by Jeremy Wade
Water ran down the chilly metal walls. I knew that it couldn’t be salt water, because any leak and we’d already be history. But I tasted it anyway. It was condensed vapor from our breath. This contemplation of water made me aware that I needed to pee, and I couldn’t put it off any longer. I located one of the sealable bags that is provided for this purpose, and tried to work out with Steve if there was any way we could reconfigure for this purpose. He ended up tucking into a fetal position behind me while I attempted to kneel, at which point Karl woke up, because our shifting was making the boat rock. We apologized and explained–and this was when the sharks turned up. Like sinuous red airships, they floated into view, circling the sub and bumping it, disappearing and reappearing then disappearing again, keeping us on the edge of our seat. But they never fully closed in on the bait. Eventually they went away, and it was time to surface.
A squirt of air into the ballast compartments and we started moving. Then some forward thrust and we were following the slope upward. In such ultra-clear water it felt like low-level flying, but in tranquil slow motion. Imperceptibly the gradient steepened, until we were rising alongside the face of the reef–some of it now vertical, some overhanging, a fantastical architecture of white limestone. We arrived at the dock in the small hours of the morning. Our voyage had lasted eight and a half hours.
The next night Ross joined me in the ringside seat. We sat for hours without seeing a thing, other than the shrimps and isopods–like foot-long wood lice–that came to check out the bait. Time slowed to a crawl. With nothing to distract me, I kept thinking about surfacing to a warm bed, but the hands on my watch barely moved. The night finished as a blank, and we ascended vertically through the water column with the lights off, rocking gently in the darkness. I lost myself in a reverie that was broken by a sudden tipping and lurching, and the fear that we would flip over and plunge back down. It was the sign that we were approaching the surface.
On our way back to the dock Karl wondered if we might have been in a dead zone, a place with no water circulation to spread the scent. Down on the bottom the horizons are short, and it was possible we’d been in a gully. A case of the wrong place, in other words…
And that was the end of the time we’d booked, other than a shallow dive the next night, when underwater cameraman Florian Graner would get footage of me in the sub from the outside. But Steve wasn’t satisfied. Yes, we’d filmed big sharks up close, but we hadn’t seen one feeding. Ross and I had to go down again.
Karl decided to go a bit deeper, but the topography is complex. There is always a random element to where you end up, and when the depth gauge went past the 2,000-foot mark, the bottom was still not in sight. Then we saw a black mountainside ahead of us, and Karl halted our descent. He’d spotted a pale shape: a tiny platform carpeted in sand, smaller than the footprint of our sub. He was coming in to land.
How do you rank these moments, these places? People ask me to do it all the time: the most scary, the most dangerous, the most memorable–and I mumble, and feel somehow fraudulent because I can’t give a clear answer. But there is always a shortlist. And if I were asked to pick the most dramatic place I have fished, this unmapped ledge would be among the memories that would spool in my mind’s eye. To our left was near-vertical rock; to our right and behind us was the abyss. The depth gauge read 2,150 feet, just short of a vertical half-mile. We switched to red light and all this shrank to an intimate rock-garden, almost within touching distance.
As always, the shrimps were quickly on the scene, drawn by invisible tendrils of scent. Next came the isopods, flying through the water and clumsily bumping into my window, then burying their heads inside the pig’s flesh and fanning clouds of particles into the water with their tails. Time passed, carrying a charge of anticipation.
The face appeared from nowhere, out of blackness. Then a body longer than the sub slid past. The shark was circling us, trying to read the scent gradient. Now it was coming from the left, angling down. It went past the bait but somehow turned sharply towards us. The eye flashed white as the eyeball rolled back, to protect a wide black pupil that never sees daylight. Then it bit down. For several seconds it rolled left and right, rocking the sub as its teeth sawed into flesh. Just three feet away, the camera also rolled. We had our capture, this time on a memory card rather than a hook, but the basic principles were the same: right bait, right place, right time–plus meticulous attention to gear and procedure, which turned the opportunity into a result.
And there’s something here too, I think, about commitment. How much do you want to see that fish? How important is it? In other circumstances I might have wandered up to that dock and thought, There’s no way I’m going down in that thing–I’ll go and have a gentle snorkel on the reef instead. But I would have missed one of the most mind-expanding experiences of my life. Sometimes to get the big one, you have to go the metaphorical extra mile. Or, in this case, the real extra half-mile.
Acknowledgments
This book is a spoonful of boiled-down fish soup, in the best tradition of bouillabaisse. Many, many people contributed to the pot, both knowingly and unknowingly, and, while a few of them are mentioned in the text, it would be impossible to list all of my teachers, informants and collaborators, but my thanks are due to you all. Among those helping me to stir the mix were the shadowy companions in the background of some of these stories–occasionally heard as ‘voices off’–who, by asking sometimes obvious questions, helped to fish insights into the light. These people are the directors, camera operators and other crew members who, in recent years, have had the job of turning my scrappy exploits into educational entertainment, on behalf of the Bristol-based television production company Icon Films. Meanwhile, for helping to transform this book from a dimly glimpsed thing under the surface into something I can at last hold in my hands, I’m indebted to my agent Julian Alexander and my editors Renée Sedliar at Da Capo and Alan Samson at Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Also at Da Capo I am grateful to Bob Pigeon for casting a US angler’s eye over the text.
