Something Fishy

by Derek Hansen

  ‘You have to reduce your stress levels,’ said his cardiologist, so Gregan did what days earlier had been unthinkable, even unimaginable. At the age of fifty-nine, at the height of his success, he retired. Colleagues, competitors and councillors alike treated him to so many farewell lunches he was as busy as he’d ever been. Then the lunches stopped and, for the first time in as long as he could remember, Gregan had time on his hands.

  Lots of time.

  Days, weeks and endless months of time.

  The fact was, he’d been so busy wheeling and dealing there’d been no time for anything else, with the result that retirement left him with nothing.

  Nothing.

  No reason to get out of bed, nothing to do, nowhere to go and nothing to boast about or even talk about. Whenever he rang his old mates to organise a lunch, they were always too busy arranging to bulldoze more countryside or erect more glass-and-concrete towers. Even worse, when lunches were organised, his mates forgot to ring him. Unfortunately for Gregan, he’d dropped off their radar. He was no longer a player and no longer part of the game. He was irrelevant. The complete lack of stress caused him more stress than he’d ever endured dealing with banks and councils.

  ‘What can I do?’ he asked his cardiologist.

  ‘Go play golf,’ the doctor replied.‘That’s what people who retire do.’

  ‘Can’t stand golf,’ said Gregan.‘Where’s the excitement?’

  ‘Then do what I do.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I fish,’ said the cardiologist.

  ‘Fish?’ said Gregan. As far as he was concerned, fish was something he ate when there were no crabs, calamari or prawns.

  ‘Why not?’ said the cardiologist. ‘After all, you live on the water. You’ve got fish at the end of your backyard.’

  And he did. When he’d completed his first canal development, Gregan had kept the three best blocks for himself. They were adjoining and sat at the very tip of the most sought-after spur he’d built from the mud and sand dug up by the dredges. He needed three blocks to accommodate the mansion, swimming pool and jetty he subsequently built.

  ‘How do I learn to fish?’ said Gregan.

  ‘You take lessons,’ said the cardiologist. ‘You learn how to cast a fly.’

  ‘A fly?’

  ‘Real fishermen are fly fishermen,’ said the cardiologist. ‘You want something to occupy your time? Believe me, nothing will occupy your time more. Becoming an expert fly fisherman will take all the time you’ve got left.’

  Gregan never did anything by halves. He found fly fishermen on the net who were only too happy to advise him on which rods, reels, lines, tippets and flies to buy. He hired a fly-fishing guide to teach him how to cast and took two-hour lessons every morning. He set aside a room in his anything-but-humble home and installed a bench, rotating fly dryer and vice for tying his own flies. He read every magazine about saltwater fly fishing he could get his hands on. And he practised his casts.

  He practised with an eight-weight, a ten-weight and a twelve-weight until he felt competent no matter which rod was in his hand. He practised in the rain and in the wind. His teacher taught him the art of double hauling so that he could land his fly on any given spot even when the westerlies were blowing hard and right into his face. Only two things were missing.

  Fish.

  And excitement.

  When he’d destroyed the mangroves Gregan had also taken away any reason for fish to hang around. Oh, there were mullet and toadfish and sometimes a lost school of tailor, but good fighting fish and table fish were rare. His young wife, who did her best to encourage him in his new pursuit, stopped enquiring if he’d caught anything. Then one day, for no reason anyone could think of, a one-point-five-kilo flathead decided to swim up into the canals. Its visit coincided with Gregan’s morning tuition. Whatever the flathead was expecting to find, Gregan’s beautifully presented red prawn fly must have come as an irresistible surprise. It bit the fly like it hadn’t eaten for weeks and got a far bigger surprise than it had bargained for.

  With no previous experience, Gregan didn’t know what had hit him. His eight-weight Loomis rod bent under the impact and it was all he could do to hang on and scream. Fortunately his fishing guide was able to tell him what to do and how to do it. Nevertheless, Gregan’s heart beat as madly as it had the day he’d made his first sale: a two-bedroom unit with a spectacular ocean view that got built out within six months of his buyers moving in. He followed instructions and lived the fishing videos he’d been watching. He couldn’t believe that something as easy as stripping and winding line back onto his reel could suddenly become so complicated simply by the addition of a one-point-five-kilo fish. He made many mistakes but finally the guide slipped a net under his catch.

