Something Fishy

by Derek Hansen

  ‘So?’ said Gregan.

  ‘Something happened.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something happened to me in the meantime.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cancer, actually, in the brain.’

  ‘Cancer!’ Gregan felt the blood drain from his face and his heart skip a beat.‘How bad?’

  ‘Incurable. That is, unless I come up with a cure myself.’

  ‘What about my fish?’ Gregan showed the same level of sympathy and concern as Everton’s adoring wife.

  ‘Backburner, I’m afraid. I know it sounds selfish but finding a cure has become something of a priority.’

  ‘Can’t you give my fish to someone else to do?’

  ‘I’ve done that already. Young Lothar. He’s quite brilliant and capable of enormous leaps. Unfortunately he rather likes the constraints of correct scientific procedure and is inclined to take small steps instead.’

  ‘How long?’ said Gregan.

  ‘Ninety per cent of the work is done,’ said Everton.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Of course, that was me doing it.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘If it was me? Six weeks.’

  ‘And Lothar?’

  ‘Six months, maybe. More probably a year.’

  A year! Gregan thought of his schedule and the effect of a year’s delay on his precious bankers.

  ‘Damn it!’ he shouted.‘I haven’t got a year! I’ve only got a couple of months.’

  ‘I know exactly how you feel,’ said Everton sympathetically.

  ‘We’re history!’ said Gregan. ‘Finished! The whole thing’s cactus because that nutter went and got brain cancer.’

  ‘Hold it,’ said Richo. They were sitting in Lucio’s in Paddington, and the crabs they were eating were blue swimmers over linguini. It was exactly the kind of subtle dish that Gregan had no time for. The jumbo prawns they’d ordered to follow were barbecued in their shells. Gregan didn’t have much time for that, either.

  ‘Hold what?’ said Gregan.

  ‘You said the fish were ninety per cent ready.’

  ‘Yeah, and ten per cent, or one year, unready.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about you, Gregan, but ninety per cent sounds pretty good to me. I know one hundred per cent sounds better, but, under the circumstances, ninety per cent sounds good enough.’

  Gregan’s fork stopped en route to his mouth.

  ‘What does ninety per cent ready mean, anyway?’ said Richo. ‘Instead of growing to twenty-five kilos they’ll only grow to twenty-two and a half? That’s still one hell of a big fish. It’s still a world record.’

  ‘You know something?You’re right,’ said Gregan.‘But how many ninety per cent-ready fish have they got and how can we get hold of them?’

  Gregan took a dislike to Lothar the moment they met. The young man had peach fluff on his upper lip in a vain attempt to grow a moustache and look older. Even worse, he was pedantic and dismissive of Gregan’s problems.

  ‘These things take time,’ said Lothar. ‘Ideally we should grow out a few fish from this batch to discover exactly when they stop growing. Everton thinks the triggers will cut in at around twenty-five kilos, but they could just as easily cut in at thirty kilos.’

  ‘It’s only five kilos, for Christ’s sake,’ said Gregan.

  ‘Those five kilos could be the difference between success and failure,’ said Lothar patiently. ‘Think about it. Your lake may be able to sustain twenty-five-kilo fish but thirty-kilo fish are another matter altogether. The worst-case scenario is that the growth inhibitors won’t cut in at all.’

  ‘How long will it take to grow out the fish?’ asked Gregan.

  ‘With the growth accelerants, eighteen months to two years.’

  ‘Two years! That’s out of the question.’

  ‘That’s good practice,’ said Lothar, unperturbed.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Gregan.

  ‘I think it’s safer to err under than over,’ said the young scientist primly.‘I think I’ll make another batch with growth inhibitors that activate earlier.’

  ‘What are you going to do with these?’ Gregan eyed the hundred or so fingerlings in the tank.

  ‘Waste disposer.’

  ‘What! You mean you’re going to put my fish down your waste disposer?’ Gregan couldn’t believe his ears.

  ‘Me? God, no,’ said Lothar. ‘That’s what people like Murray are for.’ Murray was a laboratory assistant twice the young scientist’s age.

