"The River Ghost"
uploaded: Thu, Sep 12, 2019 @ 5:41 PM last modified: Thu, Sep 12, 2019 @ 7:24 PM (add)
A true story from a few years back…
Pella is uploaded here “The River Ghost” Act 1 The Hunt The last of the moon set beyond the mountain behind me as I pulled my kayak down the slip into the inky black water of the river. As I paddled quietly out into the dark, my expectations of catching a fish were low; No bait on hand, just a small spin rod, spun with light line and hardbody lure, I positioned myself next to the hulk of an old fishing boat rotting on its mooring. I looked back across the water towards my house. I could make out the dim glow of the television - as my wife watched old reruns of the Gilmore Girls. After a few casts and playing with the bioluminescence on the river surface that traced around each paddle stroke - I felt a small tap at the end of my fishing line… Then nothing… I reeled it in and cast at the same point in the water and waited…. There it is again… Tap tap. Then a bend of the rod, followed by a dead weight. Damm I cursed! (thinking that I had snagged on the fishing boat’s mooring weight) I pulled the line gingerly, testing the snag and the water in front of me exploded! ZZZZZZzzzzzzz My line screamed out of the reel and I tentatively applied the brakes being careful not to snap my feeble ten pound line. Within seconds whatever beast I had met that night spun my kayak around and was beginning to drag me down the river into the darkness towards the deeper water near the island. My reel kept on screaming like I had hooked up to a freight train. At this point I was being towed at about running speed out into the darkness away from home. Act 2 The Fight After about twenty minutes of ever so carefully winding in the line, then loosing the same again to the fish, I had been towed about a mile out past the oyster lease and around the back of the island. I looked over my shoulder sheepishly, no longer able to see the comforting lights of home. Within the next ten minutes as carefully and patiently as possible, I began to gain some line over what was at the other end. Maybe a shark? A big Stingray? Or maybe the fabled Hawkesbury River Monster? I saw the leader knot on my line and knew that I was just moments away from seeing what had taken me so far away from home in the middle of the night. My arms ached and I screwed my head to the right to try to illuminate the darkeness with my underpowered headlamp. Act 3 Contact First the smell… Then a flash of chrome to my port side! (I reached foward for my landing net, but then laughed at myself realising that the fish’s head wouldnt even fit in the opening) I reeled in the last of my line and up beside me, on his side, with his eye as round as a saucer - Was the fish that many on the river had tried a lifetime never to catch. It was a Mulloway. The river ghost, about the same size as me. His sliver bronze armour glistened in the low light and his eye looked up at me with a knowing I had never seen before in a fish. Without a proper net or a gaff the only way to land this fish was to reach into his mouth or gills and bear hug him up into the kayak. Not entirely a good idea I conceded, capsizing over a mile from home, in the darkness wasn’t very smart. I decided against it. I’m sure it was only a few seconds but time slowed right down and we both surveyed each other, in the silence, in wonder of the strange creature we both saw. Then with a deep guttural grunt and a small flick of the tail, the River Ghost spat my lure, paused for a moment to take one last look at me and turned downward into the deep never to be seen again. Act 4 Perspective As I paddled back towards my home completely spent, my heart beating through my chest, my fingers bloody from holding the line I was glad that I didn’t catch him. He would have been much older than me, and he had spent the last fifty years dodging every likely fisherman on the river only to be fooled by a department store lure no bigger than a jelly bean. ..and a fool… Oh the River Ghost! Some nights I sit on my wharf alone staring into the blackness and I am sure I have seen him again, a stealthy splash of his dorsal fin, trying to take another look - at that human that got away. Scomber 2019 xx
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"The River Ghost"
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""The River Ghost""
by ScOmBer 2019 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)  Click here for how to give credit and other conditions. |
"The River Ghost"
"The River Ghost"
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