A View To A Gill

Relax, This Is Just A Scale Model

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Time to fess up. I’m not an angler. I’m not even an occasional fisherman. I wouldn’t know which end of a rod to use. Some years ago, while I was in England, a keen fisherman asked if I wanted to go out on his boat.

Yeah, why not. But when he said he’d be out on the water from sunrise to sunset, the enjoyment factor suddenly got very diluted. Suffice to see I spent the day looking at museums instead.

I was in my mid-twenties when I travelled halfway across the world for a good friend’s wedding. I chalked in a few things for the next few days, figuring (fairly logically) that he and his new bride would be heading off on a well-deserved honeymoon.

But no. Surprise – they were going to stay home and do things instead. The day after the wedding, the groom nudged me and whispered: "Wanna come fishing?"

No, I replied. He dug me in the ribs again. "Yes, you DO want to come fishing."

But I can be really slow sometimes. I didn’t understand. So he explained (One. Word. At. A. Time) that if I said I really, truly wanted to go fishing, his new bride would let him go to "accompany" me. "But, " he hissed, "if she knows that I’m really the one who wants to leave her the day after our wedding to go fishing, she’ll kill me. "

So I spent a couple of hours on the precipice of boredom while he fished. Then he turned to me and said: "Wanna go to the pub?"

No, I replied. He winked at me "Yes, you DO want to go to the pub."

Er, no. I wanted to go and watch the cricket instead of wasting my time watching him trying to catch fish in a billabong. I don’t drink so why would I want to go to the pub?

So I spent a couple of hours sipping iced water in the pub while he sank several beers. Late in the afternoon, I asked him how he was going to explain to The New Bride how we had spent several hours "fishing" and hadn’t caught anything other than hay fever.

But he had it all under control. On the way home, he stopped at the fishmonger’s, then presented them to The New Bride and said he’d cook them for dinner.

He's still a good friend, but I’ve never been "fishing" with him again. I have a feeling I might, er, flounder.

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