Extreme Fishing

by Robson Green

  So, I am no longer a sturgeon virgin and I’m very happy. These fish love Randy’s stink bait and soon we have another strike. This one feels like the Daddy and it’s moving away from me at an alarming speed. I struggle, winding and lifting, winding and lifting. Suddenly he whips round to the left – I spin with him. Now to the right – ‘Where’s he taking me?’ I am propelled forward – he’s diving down. The downward load is putting a massive strain on my back and I am not as young as I think I am. I am beginning to wish I really had trained for six months because I am fighting a perpendicular battle and my back is not strong enough for the struggle. There are shooting pains flying down my legs and into my boots but there’s no way I’m losing what could be the biggest fish of my life. The world record is an astonishing 994 pounds, and this feels very close. I throw my hat on the floor. I am sweating profusely, the inside of my lime-green anorak smells like Randy’s bucket of green death. I wrestle and struggle some more. Randy is getting a wee bit enthusiastic and decides to increase the tension on the reel to try to slow the fish down. I plead with him not to, as we are nearing the breaking tension of the leader line, but he turns the tension wheel clockwise and shouts, ‘Come on, Robson. COME ON!’

  ‘I think you need to take some tension off, Randy. He’s gonna fucking take me over. Seriously, guys, get a fucking hold of me!’ I yell as I lose my footing.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ says Randy, putting his arm around my waist, laughing wheezily like Muttley from Wacky Races.

  I am in the hurt locker.

  ‘Look at that – he’s away. This has to be the biggest fish I’ve ever had on my line.’

  ‘He’s coming, buddy. Get him, get him,’ Randy points.

  ‘Come on then, son!’

  I wind and lift the rod up with all my might. Snap! I fall backwards onto the deck – the sturgeon has broken off.

  ‘Ohh, fuck!’

  I swear incessantly for about three minutes. There are no other words for the feeling of loss, frustration and despair. It was 200–300-pound sturgeon – it had to be as it’s just broken off a 90-pound trace.

  Ever the professional, I turn to camera and say, ‘But the thing is, the fish win sometimes and it’s going take a better fisherman than me to bring that fish out the water. Oh, bollocks!’ In reality I’m thinking, It’s all flipping Randy’s fault. He put too much bloody tension on the line. I knew it and I did nothing about it. I know, Uncle Kenobi, I know I should have trusted my instincts, but it’s a bit bloody hard to when I’m the novice and haven’t caught one before.

  Director Jason tries to dampen the blow by offering me Champagne and caviar for dinner that evening. Pound for pound, caviar is the most expensive food in the world and it’s strange to think that I’m about to put something in my mouth that is from the bottom end of a fish – but then I do like eggs from the bottom end of a chicken so why not?

  ‘Sturgeons’ eggs might be black gold, but are they worth it?’ I say to camera.

  I taste a small amount on a blini. The answer is, quite simply, ‘no’. To my mind, caviar is a bit like some WAGs I could mention: zero calories, little taste and a total waste of money. I wash the salty eggs down with the Champagne and pour another glass. Now that stuff is worth every penny.

  Kayaking, baby!

  We are heading for Gabriola Island and it’s blowing a hooley. I do my Kate Winslet impression at the front of the ferry but I am really not looking forward to going canoeing in this weather. I tried kayaking last year in South Africa and Costa Rica – it’s always a bloody disaster and the footage is never used. Kayaking and me go together like the press and Hugh Grant, democracy and China, Scargill and Thatcher. But at least it was warm in South Africa; today it’s gonna be as frosty as a miner’s wife on washing day.

  I meet Kim Crosby, a camp kayaking evangelist who will have to perform a miracle to convert me today. Unfortunately it appears he wants to perform something else. He peers into my canoe, his face dangerously close to my crotch. I point and bite my nails at the camera. I’m going to have to keep a weathered eye on this old sea otter. We paddle out into the Straits of Georgia, where there are sea lions, killer whales and . . . sharks. It is effing freezing and I really don’t want to fall in. ‘Chin-up, chest out, Robson, and stroke, stroke – no, Kim, not me, the water!’

  We are heading for a reef where lingcod live – not a relative of Pacific cod but in fact a long, slender greenling. The lingcod are fierce predators with massive mouths and sharp teeth, and they can grow up to eighty pounds. Kim says the biggest fish can take the kayak with them, dragging you for hundreds of metres. I say to him, ‘Stay close.’ Worryingly he replies, ‘Don’t worry, I’m with you, baby.’ I have been on some dates in my time, but this one is unique.

