Why I’m hooked on fishing

I love fishing, but more than that, I love the idea of fishing.

To qualify that, I need to go all the way back to the first fish I ever caught.

My experience started well enough as a youngster, fishing in the Jukskei River, believe it or not.

I had landed a largish barbel, ugly as sin and, as I later found out when I chucked it in my brother’s bath, quite resistant to being out of the water.

Brother was less impressed by its longevity, levitating out the bath and straight into my mother’s arms where, seeing what I was up to, she had stationed herself for when things went wrong.

Ugly bugger.

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The barbel, not my brother.

When we moved to KwaZulu-Natal, we went camping on the shores of Craigieburn Dam where the phrase as easy as shooting fish in a barrel first came to my attention.

Back then, the dam was overrun with bluegill and, as an invasive species, we couldn’t catch enough of them.

Of course, knee-high to a grasshopper I knew nothing of this, all I knew is it arrived at the point I was throwing a bare hook in the water close to the bank and within seconds I had a handsized fish thrashing on the end of my line.

We caught so many, we dumped them in a barrel with water to keep them fresh and then ate nothing else for the two days we were camping there.

The early mornings with mist drifting off the dam, the cemetery behind us with hundreds of years old gravestones, condensed milk in our coffee, the freedom of being able to wander about for hours … it was a magical time which still is as fresh in my mind as it was then.

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Except for the taste of bluegill. Never again, it’s right up there with broccoli.

Years later, I was introduced to fly fishing. Trying to learn the skill of gently landing an artificial fly and line on the water so as not to thrash the river or dam into a foaming mess still largely escapes me.

The last I tried was in the South Drakensberg a few years ago. Prime fishing waters for trout one would expect – except for me, of course.

Still, I’m also glad I never landed one.

There is an old saying for us lazy fishers: if you actually catch a fish, you’re in the wrong place.

And that’s why the idea of fishing is a lot more relaxing to me. Maybe, I’ll even attach a fly to my line one day.

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