  ‘Well, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,’ said Gregan.‘I won’t hold you up any longer.’

  ‘Let me show you out,’ said Lothar.

  ‘No need,’ said Gregan. He turned on his most engaging smile.‘That’s what people like Murray are for.’

  It took less than thirty seconds for Gregan to do the deal. He needed fish. Murray needed money. The lab assistant promised to deliver the fish that night.

  Gregan flew down to Tasmania the following day and quietly released his trout into Big Trout Lake. It was a glorious day but he knew sudden death was ever present. One hundred fingerlings didn’t amount to much, given that they had to survive the predations of bigger trout, birds and competition from fingerling browns and triploids. But Gregan believed enough would survive. Oh yes, enough would survive to become trophies. They would mature right on schedule.

  There are always problems building in a wilderness: problems getting materials and supplies, problems getting tradesmen and problems keeping them. Like a true professional, Gregan had factored in the delays. He thought it would have taken him twelve months to build Big Trout Lodge in Surfers so he allowed an extra nine months to build it in the Central Highlands. Eighteen months in, his estimate had proved accurate. The biggest problem he faced was hanging onto tradesmen, especially during the bleak Central Highlands’ winter.

  Many tradesmen were attracted to the job and prepared to put up with the isolation by the prospect of doing some fly fishing. They were somewhat peeved to learn that fishing in the lake was strictly forbidden on pain of instant dismissal and so they often didn’t stay long. Nevertheless, while they were there they kept their eye out for trout rising, and when they saw the extraordinary size of the trout they weren’t allowed to catch, felt even more cheated. Fearing that some of the tradesmen might succumb to temptation, Dave and Dan mounted around-the-clock surveillance and confirmed what the builders had seen. The trout really were enormous. As tradesmen came and went, word of the big trout in Big Trout Lake began to spread.

  While Gregan kept a watchful eye on the final fit-out, Richo went about organising the trout-fishing media event of the year. He identified the twenty most influential trout-fishing magazines and television programs in Australia, the United States and Great Britain and invited their editors plus partners to the grand opening of Big Trout Lake. He did deals with travel agents, airlines and tour operators. He provided first-class air tickets, five-star hotels on stopovers, and limousines to ferry them from the airport to Big Trout Lake. The package was as lavish as Richo could make it, but that wasn’t what won him one hundred per cent acceptance. What caught the editors’ eyes was his promise: he guaranteed that everyone would catch the biggest trout they’d ever caught and promised that one of them would break the world record. How could they resist?

  Two months before Big Trout Lake was due to open, that promise was the lead story in every major trout-fishing magazine and program. The story even made the major dailies and, in some instances, the TV news. Before a single fish had been caught, there wasn’t a serious fly fisherman in Australia, the United States or Great Britain who wasn’t desperate to fish Big Trout Lake.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure we can deliver on these promises?’ Richo asked Gregan when they met to review progress.‘We’re going to look pretty stupid if we can’t.’

  ‘Absolutely sure, unless the guides are lying to us,’ said Gregan.‘They claim to have seen trout as long as their
arms.’

  ‘Yeah, but have they caught any?’

  ‘You know they’re not allowed to fish,’ said Gregan. ‘But it’s not just Dan and Dave who’ve seen the fish, the builders have as well. You remember the chippie with the kelpie?’

  ‘The dog that likes to retrieve sticks?’

  ‘That’s the one. Apparently the mutt just lives for it. He’s in and out of the water a dozen times a day and loves it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So last week one of the blokes throws a stick right out into the lake and the kelpie sets off after it. Halfway out it does a high-speed U-turn and paddles like crazy for the shore. The builders swear there were a couple of monster trout circling it the whole way in. Now the dog won’t go near the water.’

  ‘Trout chasing a dog? Give me a break.’

  ‘A break is what I had in mind,’ said Gregan. ‘The first suites have been fitted out and we’ve begun hiring and training staff. I think we should go down this weekend and test out our investment.’

  The sun was ready to dip below the eucalypts when Dave led Gregan out into the shallows on the western shore, which were already in shade. Fifty metres away to his left, Dan was doing the same for Richo.