A version of Chapter 13 was first published in Scuba, the magazine of the British Sub-Aqua Club. Reproduced with permission. The quotation from Sun-tzu’s The Art of War is from the translation by John Minford (Penguin 2002).
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Afterword
Well, I tried to pick it all apart, but it got tangled up again. Perhaps if I strip away the context and examples, it will be clearer. So here it is in its boiled-down form, the essence of how I fish.
Remember: it’s all about right bait, right place, right time. So really think these through, especially the right place–the right water, and the right location in that water.
Remember: you may only get one opportunity, so you must make that opportunity count.
Remember that fish are wild animals. Approach the water with stealth. Don’t scare them away before you start fishing–they might be right underneath your feet.
Look at the water. Really look at it. Read the surface to build a picture of what is happening below.
Think like a fish. Where would you be if you were a fish? Where would you feel comfortable and safe, and have access to food?
Remember that less time can be more. It’s all about fishing effectively, not just putting in the hours. Sometimes it’s even good to stop and give the water a rest. (This is especially true if you’re putting lures through the same pool or stretch.)
Do your research. Talk to other anglers and weigh up what you hear. Triangulate between sources, to work out what’s reliable and what isn’t. A lot of successful angling is down to detective work.
Listen to your gut. As you become more experienced, your instincts will become more reliable.
Gear up for the biggest fish that you may hook. There’s no point hooking the fish of a lifetime if it becomes the one that got away. Don’t be emb
arrassed about using heavy tackle, if that is what’s required.
Plan how you will get the fish in, before you cast. Think through all the ‘what ifs.’ Doing this when the fish is on the line could be too late.
Be constantly ready: something may happen at any moment–including on the first cast. Don’t let your guard down, but don’t focus too intently on the fish.
Fish with confidence. If you’re not confident, find out why that is and do something about it.
Be opportunistic. Be prepared to change your plans if an unexpected opportunity arises.
Be able to tie a few knots well. Practice at home, before arriving at the water. A basic knot tied well is more use than a fancy knot tied badly.
Fish with attention to detail. Is the hook sharp? Is the line good? Are knots tied to complete satisfaction? There’s no excuse for losing a fish through human error.
Be familiar with your gear, especially reel controls and how these work. Rehearse mentally what you will do if a fish takes, so you don’t have to think about it at the time.
Practice essential techniques before arriving at the water. Casting accurately, and sometimes quickly, can be the key to success.
Be inventive. Don’t be afraid to try something new or different from what everyone else is doing. Even a non-result is a result, because it teaches you something.
Don’t assume that having more lines in the water automatically improves your chances. It’s often better to fish one outfit with concentration.
If nothing is happening, weigh the benefits of stay put versus move. It’s always a difficult one, but don’t let laziness be the deciding factor. Sometimes the best option is to pack up and come back with renewed energy.
Learn from your mistakes. Don’t let the same thing happen again. Try to eliminate all human error.
Look after your fish, and the world they live in. Professing to care about animals but not caring about their environment is an inconsistent attitude.
Think about getting in the water. Or you may prefer not to, on the wholly justifiable basis that diving and snorkeling can demystify fishing. It’s a case of personal outlook.
Keep a fishing diary. It’s a reliable extension to your mental database, and will help you to get more out of your fishing.
Remember that you never cast into the same river twice. Or the same lake. What worked yesterday won’t necessarily work today, so don’t get set in your ways.
And keep enjoying it. If enjoyment is missing it is time to quit. But it should also be a struggle. The two are not incompatible.
Teach somebody else to fish, to help secure the future of the underwater world.
These are the things I’m telling myself when I’m fishing. It’s mostly not a conscious process, but happening quietly in the background. Essentially it’s fishing thoughtfully and actively, rather than automatically and passively.
I finish with my hope that, whoever you are and whatever your level of experience, something in these pages will help to bring a special fish onto your line–and into your hands–that wouldn’t have come along otherwise.
Appendix: Keeping Legal and Good Practice
To fish any public water in the US (inland or salt water) it is, in most cases, necessary to buy a fishing license. These are issued by individual states, and are easily bought online or at authorized outdoor goods stores and tackle shops. Guides and charters will also commonly assist with licenses, as part of the package.
Depending on the state, licenses are issued by the Department of Natural Resources or other fish/game/park/wildlife agency. A good place for quickly finding out all necessary information, wherever you are, is the US Fish & Wildlife Service: fws.gov/fishing/FishingLicense.html. Alternatively go to the takemefishing.org website (also vamosapescar.org) run by the nonprofit Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation (RBFF).
Licenses can be one-day, short-term, annual, or lifetime. Discounts are often available for veterans and others, and those under sixteen are commonly exempt. Revenues raised go towards fish and environment conservation.
