‘I leave the rod on its stand, with the float and still baited hook in the water, while I place the beautiful fish in the net to await my last salute and the end of the fishing day, before returning it to its domain. But I don’t get to finish this thought properly as I notice the float….’
I feel the sweet warm smell of spring on the moody gusts of wind, and the frozen grip of the winter weakening, day by day. The nights are not longer; and the many and various kinds of birds chirp colourfully from tree to tree, from hedge to hedge – the woods are stirring. But waters are haunting my piscatorial contemplations, for I know that frost has long now vanished from the margins of The River; and snow is slowly retreating up the mountains, as I check them each day through the windows in my grandfather’s room, towards the garden. (He sees me and understands my eagerness; and sometimes, by the stove, he lovingly – and, by my demand, recurrently – takes me along the dreamy and slow, unwinding thread of tales of past days and of past ages, when wolves came in bitter winters down the twisting ravines, and brave men and brave dogs clashed with them for the lives of the many gentle creatures they kept; how they endured stone-splitting winters; and how they would sled down the rooftops when snow built as high as the houses, in ancient times when they were little children; and folk used to cut tunnels through snow rather than shove it aside. He teaches me not to be hasty, for all things should have their appointed time and times. And I listen…) Now I know, by the slowly retreating white on the deep mountain delves in the distance, that the stirring time is upon us, for I see and feel it without, in many signs and many ways. And do I not feel it in myself…?
Many say that fish hibernate in winter and that may, or may not,be true. But winter is now going and its brown and slushy passing is shown in the risen waters of The River (I constantly now make detours through to The Bridge to check on its level and colour). I am flusteredly aware of how young I am in piscatorial years, yet I cannot ignore all the outer signs, nor the inner hope that my quarry is awake and awaiting, no matter how much I’m being dissuaded from such thoughts. (‘School’ is being invoked as the main counter-leverage in such debates. “Fine”, says I, “if you fear a flood of The River that sudden and devastating; but what about The Lake that has ever risen so slowly and has now fully defrosted? And it’s no longer winter, but spring, according to the calendar…” My poor folks…) I get a much negotiated dispensation to try at The Lake which to me implies a better prepared day, not only because it is the first piscatorial quest of the year, but also because The Lake lies further and is more secluded, surrounded by woods and very mysterious – ominous even, by its reputation. Also, I feel the challenge is somewhat greater, as I made my acquaintance with The Lake just two seasons ago and fished in there only a few times, last year. But what greatly appeals to me now is that The Lake holds kinds of fish that would be otherwise unavailable to be found on The River for many, many miles downstream. Very well, I prepare my (awesome and – as a worthy and proven inheritor – recently received as a present) cane rod with a float line… and count the days until my much awaited start.
I have neatly prepared and gone over everything many times, and secured the red compost worms I reverently dug up. All the non-essential accoutrements imposed on me at base are grudgingly prepared. The blessed morning is here, and the only thing that keeps me from leaving at dawn is the sombre warning (and a deceitful one) that no fish feed so early in the day, so early in the season. Anyway, I await my approved interval and leave. Mocking neighbours making no impression on me whatsoever, I pass the streets and alleys and then the wooded path with winged enthusiasm and slight arrhythmias – my heart gets ahead of me. I smell The Lake before I see it and all round the many kinds of birds are gladly welcoming the timid coming of spring.
The Lake has thankfully lost its frosty sheet completely. I see it through the trees now – mossy deeps and silver reflections of the surface. I also hear anglers of various degrees and habits exchanging undecipherable remarks, too loudly and too often. My heart is beating even faster and my thoughts rain questions: “Shall I find free spots? Are the beautiful fish responsive? Do they like the weather today? Were they scared off by all this noise? Will my offering be to their liking…?” But as soon as I reach the water’s edge, all else is engulfed by this happiness at being here at last – it’s been a long winter…
There are quite a few fishermen around The Lake but I soon get to a place very close to the ones I tried last season. I drink the beauty of the lake surrounded by woods and recall my bright days spent here last season, and I get this urge to make my first cast. I can see here and there that the rudd timidly break the surface, but to find out what the depths hold requires me to cast and study. So, a tiny bit trembling, I get my line and bait ready and cast all of that not far from some brown husks of cattail. I know my clunky cork float is far from what I’d use now, but at the moment I am finally here, angling, happy – and all other thoughts dissipate. I check around to see how the others are faring and I listen to their overly loud remarks – they are not optimistic, fishing-wise, but they certainly don’t decisively imply a general hibernation of the fish at hand. For better or worse, I start to thoroughly check every square foot of water nearby, as wide as the spot allows me without infringing upon my fishy neighbours. So it is that I see some tiny shades moving in the shallows around the cattail tussock. “Now what could those be? Perch? Bluegill? Surely not rudd when they are so close?”
By the time I return from my exploratory investigations my poor float lies much further than its original placement, which prompts my heart to skip a beat at the realisation that my bait offering was visited in my absence. A bit cross, I get a hang of things and raise the rod from its ad hoc stand. New ponderings arise out of the situation: “was the bait on the bottom of the lake or was it picked mid-water? Was it blown by wind and carried by waves?” This doesn’t seem likely, though. I don’t have much time to assess the situation further, for a twitch of the float tells me that something indeed has taken my hook and tried to dive deeper with its fresh morsel.