  ‘See that swirl at eleven o’clock?’ said Dave.

  ‘I see it,’ said Gregan. He stripped line off his reel and lined up the target seventeen metres away. He rocked back and forth as his instructor had taught him as he fed out more line.

  ‘Just relax,’ said Dave.

  Gregan was relaxed. He was as confident and relaxed as any man certain of his own cleverness could be. He cast and watched his fly sail through the air and land smack on target. He barely had time to gather in the excess line when his fly was hit by what felt like a runaway train. Despite the fact that he was using an eight-weight with an unsporting three-point-five kilo tippet, he felt hopelessly under-gunned. Line screamed off his reel and he was powerless to prevent it.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Dave.‘What have you got there?’

  Richo and Dan stopped what they were doing to watch.

  ‘Put some pressure on him,’ said Dave.

  ‘I’ve got pressure on him!’ said Gregan.

  ‘Then give him more pressure! Jam him up! You’re running out of line!’

  Gregan grabbed hold of the last metre of his line and held on tight. His rod doubled over, then sprang back to the vertical. The line hung limp from the tip.

  ‘Damn!’ said Gregan. For a moment his disappointment outweighed his delight in confirming the presence in his lake of trout that would not only break the world record but shatter it. He turned to Dave with a rueful smile. ‘Got any more good advice?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dave. ‘Next time use a twelve-weight with a nine-kilo tippet.’

  Gregan smiled and his smile broadened when he noticed Richo cast. Almost immediately his rod doubled over.

  ‘How long do you give him?’ he asked Dave. ‘Fifteen seconds? Twenty?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Dave. ‘By the look of things, his fish isn’t as big as yours.’

  The guide was right. Richo wasn’t just holding on helplessly but fighting his fish. As Gregan watched, the lake in front of him shattered into a million brilliant shards. The trout cleared the surface by more than a metre.

  ‘Triploid!’ said Dave.‘And a bloody monster at that.’

  Gregan smiled to himself. He was happy to have Dave believe the monster rainbow was a triploid. The fish jumped again, and again, and again. But each time it jumped, Richo regained line.

  ‘Look at the size of that thing!’ said Dave. ‘It’s got to go close to the record.’

  ‘It’s going back,’ said Gregan.‘Record or no record.’ He felt like a proud father. His dream, his vision, his scheme was coming to fruition.

  It took ten minutes for Richo’s fish to tire enough for him to think seriously about netting it.

  ‘Net,’ he said.

  ‘No way,’ said Dan.‘You concentrate on getting the bugger in. I’ll net it.’

  Richo was happy to comply. He knew when he had his hands full.

  ‘Here it comes,’ he said.

  ‘Get ready . . .

  ‘Get ready . . .’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Dan.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Dave.

  Gregan just watched open-mouthed. For a moment he thought he was back on the sandbar in Hervey Bay when a shark had come screaming in and made off with a trevally he was fighting.

  Richo stood stunned with just the head of his enormous trout dangling from the end of his rod. Whatever had taken the rest of it had created a wake that had washed up over his knees and flooded his thigh-high waders.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ said Dan, wide-eyed with awe.‘What kind of trout cuts a world record in half with a single bite?’

  ‘How big do you reckon it was?’ said Gregan when they were back at Big Trout Lodge and had swallowed a few beers to clear their minds.

  ‘I’ve caught a forty-kilo bluefin tuna,’ said Dan. ‘It wasn’t any bigger than the trout that took Richo’s.’

  ‘Did you get a clear look at it?’ said Gregan. He wanted to know, wanted to be sure.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ said Richo. ‘I was as close as he was. There was far too much disturbance on the water. That thing threw a wake like a surfacing submarine. It could have been twenty kilos or thirty or forty. There’s no way of knowing. In truth, all I saw was its head, its wide-open mouth and bloody big teeth. It was big but I couldn’t put a weight to it.’

  ‘Do you agree with that, Dan?’

  ‘I guess so. I got a sense of the size of the fish rather than a good look. But I’ve fished for trout all my life and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything half as big.’