  We arrive at the spot near some rocks where Kim suggests we throw out a line but this isn’t easy and the strong wind keeps blowing us off the reef. He gets me by the paddle, trying to steady me in the waves. It’s an impossible task and we are both blown and tossed further off course. I hold on tightly to his kayak, our canoes gently rubbing against each other in the bumpy waters.

  I ask Kim that if by some a miracle I should catch a lingcod today and get it to the boat, how the hell do I dispatch it?

  ‘We just grab into the gills, pull it in here, punch the shit out of the fish and down it goes.’

  Right. That sounds lovely. I have a feeling that Kim might be sniffing glue or that he’s two lingcods short of a picnic – and right at this moment a picnic or any kind of food seems very doubtful indeed. In two hours I have only managed ten minutes of fishing. The wind is taking the canoe in one direction and the current is taking the lure in another, meaning it’s not sinking to the bottom but rather is floating on the bloody surface, which is no bloody good for attracting lingcod.

  ‘This is fucking stupid! Ocean kayaking is meant to be breath-taking, but I think this is piss-taking,’ I snap.

  ‘But you are looking marvellous,’ says Kim, trying to appeal to my vanity. Well, my vanity fucked off long ago and is currently by an open fire, sipping single-malt and puffing on a Monte Cristo cigar, and I want to join it.

  We of course catch sod-all. My bottom is numb, I can’t feel my toes and I’ve really had enough. In my eyes, Kim’s credibility is at its nadir, unlike our lures. Unabashed, Kim says, ‘I dropped some prawn traps earlier today. How about some lovely prawns for lunch?’

  ‘Prawns. Perfect. Whatever. Get me out of this kayak!’

  We head out on Kim’s boat to pull up his prawn traps set 100 metres down. Right now I’m so hungry my stomach feels like my throat’s been cut. I start to haul up a trap. It’s hard work but finally it reaches the surface and . . . ‘Fucking hell, Kim, it’s empty!’

  There is not a single prawn. I feel like a right one, but Kim is a prize langoustine.

  ‘It’s OK. There are two more traps,’ he says irritably.

  I say, ‘It’s a bad omen; it’s a barren wasteland out there.’

  I strangle him on camera when the second one is empty as well. There is one more pot and as I yank the rope up, lunch hovers into view – a couple of handfuls of what in the northeast we call ‘shrimp’, of which you need to eat about fifty in order to consider it an appetiser. I wave one in the air.

  ‘A prawn. I’m so happy.’

  Kim puts his face in the camera and says, ‘Extreme fishing, baby.’

  No, it’s not – and don’t call me ‘baby’, punk.

  Port Alberni

  ‘I’m really looking forward to today because I’ve never been in a fishing competition before but I think my chances are good. There has been a question mark over my fishing ability during this show but I think a lot of questions are going to be answered today.’

  I deliver the PTC by an open fire, soft-lit like a 1980s porn film.

  ‘Today this is my type of fishing, exactly like fly-fishing on the Coquet, the Tweed or the Spey, surrounded by peace, quiet and tranquillity . . .’

  Cut to lo
ud rock music and us roaring up the Stamp River, battering into grade-five rapids in a shallow aluminium speed-boat, its engine terrifying anything within a five-mile radius. There’s obviously no time for poncey scenery today.

  I am here to challenge the self-proclaimed Angling King of British Columbia, the Jedi Knight of steelhead fishing, Roly Hider, which is a totally made-up name and a really crap anagram. We decide it’s the most fish that counts, not the biggest, and the loser has to swim naked in the Stamp lagoon. Roly sits cross-legged on his boat, shades down, cool as fuck, so confident in his ability, so smug and unflappable. I do hope he got bullied at school. If I lose, the water will instantly freeze my tackle off. I have to win or I’ll become a castrato forever and be forced to duet with Aled Jones on our album, The Very Best of Songs of Praise. (What ever happened to that show? Mum used to love Harry ‘Seagoon’ Secombe singing. I always found it a bit surreal and he wasn’t even very good. Don’t say a word: three number ones. I was always great; it was Jerome who was tone-deaf. I carried him for years, you know. Just kidding. Love you really, Jerome.)

