Back then, the mouth of the Waimakariri River
saw an annual salmon run. To a boy, it seemed that hundreds of
anglers would line the banks, almost shoulder to shoulder. Using
four meter rods they would cast out diamond cut, chromed lures,
and begin a long, slow retrieve, trying to bounce the lure along
the bottom.
Occasionally, the rhythmic winding of one of the
anglers stopped suddenly. The rod bent, and the fight began. The
line of anglers broke apart to allow the angler fighting room.
Using the heavy gear of those times, it required only a few minutes
before a silver bright Salmon was skull dragged up onto the beach.
Any landing produced a gathering of anglers, setting
off a learned discussion of the merits of the fish, the specific
lure used, and comments that the angler, "Always was a lucky
bastard."
Regardless of the merits of the fish to the anglers,
to this boy, the salmon lying there on the sand became a life’s
mission.
I began squirreling away meagre pocket money. Smoking,
a recent, but well-hidden passion, was given up, for the first
of many attempts in my life, ‘Man’ magazine, with, by today’s
standards, tame photos of lingerie clad ladies, secretly purchased
from the bigger boys at school, were also put on hold. Eventually,
I had saved enough to take the trip into Kaiapoi, and buy a four
meter length of Rangoon cane. Fibreglass rods had appeared but
were way outside my price bracket at the time. The staff at the
fishing counter at Blackwells, gave me the guide rings, the binding
thread, and varnish to turn the cane into a rod. Their apparent
generosity was repaid many times. They set me down a track of
fishing tackle purchases that has stayed with me ever since.For
my birthday, my parents gave me a new Mitchell surf reel. I bound
the reel onto the rod with sash cord, as was the style of the
day. Sash cord, bound round the rod, formed non-slip grips.
I was ready, but the salmon were not. It was some
months until the salmon season began. Salmon or not, other fish
were available, and training and skill building were needed.
The mouth of the Waimakariri formed a bar. Where
the river met the sea, a hook of sand extended some 70 meters
out into the surf, The surf would roll over this bar, and subside
into deep pools behind the bar.
Huge schools of whitebait, and small herrings would
use the surf to disguise their passage to and from the river and
sea. They would hold in the pools behind the bar, and using the
backwash of the waves, and the force of the river, would rush
out through the surf, to the comparative safety of the deeper
water.
These small fish had to rush. In early summer large
schools of Kahawai would enter the surf feeding on the bait fish.
Kahawai ghosted through the face of waves that reared up prior
to breaking.
These schools were an ideal training ground. I would
wade out into the waist deep water on the bar and cast out to
the Kahawai schools. It seemed that each cast would produce a
fish. The Kahawai would strike at anything that flashed in the
water. Sometimes when the tide changed, then incoming water would
force back the outflow from the river. The Kahawai would come
over the bar to chase and harry the fish in the pools. At this
point I would change tack, and cast across and back up the river.
Still the Kahawai slashed at my lures.
When the salmon returned, so did some hard lessons.
A twelve year old boy, no matter how keen, had no chance of gaining
casting space in amongst the wall of grown ups. "Watch and
learn, you’ll get your chance."
So, it was back to the bar. None of the grown-ups
fished there. Chest waders were rare, and the danger of a wave
slopping over the top of thigh waders, too big a price to pay.
It was no problem to me. Wading wet was a way of life.
If the Kahawai could cross the bar and hold up in
the pools behind, so could salmon, was my reasoning. After about
an hour of fruitless casting, I felt a gentle nudge on the line,
and the line came up tight. No kahawai had ever put a bend in
the rod like this fish. Slowly, I backed out off the bar, and
on to the river bank. The anglers lined up there, reluctantly
made room. "Probably a bloody barracuda out there on the
bar," was the general disparaging consensus. The fish came
into view, in the shallows, about 10 meters from shore. I did
what everyone did back then, and begun to back up the beach pulling
the fish with me.
"Here let me give you a hand, sonny,"
said a Voice beside me. The Voice grabbed the rod from my hand
and started to back up the beach. He went too fast, too hard,
and the lure, as it pulled from the salmon’s mouth nearly hit
me, and the Voice, as it flew back at supersonic speed. The fish
rolled out of view, and took off to the deeper water.
"Hard luck," said the Voice. The crowd
seemed to agree, and turned to resume casting. Stony faced and
barely fighting back tears, I returned to the bar.
Sometime later, a long time later, I felt another
nudge, and again the line came up tight. Once more, I backed up
off the bar, and onto the beach. Less reluctantly this time the
anglers parted. Once again, the fish came into view, in the shallows.
Slowly I began to back away up the beach. "I’d better give
you a hand," said the Voice.
"Don’t you touch this bloody rod," I said,
believing, probably rightly, that drastic measures, and from a
lad in those times, drastic language, was required. The tactic
worked, as did the slow backward walk up the beach. Soon my first
salmon lay flopping on the beach.
"Well done," was the general cry from
the crowd.
"He’s a cheeky little bugger though,"
said the Voice, "I was only trying to help. Someone should
teach him some manners."
" I guess that someone had better not be you,"
said Peter, a large Maori bloke, who had often joined me, fishing
for kahawai, " taking anybody’s rod, even a kid’s without
permission, is not on." Pete’s size precluded further discussion
of the subject of manners, and the Voice trudged off down the
beach, muttering something about, "the kids of today…..mumble,
grumble."
Childhood memories are fickle at best, and today
I have no real idea how big that first salmon was. I know that
at twelve years old, the head of the fish was by my shoulder as
I carried it down the beach with my hand in its gills, it’s tail
dragging on the ground. Mind you as I walked back, past all the
grown up anglers, I was at least ten feet tall, and by regular
account, "I, always was a lucky little bastard."
Some reckon the gods have decreed that every day
spent fishing is added to your life span. I have fished for fifty
years, and by my reckoning should live to fish until I am 152
years old, luck bastard indeed.