MY FISHING FUN IS JUST A COD...
No feast out of lone mackerel
WHO ever heard of anyone catching just one mackerel? Catching a solitary mackerel is something that doesn’t happen.
Except it does. It happened to me last weekend. A day out on a boat is never a day wasted – but catching just one mackerel at this time of year...
That’s a whole new level of disappointment. It’s disappointing for me – being the guy on the boat with the rod, line and hooks. It’s disappointing for my family – the ones at home waiting to see daddy arrive back with a bucket of fish for a feast. It’s disappointing for most of the village where I’m from – given I’d loudly announced my plans to catch buckets of fish for everyone. Yet I catch just one. Even the mackerel looks disappointed if you look at it closely.
Ritual
The poor thing probably took the hook out of boredom. I’d have thrown it back – but throwing it back would probably just have prolonged its misery. There used to be lines of people fishing from piers and rocks. Now – even in September – you won’t see that.
When I fish from a pier I’m usually on my own. A car might pull up, someone similar to me might watch for a minute.
They’ll see I’m catching nothing then they’ll move on – the rod will stay in the car. And that’s sad.
Fishing is a September ritual for people like me – and there’s plenty of us out there – but for now it is as dead as that solitary fish in that bucket.
I caught a solitary shoal fish – and the saddest part is I should be grateful that I caught any fish at all.
SCHOOLS OUT: My little catch even looked annoyed
Mackerel (and blackberries) are what makes September worthwhile. I can accept the evening darkness if there’s fish I caught myself on my plate.
Casting hooks and feathers from a pier or boat in chalky September sunlight is one of life’s truly great pleasures.
It used to be low effort fishing, with maximum reward. Now it’s just low effort fishing.
The conversation used to be “are the mackerel in?” but now it’s about how they’re never in – if anyone bothers talking about them at all.
And then there’s the ignominy of just catching one – something that’s happened to me a lot in recent Septembers.
Mackerel are shoal fish. So – basically – if you catch one you’re likely to catch many more.
Hence my annual pre-fishing bravado and promises of fish for the masses, straight from the sea to the plates of all my friends.
But – and not for the lack of trying – I only landed one. A lone mackerel. A mackerel that defied its own evolution to swim by itself.
Rocks