He
tells me he threw a chair at a teacher and that’s why he has to go to ‘naughty
school’. I tell him that I wished I would have had the balls to throw a chair
at a teacher when I was at school. We are waiting on rods; I have a feeder rod
set up with a pellet feeder lying just off the edge of the reeds. I have lent the
kid a pellet feeder and a banded pellet hook length and cast them out a little
way; even on his less sensitive carp rod this is a no brainer technique
hopefully if he can get to the rod in time he will catch. To up the stakes I
have told him I will give him my spare feeder rod if he catches a fish. The
spare rod was given to me by the tackle shop owner as it needed a repair which was
just a case of replacing the tip.
I ask if the reason he doesn’t own a fishing chair is
because he threw it at someone, he doesn’t see the joke and continues to pace
while I find myself watching two rod tips. I tell him if he catches a fish
before me I will be pissed. Yesterday I had pulled out big slabs of bream one
after the other as if they were offered up to me, today is obviously another
day and the first fish is the most important omen. He asks me about the fish I
caught yesterday; he had been watching from the far side of the lake. I tell
him I don’t know how many I caught and that I do not weigh fish as I don’t work
in a fishmonger’s.
While we wait I remember school and the seemingly unending
boredom of it, I have never been to prison I think school was close enough for
me. It has been ten minutes and the tip of my rod is knocking slightly as a fish
or fish bump my feeder. He is bent over messing with the undergrowth and I tell
him unless he has eyes on his arse he cannot see his rod tip.
As if responding to my assertion his rod tip bounces and the
line slackens a little as the hooked fish moves the feeder toward the rod a
little, I tell him he has fish and not to rip its head off but just lift the
rod and wind. It is a medium sized roach and I show him how to unhook it and
then I am forced to take pictures of him with his mobile phone, mock kissing
the fish. I ask him when the last time he had caught a fish before this one was
and he gives me some kind of bullshit answer that tells me it was either a long
time ago or he once got lucky or maybe never at all.
He asks if I will
look after his fishing tackle while he goes to the shop and then not waiting
for a reply he disappears. I am left with the lake to myself; there are no dog
walkers or strays of any type only the fish, reeds and the water.
