lucky I did not lose the rod.
The list of these, oops, could go on. It could include
the lures that have been run with the covers still on, or the
shackle rigged lures run without the hooks. The waders grabbed
in haste,and discovered to be Ed the lads pair at riverside. The
new tackle box filled with everything, but hooks.
Mr. Samuel Johnson, of Shakespearean times put it
well. "The art of memory, is attention to detail." The
ghosts of Sam’s words haunt me too often. So do mine.