  ‘I reckon the fish it swallowed was a world record,’ said Dave. ‘I got a good look at that one. So I’d have to say thirty kilos is looking good.’

  ‘Ever seen a twenty?’ said Richo.

  ‘All we can agree on is that it was big,’ said Gregan. ‘Bloody big. And I want you all to agree on something else. I don’t want anybody to breathe a word of what happened to anyone else. Not to your mothers, wives or girlfriends. Not a dickybird, not to anyone. Okay?’

  ‘No worries,’ said Dan.‘Who’d believe us?’

  Gregan had always imagined that his first night in Big Trout Lodge would be cause for celebration, and he and Richo had celebrated long after the brothers had taken their leave to try out the staff quarters. They sampled the champagne the editors would be drinking, the sauvignon blanc, the pinot noir and the botrytis riesling. Richo grew more pleased with what they’d achieved as the night wore on, but Gregan grew increasingly uneasy. He kept his disquiet to himself and took it with him to bed.

  As he lay awake in the darkness he couldn’t help recalling snippets of conversation with Everton and the boy wonder, Lothar. They whirled around in his head and refused to go away.

  ‘Your fish will be magnificent. We just have to make sure they’re not too magnificent,’ Everton had said the very first time they met.

  ‘They should grow out in eighteen months to two years,’ Lothar had said. Well, the two years were nearly up. Gregan took some comfort from that.

  ‘The growth inhibitors may not cut in at all.’ That was also something the boy wonder had said. Gregan thought of the monster in the lake and shuddered. But then he remembered that Everton had created the fish in his lake, not Lothar, and Everton had thought that they’d peak at twenty-five kilos. Everton was a famous genetic engineer and Lothar was, well, just a know-all kid with peach fuzz on his face. Gregan decided to back Everton. Nevertheless he slept uneasily.

  Three weeks later Gregan returned to the lake to make sure everything would be ready in time for the grand opening. He was more concerned with the work that hadn’t been done than with the monster that might or might not be lurking in the lake. It was only at Dan and Dave’s insistence that he agreed to go fishing in the morning. As they walked out into the pre-dawn still
ness, Gregan remarked on how quiet it was.

  ‘You noticed it, too,’ said Dan.

  ‘What?’ said Gregan.

  ‘No frogs,’ said Dave.

  ‘What do you mean, no frogs?’ said Gregan.

  ‘There are no frogs,’ said Dan.‘Something’s happened to all the frogs.’

  Suddenly Gregan’s blood turned cold and it had nothing to do with the morning chill.

  ‘Something strange is going on,’ said Dave. ‘There are no frogs, no tadpoles and no galaxia.’

  ‘And now we’ve got big brown trout acting like they’re spooked or something,’ said Dan.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Gregan. He felt faint.

  ‘We’ll show you,’ said Dave.

  ‘Notice anything else strange?’ said Dan.

  ‘What?’ said Gregan.

  ‘There are ducks on all the lakes around here, but none on this lake. Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?’

  ‘Maybe there’s something in the water they don’t like,’ said Gregan weakly.

  ‘Maybe there’s something in the water that likes them,’ said Dan.‘Want to think about that?’

  ‘Look!’ said Dave suddenly.

  They’d walked along the bank to where an old eucalypt had fallen and deposited most of its upper storey in the lake. Gregan saw a monster brown lurking in among the branches, in water so shallow the tip of its tail broke the surface.

  ‘And there,’ said Dan.‘And there!’

  Wherever Dave and Dan pointed there were big brown trout. Some even had part of their backs out of the water.

  ‘You can walk right up to them and they won’t budge from their hiding place unless you actually touch them. Even then they don’t go far.’ Dave tiptoed into the water to demonstrate. The trout darted away at his touch but not very far. It hovered nervously in knee-deep water.

  ‘We’ve got browns here as big as the best from Lake Pedder and they’re scared stiff. They’re more frightened of whatever chased them in there than they are of us,’ said Dan. ‘Reckon we know what that might be.’

  ‘What?’ said Gregan. He couldn’t meet the brothers’ eyes.

  ‘That monster trout that cut your friend’s record trout in half,’ said Dan.