  ‘Well hooked,’ said the guide.

  The flathead was well hooked. But nowhere near as well hooked as Gregan.

  He cleared his walk-in wardrobe of all the trappings of his previous trade: his white Bally shoes, linen trousers and jackets, his Ralph Lauren shirts and his drawers of white socks. He packed them all up and deposited them in a St Vincent de Paul clothing bin. He restocked his wardrobe with the trappings of his new hobby: shirts, trousers and jackets in soft camouflage tones of grey, green and brown that bristled with pockets and places to put things and hang things off. Only the gold chain and gold Rolex remained as stark testimony to the fact that Gregan the committed fly fisher had once been Gregan the property developer.

  Over the next few months, his guide took him out onto Moreton Bay where he caught more flathead and added tailor, salmon, whiting and bream to his list of conquests. Once he’d grown in both competence and confidence, his guide took him onto a sandbar in Hervey Bay where, standing in thigh-deep water with his rod tucked up in his armpit and double stripping for all he was worth, he caught his first grand trevally. At a tad under six kilos, it was hardly a trophy grand trevally, but it was still far and away the biggest and hardest-fighting fish Gregan had caught. When he released the fish he stood transfixed with the look of a man who’d just discovered Christmas.

  Suddenly he realised that all the ads for overseas fishing adventures he’d glossed over in the saltwater fly fishing magazines were actually aimed at him. The big three — bonefish, tarpon and permit — weren’t just fish other people caught but fish he could catch. He read every ad in every magazine and was stunned by the number of places he wanted to go that he’d never even heard of. He took his ambitions with him when he went to see his cardiologist.

  ‘I don’t know which of the big three to do first,’ he said. ‘Bonefish in the Turks and Caicos Islands, tarpon in the Florida Keys or permit in Belize.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful,’ said his cardiologist. ‘But aren’t you overlooking something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trout.’

  ‘Trout?’

  ‘Tasmanian trout.’

  ‘But they’re freshwater fish.’

  ‘And they’re the ultimate,’ said the cardiologist. ‘Until you’ve learned to catch trout on a fly, you can’t really call yourself a fly fisherman.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Gregan indignantly. ‘Are you saying I don’t know my stuff?’

  ‘Blood pressure,’ warned the cardiologist. ‘Just lie back while I do this ECG and I’ll tell you about trout fishing.’

  He told Gregan how catching trout was only one part of the attraction. He told him about sharp, clear mountain air, crystal water and the beauty of the wilderness. He told him about lakes in the morning when the surface is as flat as glass, of snow-capped peaks perfectly mirrored, of waters so still you can see the ripple of a trout rise two hundred metres away. He told him about stalking trout up rivers running with the clearest, freshest water he’d ever seen, of the difficulty of casting beneath overhanging trees, of the joy and elation of seeing a backhand cast into the wind land right by the nose of a hungry brown. He told him about the value of observation and of matching flies to the in
sects the trout were feeding on. He told him about epic struggles with trout in rapids and in shallow lakes and how there was no sight in the world to match that of a leaping rainbow. He also lied and told Gregan that God didn’t count days spent trout fishing against his allocation.

  The cardiologist didn’t ask Gregan if he’d infected him with his enthusiasm. He didn’t need to. He could tell by looking at the print-out from the ECG.

  When Gregan first set eyes on Highland Waters in Tasmania’s Central Highlands, he couldn’t help but mentally revert to his whites. The place reeked of potential for development. He could picture gleaming glass towers dotted around the perimeter of the lake, taking the place of the celery-top pines, eucalypts and myrtle. He envisioned long jetties for mooring boats and for casting a fly, a marina or two, and a gravel walkway right around the perimeter of the lake. Of course he’d have to bulldoze a few trees and a few hectares of heath and bracken to put down a decent lawn for the walkway to bisect, but the result would be magnificent. He pictured white ducks and little girls with long blonde hair feeding them. He had difficulty pulling back from his vision to remember that perhaps it wasn’t the kind of magnificence trout fishermen were attracted to. He closed his eyes and reopened them, this time trying to see Highland Waters through his cardiologist’s eyes. It took a moment to adjust, but he finally had to admit his doctor had a point.

