gone fishing
The young bloke was fishing off the rail on the boardwalk outside the Ballina RSL and reeling in something heavy. When this happens you walk on by about ten paces, stop, turn around and wait to see what he’s got. Inconspicuous like. Fishermen don’t like stickybeaks.
He’s finding his catch heavy going so he puts the rod down on the decking and grabs the line. Now he’s pulling it in hand over hand. This is unusual. He peers over the rail and into the water, still pulling. A couple of us are watching him now, hoping for an oversized flathead, a silver bream or impossibly, a big Jewie (pic)
Then we hear him say ….
’What the FUCK!’
Then.
Fucken HELL!’
He slowly draws his line in, carefully now but whatever is on the end isn’t putting up a fight.
Up it finally comes. Over the rail and onto the deck. It has to be over six foot long.
We can’t make it out so someone shouts, ‘What’ve you got?’
He laughs.
A fucken fishing rod!’
There it lay by his feet, a medium-sized composite rod with its reel still attached and plenty of line left on the spool.
I told this story to the lovely looking after our table at lunch today and she mentioned that her cousin was fishing in the same spot last week and caught a near new pair of Oakley sun glasses.
petebowes.com 