It has many beautiful memories and I'm sure Mozart can relate to some...
The smells of fishing.
A rather bizarre heading. To some it would conjure a rather unpleasant fragrance of stale bait, engine oil and diesel fumes…the harbours, wharfs and piers... For some who know what I’m talking about it brings a sentimental journey into the carefree days of youth…of a child who accompanies a father a uncle or some peer who takes him on an adventure into a dimension of life that is never ending. Fishing is not about only about catching fish but is an introduction to a full spectrum of life. The environment where fish are found in the way they were created is perfect before man interfered and commercialized it. It was nature at it’s purest.
My first recollection of fishing was when my father said he would take me and my brother fishing. I remember the first introduction well…the day before my dad prepared traces while my brother and I watched with great fascination. The trace to the hook, he demonstrated to us must be stronger than the trace to the sinker. Why we asked…his logical answer was; if you hook a fish and the sinker gets caught in the rocks, you don’t want to lose the fish do you. That made perfect sense to our young minds as after all that was the purpose of fishing wasn’t it? Well, indeed in this context it is but unbeknown to us at that time we would learn that there is far more to it than this.
We sat in hero-worship as we watched dad make up the traces. In our little minds we pictured the fish being caught and the thrill of bringing home to mummy to cook for us. Unbeknown to us this was an instinctive call in man…the hunter and the capturer to catch and eat those things created by God to survive…long before shops and supermarkets…it represented independence and self-sufficiency.
This has sadly changed over the years because of commercialization. Children today just eat what’s put in front of them without taking a thought to its origins. They eat a tasty leg of lamb with gusto but if you reminded them that it was that cute wooly creature that they hugged on the animal farm that the school tour bus took the class to, they’d be horrified. As the populations of the world have grown, so we have been forced away from the roots of natural existence…we have lost touch or been disconnected.
Dad finally completed the preparation of the following day’s adventure…adventure it was to us as we had never done these ourselves. He told us that we were to go to bed early as we would have to wake up very early because that’s the best time to catch fish. In our little minds this made sense to us because yes the fish must be hungry and wanting their breakfast after sleeping all night…in a child’s uncomplicated logic and reasoning this all made good sense. Dad also said that the tide would be low the next day so we could cut red-bait from the rocks. Dassies (blacktail) and Hottentots love red-bait and those were the fish we were going to catch.
Christopher and I could hardly sleep that night…it was rather like the night before Christmas…the anticipation and excitement was that intense to us then.
That day we caught a few fish on the rocks at Baileys Cottage in Muizenberg…dad catching most of them but with his casting assistance we managed a few. Fish were in abundance in those days…they seemed to be biting the minute the bait settled down in the turbulent gullies which dad cast into. Mum cooked them for supper and never did fish taste so good.
These memories have stayed all these years, helped by the odours of the churned up surf (a very clean, sea weedy and distinct smell that the Western Cape waters have)…the pungent odour of fresh red-bait combined with the not unpleasant smell of freshly cleaned rock fish.
As years went by I slowly climbed the elevator to different types of fishing, more sophisticated and successful fishing …a lot of it I cannot remember but this day remains clearly in my memory. The day too has firmly engrained in my senses…the smells…the odours and the fragrances.
A year or 2 later our environment changed. Mom and dad were divorced and we moved to Pietermaritzburg in Natal. Moving here did not deter my love for fishing. We discovered fish in a little stream that flowed 300 yards from where we lived. Water always attracted me and one day I was peering into the stream I saw small silvery fish swimming under a rock. This was exciting…I was determined to catch them. I did not know what they fed on but I had heard somewhere that river fish are caught on flies. I thought flies meant simply the flies that bother you…houseflies. So I took the fly swatter and swatted a few. These I impaled on a tiny hook and dangled my hand line underneath the rock I spotted these fish. These fish (KZN Scalies or yellow fish as we they are known today) were not in the least interested and ignored my offerings. I was puzzled and flummoxed…what they eat went through my young mind; my mum said why you don’t try bread. So armed with a slice of bread or two I went back to this rock. I did not even know that you had to mould the bread into a dough-like ball. I put a little bread on my hook and to my surprise the little scaly took it. I managed to catch a few. Great excitement…I spent many an afternoon after school looking for scalies under rocks. In winter the water was clear but when the summer storms came I could not puzzle out where to catch them as the waters flooded and became brown. Then one day I saw boys fishing the stream with corks and little hooks…they cast upstream and let the float drift down with the current. They were catching lots of scalies and the odd eel and were using flying ants (termites) for bait…the ones that come out in the November evenings during the thunderstorms and amass around the lights. This was very effective…something like nymphing or free drift but with bait. You cast up stream and suddenly your cork went down and you struck. We caught scalies like this up to a pound but no bigger. It was tiny stream…called the Dorp Spruit. Today it is polluted and hardly flows and I doubt if the scalies are still there.
The eels though were quite big sometimes…my friend battled with a 6 pounder once. This amazes me today…just shows how we have fouled up nature.
I remember the distinct earthy odour of the Natal Scaly and whenever I catch and release one on the fly rod, pleasant childhood memories come flooding back. Something there that’s forever. The smells of early rain, the earth in Natal, the smell that it takes after the burnt grass in spring has a flagrance of it’s own…the sounds of the Burchells Cougal, the Piet My Vrou, the Tink Tinkies, the Frets, the Ruddy Waxbills and the river has a smell…well it had in those days that was earthy and pleasant. The cooing of ring-neck doves and toppies all adding to this wonderful display of sounds and smells and even more than literature can describe.
From there I graduated to fishing for trout in the Umzimkulu…fly-fishing in paradise in those days…my uncle’s farm Glenside had several kilometers of this productive water. It was hardly fished in those days. I grew to love Underberg and all the Natal Drakensberg. The smell of wet earth, burnt grass, the delicate aroma of the natural bush, the chants of the guinea fowl and the calls of the partridge (francolins) and caws of the raven conjure up a type of ecstasy for me…the odours of wet Wellingtons and waders combined with the smell of freshly gutted trout lying in your canvas bag or creel. The musty, woody smells in the farm-house of animals, fowls, old furniture and thatch. The characters in faded tweed jackets, deer-stalkers and good pipe tobacco…speaking in polite and good English.
This kaleidoscope of all these senses, pictures and sounds encompasses and fulfills my love of fishing. So much more than just catching fish.
Wherever you catch fish or angle…you will find a distinct beauty…the variations are vast but each has its individual attractiveness. The sea, the Natal Drakensberg, The Midlands, the Fynbos areas of the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape are enriching to finer aspects of man’s soul.
These are the aromas and sounds of nature at its best…fishing brings you here…the fish, oh well that’s just a bonus.