  Even so, the lodges were an extravagant waste of prime real estate, barely rising two storeys and designed to merge into their surroundings rather than announce their presence. They were single dwellings, sitting on plots big enough to build six good-sized mini-lodges, each with a water view. Again he had to remember that wasn’t necessarily what trout fishermen wanted. His cardiologist had also spoken about solitude and communing with nature, listening to the many different kinds of birds and watching wallabies graze. It required considerable mental adjustment for a man who’d made a fortune evicting and dispossessing countless herons, waders and water fowl, but Gregan was prepared to give it a try if it would make him a better trout fisherman. A particularly handsome lodge caught his eye.

  ‘Whose lodge is that over there?’ he asked Peter, his guide for the week.

  ‘It belongs to a Sydney man, Bob Horrocks.’

  ‘What does he do for a crust?’

  ‘He’s an ex-advertising man. By all accounts, a very successful one.’

  ‘An advertising man? You mean that place is owned by an ex-advertising man?’ Gregan was incredulous. He’d met many advertising men and thought he had a lot in common with them. They worked hard and played hard, loved good food and wine, drove flash cars, were entertaining company and, like him, lived by their wits. He could accept that cardiologists, doctors, dentists, barristers, bank managers and accountants might be attracted to Highland Waters, but an advertising man?

  ‘We get quite a few advertising people down here,’ said his guide.‘Had a party of six just a week ago.’

  Gregan was intrigued. He’d thought he was blazing a trail. He turned to gaze across the lake where there were no lodges and the sun was preparing to dip below the eucalypts. There was a stillness in the air, a silence and a sharpness. He heard the strangest birdcall, which surprised him; he wasn’t accustomed to listening to birdcalls. Way out in front of him, ripples began to radiate from a spot where the surface of the water had been punctured. He felt himself smile but had no idea why.

  ‘The trout are a bonus,’ said Peter softly.

  Gregan continued to scan the lake, looking for overhanging trees, wondering whether he’d be obliged to make a backhand double haul cast into the wind, a skill he was still working on. How satisfying would that be, especially if he hooked up? Gregan wanted to be a real fly fisherman more than he’d ever wanted anything.

  ‘Come on,’ said Peter. ‘We’ve got all day tomorrow to see what you’re made of.’

  Gregan was in his waders and thigh deep in water long before the morning sun lit upon the surface of the lake. The calmness and stillness all around him was in marked contrast to his racing pulse and keen expectations.

  ‘Just remember,’ said Peter quietly, ‘in still water if you can see the trout, the trout can see you. You have a good action. Just stay relaxed, let your cast come nice and easy and cast where I tell you.’

  Gregan scanned the water trying his best to stay calm, looking for movement that might betray the presence of a trout. He wore the Costa Del Mar polaroid sunglasses he’d sent to the States for, after reading an article that claimed they were the first choice of America’s leading fishing guides. Peter, who was standing alongside him, wore polaroids he’d picked up in a pharmacy in Launceston, but he was still first to spot a trout.

  ‘There,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’ said Gregan.

  ‘Two o’clock, fifteen metres.’

  ‘Where?’ Gregan looked where the guide was pointing, expecting to see the shape of a fish beneath the surface, but in the dawn light the water was impenetrable.

  ‘Don’t look for the fish, look for the wake.’

  Suddenly Gregan could see it, now that he knew what to look for. The trout was head up, zigzagging slowly by. Gregan’s pulse rate shot up as he began to pull line off his reel.

  ‘Easy,’ said Peter.‘Stay relaxed.’

  Gregan tried to relax. His back cast was a little shaky and his line a little short for the cast he needed to make. He drew off more line and cast. Despite his nervousness and the tension that turned his normally smooth action into a series of stuttering movements, he landed his fly spot on target, fifteen centimetres from the trout’s nose. He braced himself for the explosion that would follow. The trout ignored his offering entirely.