This further brings me to pull at my contraption and wind in a bit of line, until I get a notion of what is transpiring – which is that something is moving down there and tries to reach another patch of dried cattail and get rid of the unnatural attachment it must feel. I, on the other hand, wish nothing better than to bring it to light out of the shadowy deep, to admire and acknowledge it. This I proceed to – slowly my quarry reveals itself – a tiny spec of mossy green and milky white, delicately striped and shining in the young spring light. Oh, joy! Very much saluted, I place it in my ‘keep-net’ (my grandmother’s ‘repurposed’ market net-bag), with kindled hope. More redworm offerings follow, accompanied by more attention to the float on my part.
Now my next cast is sent a few feet further from the shore (and the cattail) for no particular feature in, or on, the surface of the water is visible there; what was visible were short lived and delicate circles left behind by curious rudd in a couple of places, while I was scrutinizing the area. With a new purpose, I cast as far as I can with what I’ve got and while I fumble with the reel’s check (I couldn’t find another time to study its rough working mechanics, apparently) my float starts to dance and slide erratically. I forget all about mechanics and start winding in a thing less stubborn than the perch – and shinier. A rudd, a beautiful and most welcome rudd! For some reason the rudd invokes in me the coming of spring much more than the perch does. I warm it in my palm a bit and smile happily; such a beautiful creature, such beautiful creatures!
I leave the rod on its stand, with the float and still baited hook in the water, while I place the beautiful fish in the net to await my last salute and the end of the fishing day, before returning it to its domain. But I don’t get to finish this thought properly as I notice the float…catching speed along the shore, towards another patch of dried plants, under some overhanging hawthorn and blackberry brambles. I currently return to my rod as fast as I can and decidedly strike, finding that a very agitated and camouflaged thing is dangling at the end of the line. It calms down when I hold it on my palm and it watches me closely – I have a feeling that it asks me if it can keep the worm in exchange for obliging me. It is beautifully coloured and seemingly well hidden in the lake’s watery realm but it is spiky and spiny in a few places, betraying that it is a predator with an otherwise cute demeanour. “Very well, but was it you and your kind that I saw, earlier, roving among the cattail stems? I think I will have another go at your tribe, seeing as you’re the closest to the water’s edge.” And so for the next half an hour I proceed to convince one or two more little bluegills to come to the shore and join the others in the keep-net.
Soon, I find that no longer seem to plan on a certain fixed place to cast my baited line and float, for I begin to understand something new: with each bite from the fish my float takes one of a few possible courses: if it heads towards the cattail but deeper, then itis a perch; if it runs to the shallower margins, it’s a bluegill; lastly, and rarer, a rudd rather twitches it in place before taking it a little towards the centre of the lake. Bluegills are fast becoming the ‘go to’ distractions when other fish are harder to impress by the only bait, or its presentation (apparently, based on the oral lore of the lake, the fish all have something called ‘feeding hours’). All of this has made my choice a good one, seemingly, since I have a lot more action today than most of those around me; and some begin to murmur something about ‘annoying children’. I obliviously hunt for these, unbeknownst at the time voracious intruders, with a pause to try for the perch and the rudd from time to time. These latter ones are superbly coloured and shining, like living white silver, but rarer and a bit more cautious, which is to say that they are harder to get with a hook that is a bit too large for their delicate and tiny mouths.
By this time I am long lost in the happiest of thoughts and very grateful for this whole day. At last, something prompts me to raise the float a little and cast again, not too close to the plants in the water, yet not too far. This time the waiting is longer, as is the worm that I have I set on the hook. Meanwhile, some, if not most, of the fishermen are leaving the lake. Perhaps this is because of the wet chill of the approaching evening that is slowly settling in. I go to study and admire the beauties retained in the net again and again, and I start to ponder how much I can push the limits of the guideline that “I must be home by the time it gets dark outside.” Presently I prepare to return the fish, when in the slowly diminishing light I see my float agitating. Will I get to enjoy yet one more fish to admire before I go? I grasp my rod and eagerly await another sign from the float, but nothing happens. I wait…I wait…nothing. Well, it must have changed its mind or felt the hook and left, I deem. Still, I can no longer delay, I have to pack and leave (or I’ll be sorry later – it’s a school day tomorrow), so I start winding in, when suddenly the line tightens and something starts pulling from the other end! Well, it seems that today I am being rewarded for persevering – another perch, judging by its colours – but its shape and countenance is even burlier than that of the perch seen so far. “Wait! I know what you are, you are a ruffe! Well now, this is interesting! Not as big as the giant one that my father caught last year, close by, on the other spot. But still, it is very serious looking in the grey light and represents a fourth species for me to conclude this day’s angling!”
It takes much longer to get the fish to release the baited hook than it took to bring it in from the deep (and it eventually retained the worm for its efforts). I take a long and joyous look at it and release it into the rippling surface. I pack up and grudgingly say “good night” to The Lake. I turn, pass the thicket, then continue under the pines until I reach the clay path and leave through the woods. Faintly, the stars are beginning to show. I utter a resounding “thank you” within and walk smiling towards the village, in the cool murmur of the spring evening.
Writing Solithar, March 2026
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