Fishing for grockles

Grockles they were. Grockles are non-fishermen, writes Joe Bennett this week.

They were walking a dog by a river in sunshine on New Year's Day. They were smiling and cheerful as befits the first day of a new decade that promises catastrophe, war and plague over much of the globe in unprecedented quantities while we, safe on our small and distant islands, look on with puzzled detachment.

Their dog was about to leap into the river when it saw me and stood still.

I was standing in the river, wearing a green canvas hat, polarised sunglasses and a green vest that has more pockets than a snooker table. I was carrying a fishing rod.

"What are you doing?" said one of the grockles.

In reply to that question I could have said many things. I could have said, "I am washing the world from my flesh, the synthetic world of shopping and Lotto and the Pope and the CIA, all of which are much the same, and all of which I am encouraged to take an interest in and none of which I actually take an interest in, as is true of everything on the news, the holiday road toll, sharemarket volatility, the wittering of dietitians, the whole facile caboodle.

"For as Thoreau once put it, more or less, if there's any news you need to know, it will find you, and the rest is fiddlededee.

"So right now in this water as fresh as creation, I am undergoing a rebirth from which I shall emerge as innocent as a baby, but an awful lot more civilised than a baby because I shall not bawl, I shall eat with my mouth shut and I shall control my bowels, for a few more years at least."

But I did not say this.

I said, "I'm fishing."

"Oh," exclaimed the grockles with delight, and they nudged each other and said "Isn't it wonderful? The man's fishing," to each other in low appreciative murmurs.

Then one of them spoke again.

"Are there fish in here then?"

I do not deny that it crossed my mind to reply that no, this river was as barren of fish as Riccarton Mall, and that I was standing thigh deep in it merely to amuse dog walkers. But I did not say this. I said instead, with what I like to think of as manly simplicity, "Yes, there are."

"Oh," said the grockles once again, "who'd have thought it?"

Throughout this dialogue the dog remained on the bank, its tail wagging. It clearly wished to join me in the water but desisted out of fishing etiquette.

"Not only," I went on, "are there fish here in a general sense, but there are also fish here in a specific sense. There is, to be precise, a fish just over there," and I pointed with my rod to the far side of the pool where I had spotted a sinuous smudge of grey, hovering in a channel between the weeds from which it was distinguishable only by the way it moved from side to side to feed.

"Where?" said the grockles.

"Right there," I said, as I cast my tiny fly.

By what I am prepared to admit was something of a fluke, the fly landed soft as a kiss half a yard ahead of the smudge and then, to my delight and amazement, I watched the creature float upwards as unconcerned as the summer sun and take the morsel from the surface. I tightened the line and there was a miniature explosion of water as the fish discovered it was hooked and a major explosion of water as the dog leapt into the river.

"Here, Polly, here," shouted the nice grockles, but the dog was deaf with excitement. It wanted the fish.

So did I, however, and I was a match for the dog. I let the fish run deep down stream until the dog lost any sense of where it was, and I called the dog to me and patted its wet shagginess, and then the grockles called it and it went to them. It was a good dog. I brought in the fish, unhooked it, and lifted it up to show the grockles. It gleamed and winked in the sunshine.

"Oh bravo," said the grockles, and would you believe it they actually clapped. I felt like bowing. But modest as a virgin, I just lowered the fish and cradled it in the flow to revive it, felt it wriggle and let it go.

"Thank you so much," said the grockles, "and happy new year."

"A happy new year to you too," I said, and they went on their way and I went on mine in the summer heat and the clear cool water and for a moment above the gurgle of the river I heard the angels sing.

» Joe Bennett is an English-born travel writer and columnist who lives in New Zealand with dogs. His columns are syndicated in newspapers throughout New Zealand.

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