Different states have their own rules and regulations. However, even if taking fish from the water is permitted, all anglers who are concerned about maintaining fish populations (apart from invasive species) should voluntarily practice catch and release (see Chapter 21). Likewise, certain techniques that are legal in some states, such as trotlines (long lines), jug lines (lines fished under multiple buoys) and limb lines (unattended set lines attached to tree branches), don’t really have a place in twenty-first-century recreational fishing. And those practicing catfish noodling (hand fishing), in states where this is permitted, should ideally return the fish immediately to the same water. To learn more about best practices, visit fishsmart.org and releasense.org. More information can be found at sportfishingconservancy.com (the Sportfishing Conservancy) and asafishing.org (American Sportfishing Association).
See also National Park Service (nps.gov/subjects/fishing/fishing-regulations.htm) for fishing in national parks and gulfcouncil.org for fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.
As a final point, when searching for information online, you may (in the spirit of independent thought and action, which this book seeks to foster) wish to consider using an alternative to the search engine that most people use as their automatic default. There are other search engines that don’t collect or share personal information, but instead only collect data about search terms, not linked to the user. See, for example, duckduckgo.com.
Glossary
This is not an exhaustive list of angling terms, but it aims to give the basic meaning of terms used in this book.
Action. The feel of a rod, based on the shape it makes when under tension. A fast-action rod will mostly bend towards the tip. A slow- or through-action rod will bend right through to the butt.
Artificial. See lure.
Bail arm (sometimes bale arm). The metal hoop (also called the pick-up) on a fixed-spool reel, which flips between open and closed positions. When open, line can spill off the spool. When closed, line can be retrieved. Normally closes automatically when the reel handle is turned, and incorporates a roller to reduce line wear. Trying to cast with the bail arm closed is very embarrassing, even if no one is watching. If you’re using a heavy lead it can also be dangerous.
Baitcaster reel. Reel with gear-operated rotating spool, mounted on top of the rod handle so the thumb can brake the spool on the cast.
Bait elastic. Thin elastic used to attach a soft natural bait to a hook, where the hook might otherwise not hold the bait or damage it to the point where it will easily fall off.
Baitrunner reel/mechanism. See freespool reel.
Barbless hook. Exactly that, and now widely used. Other hooks have a micro barb. A DIY option is to crush down the barb with pliers, leaving a small bump. Will safely bring a fish in, but extra care should be taken not to allow the line to fall slack.
Boilies. Spherical baits made from ingredients bound together with egg, boiled to make them hard and resistant to break-up. Fished on a hair rig. Shop-bought boilies are between 6mm and 26mm in diameter, but for mahseer fishing in South India I made millet paste boilies the size of my fist.
Braid (braided line, multifilament). Modern braided and woven lines are made from man-made fibers with exceptional tensile strength. Much easier to use than heavy monofilament, being much thinner for the same breaking strain, which increases reel capacity. They are also more supple and have zero stretch. Against that, they are less resistant to abrasion and more expensive, but the higher cost is offset by their being very long-lasting.
Centerpin reel. The simplest type of reel, consisting of a drum rotating on a spindle. Ideally suited to trotting, they also give a uniquely direct sense of connection to a hooked fish. Rarely seen since the arrival of mass-produced fixed-spool reels, which are much easier to cast with.
Circle hook. Hook pattern where the point is turned in towards the hook shank. Looks like it shouldn’t work, but in fact very effective i
n some circumstances. The hook is set by allowing the line to tighten, or by slowly pulling tight. (Pulling back quickly in response to a take will normally bump the hook clear of the mouth, so you must override this reflex.) Main advantage is that it avoids deep-hooking, and normally hooks neatly in the corner of the mouth. See J-hook.
Coracle. Lightweight circular boat traditionally made from a wooden frame covered with animal skin. Once used by fishermen in Wales, and still used in South India, where the skin is now woven plastic sacking waterproofed with tar.
Crimp. Metal sleeve used to fix multi-strand wire (or heavy nylon/fluoro) to a hook or swivel.
Deadbait. Normally a dead fish or part of a dead fish.
Drag. Important feature of most reels. Adjust friction so drag will slip before the line breaks. Correct setting is crucial for strike; then may need to adjust as fish is brought in. With experience, strike drag can be set by feel, or use a known pre-set, or use a spring balance.
Dug-out canoe. A wooden canoe made from a single tree trunk.
Fixed-spool reel. Another name for spinning reel. (Also known as egg beater in Australia and coffee grinder in South Africa.) The most common kind of reel for most fishing. An ingenious design whereby the axis of the non-rotating spool is (more or less) parallel to the rod, so that the line, when released, will spill off the spool and give easy, long, accurate casts.
Float tube. Also called belly boat or kick boat. Inflatable seat-like fishing platform, propelled by fins on the angler’s legs, which work below the surface. Not advisable where fish share the water with crocs.
Fluorocarbon (fluoro). Clear fishing line similar in appearance to nylon monofilament but denser and heavier. More abrasion resistant than mono and almost invisible in water, but more memory (springiness) and less forgiving of poor knot tying. Good leader material (except for surface lures). Some spoolable fluoro is available, as is fluoro-coated mono.