And just in case you never read part one (why not?) – it’s HERE
A couple of days later, after a lot of badgering, the two went fishing. Or rather, Damien went fishing, and Donald tagged along to offer his years of experience to the young pup; it also gave him a chance to give the new pipe a good work out.
After an hour’s fruitless water thrashing with modern lures, Damien finally agreed to give his present a trial whereupon he cast the creature out and retrieved it in a series of jerks as dictated by an exited Donald. They could see the lure in the clear water as it approached the bank. Damien looked at Donald, looked back at the lure and then back at Donald.
“That’s a water rat, is it? Looks more like a slightly hairy turd to me.”
Donald looked a little perplexed, but he agreed that the description was spot on, then his face lit up and he delved into the small khaki knapsack hung over his shoulder.
“What are you going to do?” Asked Damien, “Feed it one of your marmite sandwiches..?”
Donald showed Damien a small bottle he had pulled out of the bag “I’m going to spray it with this laddie, forgot to do it before’”
“Oh that will make all the difference” replied Damien, “spray it with something to mask the smell. What is it? Camel No. 5 perhaps, it couldn’t smell any worse than it looks.”
Damien was quite pleased with that little witticism.
“Nay laddie, this is dry fly floatant, it will fluff it up a bit” said Donald.
Now it was Damien’s turn to look puzzled. He held the lure up in front of Donald and the old boy first patted it dry and then applied a liberal coating of the spray.
“Right laddie, give it go now” he said, giving Damien an exaggerated wink as he did.
With a big sigh, Damien cast out the lure and started a slow side to side retrieve as instructed, although it did feel different this time. They both watched the lure coming back in and about twenty five feet from the bank Damien saw a small jack was following it in. Donald saw it too, “See laddie, told you it would work, nice and slow now and watch him gobble it up.”
Damien was amazed, but he had to admit that the lure did indeed now look almost lifelike as he slowly retrieved, waiting for the little pike to strike. The fur now looked like fur and it was covered in tiny bubbles giving it a silvery sheen. Suddenly the jack turned away from the lure but before Damien could shout “Bollo***” at this lost chance, something resembling a submarine came up from the depths and grabbed the lure.
Both of them had seen it, both of them had jumped backwards at the huge swirl in the water and both of them were looking at Damien’s rod, which was hooped over, and his spool, which was screaming on the reel. Donald started leaping up and down on the bank, offering all sorts of helpful advice – whether it was needed or not: “Keep yer rod tip up laddie, get him away from the snags, tire him out in the open water before you try and bring him in…”
Damien was trying his very best to blot out this advice and was concentrating very hard as the fish put in several powerful runs but finally it tired and Damien started to bring it in towards the bank.
Donald stepped forward with the landing net, but was taken aback when Damien snatched it out of his hands. “I’m not having you balls this up!” he said. Donald moved back, slightly upset, and started to recount one of his many tales of when he was trusted enough to land mahseer for the Maharajah of Rawalpindi, so he reckoned could land fish almost by Royal Appointment. Damien told his uncle to shut up, but used a slightly more Anglo-Saxon phrase to do so. Donald said nothing and clamped his teeth firmly on his pipe stem.
Damien had the landing net in the water, the pike was beaten, slightly on its side and slowly coming in to the bank. Donald couldn’t contain himself, “It’s a whopper laddie, told you that lure would get the big girls.” Damien had to agree, it was a HUGE pike, thoughts of ‘Best Fish’ trophies and prizes flashed through his mind; he even briefly though about having it set up to permanently annoy the old git.
The fish was five feet from the net when suddenly Damien’s blood ran cold. The pike wasn’t hooked; the lure was clearly outside its mouth, its jaws firmly clamped onto the lure’s tail. Damien hardly dared pull the rod back. Four feet, three feet to the net, he inched it in. Two feet, he hand tightened its grip on landing net handle ready to scoop it upwards. Just as he got the monster’s head level with the edge of the net, the pike turned slightly and there was a huge splash, the lure went whizzing past Damien’s face and the fish was gone.
There was silence, Donald and Damien just stood and stared as the surface of the water went calm, Damien with the rod in his hand and the lure still dangling from the end.
Donald was the first to break the silence. “Well, laddie, I told you it would get the big ‘uns. Just a pity you couldn’t land it.” Damien turned slowly to face him. “Nothing wrong with my landing skills” he retorted, “bloody stupid fish didn’t get hold of the lure properly.”
“Now, now, laddie, don’t get upset. I can soon whip on another tail and you can have another go, you might be able to catch it again if yer lucky…”
“Hang on,” said a puzzled Damien, “what do you mean ‘just whip on another tail..?”
“Ah well, you see, when I made the lure, I went to the charity shop to get the bits. Got the fur from an old coat collar and a couple of buttons. Fixed all that onto the hook but I forgot the legs and tail so I went back and got the leather shoelaces a day after. I should have fixed them on first all along the shank of the hook from the eye to the bend but I just whipped them on after with a bit of thread from your mum’s sewing box. Worked a treat, didn’t it?” Donald looked to Damien for confirmation of the excellence of his creation.
Damien screwed up his eyes. “So the only thing between me and that pike was three turns of cotton, because you made that thing back to front.?”
“Well yes, laddie, but it’s not my fault that the pike didn’t take the bait properly, still worked though, didn’t it?” Donald was getting defensive.
Damien wasn’t happy with that, in his eyes it was sloppy workmanship that had cost him the fish, and Donald was at fault, end of. He declined the offer of a repair to the lure; slung it in his tackle box and they went home, arguing all the way.
Some two weeks later, Damien was flicking through the local paper when something on the sports page stopped him dead. There under the headline ‘TIDDLER CATCHES WHOPPER’ was a picture of a beaming 11 year old boy cradling a pike almost as big as himself. Damien read on that young Thomas was out fishing with his dad when this 28lb ‘monster from the deep’ took a shine to the sprat he was using as bait. The article went on to say that the fish put up a great scrap and the lad was nearly pulled in a couple of times during the battle.
‘Yeah right’ though Damien, but his eyes narrowed as he read on. This fish was almost double the weight of the current junior club record, and bigger than anything the local adult anglers had caught, so young Timmy was in line to pick up two cups at the end of the season, and probably several ‘Best Fish’ prizes offered by the angling press. But it was the next few lines that got Damien’s teeth grinding. The article said that as the pike was landed, Timmy and his dad were horrified to see what they thought was a rat’s tail hanging out of the pikes mouth. They were relieved to see when unhooking the pike that it was apparently just an old leather bootlace caught in the monster’s maw.
Damien looked back at the picture, and sure enough, it was his ‘water rat’s’ tail that was dangling down from the pike’s jaw. On seeing this, Damien slowly rolled up the newspaper so tightly that his knuckles glowed white, and then set off looking for Donald with the intention of ramming said newspaper somewhere that the old git would find very painful…
