FISHING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19798, 19 November 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

FISHING.

THE QUEST FOR EELS.

BY K. M. KNIGHT.

I knew that when John came into my study, with his eyes shining most boyishly and his old pipe puffing, that he was in a mood for talking. 1 wondered what I was going to hear. Would it be a discourse 011 music or art, life 01' literature, drama or morality ? Any one of these subjects it might havo been, for 1 knew that when John's eyes danced round little points of light that I was going to be entertained for the evening.

" I have had a wonderful day to-day," he said, as he sank into the chair 1 had placed for him. " 1 don't know when 1 last had such a happy time. I have been eel-fishing."

"What? You fishing? A man with your theories about killing?" 110 hung his head a little shamefacedly.

" I admit," he said, " that I was wrong. I know that I shouldn't do it. But did you ever go fishing when you were a kid ? Eel-fishing in the creeks, 1 mean —not fishing in the sea. That is a different process. But did you ever hop off over the paddocks with a little packet of none too delicately scented meat in your pocket, a little bit of tangled line, and a few hooks in a rusty tobacco tin ? And, perhaps, a few grubs, or crickets, or worms in a matchbox, in case you lost the meat bait? Say, did you?" " 1 suppose 1 did. It is a long while since I was a kid."

" Can't you remember," John said, " the scent of the wet earth on the banks of the creeks ? The grass that all the children call ' cutty grass' growing in little tufts in the soft soil; the ferns on the wet rocks, and the moss round their roots; the black, strange-looking, root-like growth on the submerged sticks, covered with little black shells; the leggy black ' crawlers' waving their arms about, and the little tommy-cods' and brown trout ? Can't you remember how, in the evenings, you used to go down to fish by the light of a lantern, and the moreporks were calling from the dark trees all round—echoing and re-echoing their strange cry through the bush; and how the frogs were croaking, and trout jumping out of the still water, disturbing the silence with little round splashes? Can't you remember the -wish of the water as it washed past the grasses that dipped into its surface, and the almost unearthly peace of the great night, when everything discordant was asleep ? Can't you see, even now, the reflection of stars and a moon in tho water?"

Serenity And Harmony. 1 thought back into the years that seemed so far away, and there, sure enough, I found memories such as John had suggested. Little tins of fish-hooks I found, rusty and entangled, one with the other; packets of musty, lofty-smell-ing bait, cut off the dog's supply of meat, and • sticky, slimy bits of string. " It all came back to me to-day," John went on, "as I wandered up and down the quiet creek. There was penny-royal blooming under my feet, blowflies buzzing round my bait, little grey warblers whistling • their soft, gurgling tune —a sound in itself very like rippling water; tea-tree overhanging the pool; black sticks tangled in the green water; bits of flax and bark waving sinuously with the current; little leaves coming swirling down in eddies, and under the water, round, golden shadows tho sun made, shining through bubbles and little whirlpools. " Therp is nothing in the whole world," John said, puffing at his pipe reflectively, " more soothing than fishing for eels in a creek that runs through the bush. Nothing can jar, or put one's world awry. There will be blowflies buzzing round one, and birds singing; from the heart of an exquisite, sense of silence one will hear ripples breaking on the surface of the water; but nothing discordant, nothing inharmonious ever disturbes the serenity of a bush creek. " The eels themselves aro worth nothing when caught. The fact that there is no money at stake is, in itself, a peaceful thought. How much peace would there be in eel-fishing if each eel were worth half a million ? One would never notice that the water moved with rhythmical grace, never hurrying, never loitering, in long, straight lines past the flaxbushes and tree stumps. Or that there were dimples on the deep poles and rusl es round them. It would bo eels! eels! eels! and a thousand men after them." " Ponka's" Mission.

" But that is a thought that might lead me into doing more thinking than 1 care to do to-night. 1 want to tell you about to-day, and how delightful it was. I went out with a little schoolboy, whose chief delight was spreading what ho called " ponka" over the water. The name ' ponka' was derived, he told me with a twinkle, from certain adjectival and adverbial qualities possessed by the said ' ponka' (preserved eggs of some twelve months' standing his mother had thrown out because a mouse had committed suicide in them while in pickle). Needless to say, I saw that he was the right side of the wind. ..." I broke in with a chuckle. John was so absurdly young, and no schoolboy's eyes ever twinkled as his were twinkling. " What," 1 asked, " was ' ponka's' mission ?"

" I can see," he said humorously, " that you are no . eel-fisherman. ' Ponka' was a decoy—a star attraction — a best seller, and my little friend had great faith in its efficacy. Nor was it misplaced faith, for no sooner did the news of ' ponka's ' arrival get abroad than Mr. and Mrs. Eel and Uncle and Auntie Eel came up stream to see what tho noise was about. ' Ponka' was a reallv Rood line." " You are like an overgrown kid," I told him, as he chuckled reminiscently. "Well, what would you have vne be? So old that I cannot take a joyful interest in a little boy and a tin of bad eggs ?" " All right. Have it your own way. Did you catch any fish 1 That is the main point."

Virtue in Patience. " I didn't," John said slowly, " but the little boy did. lie had the true fisherman psychology. He could wait patiently for hours, never talking, never moving, until he was rewarded with a bite. There is a certain typo of mind that belongs always to fishermen: it is placid, easy-going, generous. An impatient, bad-tempered man always seems to me to bo a thing immeasurably pitiful, and ho is no more likely to catch the good things life has in store for him than the impatient fisherman can catch the fish. Do you agree with mo ?" " Yes, I think so. There is something in the quality of patience that is very near the centre of things. One could not imagine an impatient tree, or a spring that wanted to break forth 111 June, or a night that would not wait until the sun went down. A patient man has learned a lot." " That is what I feel, and that is one of the reasons that fishing has suc.h an appeal for me. If one can contentedly sit on the bank and watch the ripples, can wait and listen to the birds and the flies and get joy from them, can absorb something of tho peace of the bush and stream and contribute ,no inharmonious thought or feeling, then he has gone a long way to becoming what a man should be."

" There is only one thing he has to learn," I said gently. " And that is ?" " Not to want to kill fish." And John accepted tho rebuke gravely.