A FISH(Y) STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 261, 3 November 1928, Page 22 (Supplement)

A FISH(Y) STORY.

(Winning entry by H. Dolierty, P. 5.8., 49, Ardiuore Koad, Heme Bay ; aged 16.) Different people have different tastes. You find some men who would die for sport; others don't know the meaning of the word. Now, I don't pretend that I would die for sport, but I certainly do like to indulge in it now and then. And of all sports, I rcckon the best is fishing. Unbeatable, because of the intelligence that is needed to make a good fisherman, it is essentially a brainy man's game. Besides, think how fashionable it is. All great authors fish. Zane Grey does. I do. Plenty of other prominent novelists do. It's more or less, compulBorv. Now, bearing in mind my marked predilection for fishing, you will not be surprised to learn> that when, just recently, a pal of mine called to' see what I was doing, I Instantly suggested that we should go and try our luck with the briny. He agreed. It seemed good to him. So we started off. v . we made our way up the road and it was not until we had emerged upon the main roadway that we made a rather remarkable discovery. In the confusion we had forgotten to bring either bait or lines. This was a bit of a puzzler, until 'my friend suggested pooling our resources and seeing if we could buy some necessaries at a shop. It was a good idea and we did. Pooled our resources I mean. I contributed one half-penny. My friend put in sixpence. With the sixpence we bought two threepenny lines, and with the halfpenny we purchased three hooks. Having no need of three and disbelieving in a crowd, we threw one hook away! Hence, we had one line and one hook each. The bait we intendod borrowing oil the wharf where we were going. Once more we set off leisurely. ° In iabout half an hour's time we reached the wharf and here it was that we received our first real disappointment. For, to our great surprise, the tide was out, was, indeed, a minus quantity, a nonentity, an absentee. However, nothing daunted, we hauled out our lines with the laudable intention of at least doing something. Here we received shock No! 2. For our fishing lines, that had been so beautifully rolled when we received them across the counter, were now nothing more or less than tangled bundles of waxed string. Without a word to each other, We sat down and spent a profitable half-hour undoing the tangle. When this particularly pleasant task had been finished we found we had yet another surprise in store. The hooks hail been lost. Now, to anyone of meaner intelligence, of lesser courage, or perhaps, of lesser dogged ness, the situation would have looked hopeless. He would have given up in despair. But not us.' We were going to get our money's worth or die. So we fossicked around until, finally, we found a piece of liver left on the wharf by some far-seeing fisherman. This we attached securely to the end of one of our lines. We left the liver lying on the wharf, hid ourselves behind a post, took a firm grip of the other end of the line and waited till some passing gull should gobble it up, I regret to say that we were not very successful. There was a great scarcity of gulls round that wharf. I don't know why. I suppose it must have been because they saw my cobber's face. Still, the unpleasant fact remains that, for the first three' hours, we were unsuccessful, and were nearly about to give it up in disgust when, to our in-

finite amazement a large blaek-backed gull swooped down and carried off the morsel. At least, he tried to. He didn't get very far. The string brought him tumbling down and I rushed forward to secure our bag. The next thing I distinctly remember is getting a terrible nip on my hand and then hearing the gall fly, screaming away. I, also, flew screaming the other way, and since then I have never tried to capture sea gulls.