  ‘Nice work,’ said Peter.‘But nice work doesn’t always bring a reward. We might look at changing your fly. Swap the red tag for a caenid.’

  ‘Damn it,’ said Gregan. ‘That was a perfect cast.’ He watched as the trout slowly swam past. ‘Let me have another crack at it.’

  ‘Your call,’ said Peter. ‘But it isn’t eating what you’re offering. If it was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

  Gregan reeled in his line.

  ‘Try this caenid,’ said Peter.

  Three more trout passed by within range and Gregan did a creditable job of landing his fly in close proximity to their noses each time, but to no avail.

  ‘When does it get exciting?’ said Gregan.

  ‘They’re easier to catch when they’re feeding on scud,’ said Peter.

  ‘I thought scud were missiles.’

  ‘These scud are shrimp-like crustaceans that inhabit weed beds,’ said Peter. ‘Now, pay attention. One o’clock heading straight towards us. About twenty metres.’

  Gregan’s first cast landed short. He cast again, feeding more line, and dropped his fly forty centimetres from the trout’s nose.

  ‘Let it sit, let it sit . . .’ said Peter.

  Peter didn’t have to comment any further. Gregan’s fly disappeared in an explosion of water.

  ‘What’s it doing?’ shrieked Gregan.

  ‘Jumping,’ said the guide.‘Keep the tension on your rod.’

  Gregan had caught tailor that jumped a bit and one time a native salmon had kicked up a bit of a fuss, but mostly the fish he’d caught had stayed well within their element and their fight had been dogged and, in some ways, predictable. But there was nothing at all predictable about his trout. It went ballistic, somersaulting and cartwheeling out of the water. When it ran, it ran with arrogance rather than desperation, as though it knew the angler was new to the sport and their attachment to each other only temporary. It changed direction unexpectedly and began a blistering run back towards him.

  Gregan could see what was happening but couldn’t strip his line fast enough. When the trout veered off and exploded clear of the water, Gregan suspected he was in trouble. The tippet probably made a bit of a ping when it snapped but he never heard it. When the trout threw in another two jumps for good measure, Gregan tho
ught it was still hooked. The realisation that it wasn’t left him bitterly disappointed.

  ‘Few fly fishermen net their first trout,’ said Peter. ‘Particularly a trout as good as that one.’

  ‘How big?’ said Gregan. He couldn’t drag his eyes away from the spot on the water where his trout had disappeared.

  ‘Maybe three kilos,’ said Peter. ‘Maybe a touch under. But it fought well above its weight. Come on, let’s take a break and have breakfast.’

  Gregan took a last look around. The air was dead still and had a brittle clarity. He could make out individual leaves on individual branches hundreds of metres away. The lake was as unruffled as a sheet of glass. It was a scene of unbroken tranquillity. It was hard to believe that so much excitement and mayhem lurked mere centimetres below the surface.

  Through the course of the day, Gregan caught and released two browns and kept a two-point-five-kilo rainbow for the pan. Peter called it a triploid. Gregan thought his guide was just referring to the fact that it was the third fish he caught. He ended the day on a high that even exceeded the one he’d experienced when the council had granted him approval to build his first tower, despite the fact that it breached just about every rule, restriction and guideline in their building code. He drank more Cascade that night than his cardiologist would recommend and went to bed thanking Peter profusely.

  ‘How was your client?’ Peter’s wife asked when she finally got him on his own.

  ‘More enthusiastic than skilled and really eager to learn. I mean, really eager. He listens to what I have to say and does exactly as I tell him. I have to watch what I say because he absorbs everything.’

  ‘I can always tell when you’ve got a good one because you come home happy,’ said his wife.

  ‘All my clients give me pleasure,’ said Peter.

  ‘Some when they arrive, others when they leave,’ said his wife. She’d heard it all before.

  ‘A rainbow triploid is the fish equivalent of a capon,’ said Peter. He and Gregan were enjoying a leisurely lunch of chicken salad and celebrating Gregan’s capture of a four-kilo rainbow triploid. It was the only trout they’d caught all morning and its size and the fight it had put up more than compensated for earlier disappointments. ‘They’re deliberately made sterile so that they grow bigger faster.’