  It’s a good start: I have a fish on before Crap Anagram. I lose it but quickly coax another. It puts up a good fight and I have to concentrate hard to reel the fish to the boat, but I manage it and land my first ever steelhead. Steelheads are also known as sea-run rainbow trout or salmon trout, and the only difference between them and the plain old rainbow trout is where they spend their lives feeding and maturing. Stream-resident rainbow trout live their life entirely in freshwater, perhaps with short periods of time spent in estuaries or near-shore marine waters. Steelheads, however, leave freshwater as juveniles and migrate long distances in the ocean, where they grow to maturity before migrating back to their original streams. As they travel to the ocean as little’uns their scales turn a steel blue, hence their name.

  I admire my steelhead. What a stunner! She is about five pounds and with the most vibrant magenta hue along her side that morphs into a stunning bronze gilt around the rest of her form. After a quick ‘donk’ on the head it’s time to get back to work. I am in the lead against the world’s cockiest Canadian and I’m planning on it staying that way. Time ticks by and it’s one-all, but Roly soon hooks another. It’s a fabulous fish but as he reels it towards the boat it suddenly turns and is off. Oh no, he lost it! So sad. Never mind.

  Three hours and fifty minutes later, it’s two-all with ten minutes to go. I hook a fish and lose it. Damn. With only several minutes left on the clock, Roly shouts: ‘Fish on.’ He lands the steelhead during injury time and I am gutted. ‘I am not going in the drink,’ I mutter. ‘Oh, yes, I believe you are,’ he says, perking up.

  Everyone is goading me from the boat. The water is a balmy seven degrees – that’s only two degrees warmer than the water that killed the passengers of the flippin’ Titanic. I’m going to die and he only beat me by one fish. But I am a man of my word. Stiff upper lip, Robson. For Queen and Country and the Commonwealth, including Canada, which we still rule – suckers!

  I walk in au buff.

  ‘I do this every day in Newcastle – not a problem!’

  I dive in and burst out of the surface for air.

  ‘Fuck! Jesus! Jesus! Oh, my God!’

  My testicles retract, I sing a perfect B-flat – I have never reached that note before, or since. I run out of the water using a dead salmon to protect my modesty, which is more like a mole peeping though a set of curtains by this time.

  You might think that’s the worst thing that could happen, but you’d be wrong.

  The Curse of the Ocean Pearl

  From the look of the eerie trawler and its rabble crew, my instincts tell me not to board, but as usual I don’t fully tune in.

  ‘Robson, I’ve been looking forward to this,’ shouts Captain Bob Frumani, his voice raspy from years of hard living. It’s exactly what a killer would say, just before he carves you up. Bob is an unforgettable man, a man on whose face are etched the frightening things he has played witness to. His eyes are haunted – he has seen too much. His crew stand behind him like wraithy heavies from a ship long gone, except instead of wearing swashbuckling kit they are wrapped in black hoodies, which only add to the menace. Nature has played nicely with me so far but I am now about to witness her at her most despicable. I board the Ocean Pearl from a small fishing boat and the cameraman, Mike Carling, the director, Jason, and the sound guy, Stuart Bruce, follow me up the metal ladder. The associate producer isn’t coming. Why? ‘I’ve got loads of work to do here.’ I later discover he suffers from terrible seasickness. He made the right call that day.

  We’ve had sight of the weather forecast and it’s looking untidy, to say the least. Sleet and snow are predicted, so it will be not only stormy but also freezing. We are heading out to a notorious stretch of the Pacific off the Brooks Peninsula. Explorer Captain Cook called it the ‘Cape of Storms’ and Bob does nothing to soften his punch: ‘This is serious high seas . . . It’s like going to another planet. This is extreme fishing. I’m serious.’

  As we head out I’m having serious doubts about this. I mean, come on, guys – it’s only a bloody TV show. Isn’t this too much of a gamble with all our lives? I am pacified by the director, who is between a rock and a hard place – he has to make a show or the production company could lose a lot of money. He updates me with the weather report. The storm will be heading north so we’ll miss the worst of it, thank God, but we’re still going to get mixed up in a gale.

  I take Bob to one side to voice my concerns in private. I don’t want his burly crew to know I’m scared. We go up to the wheel-house from where he captains the trawler. As I start to relate my fears we enter the beginnings of a two-metre swell. The vessel starts to heave up and down and rolls powerfully from side to side. Bob tells me this is nothing compared with what’s to come. He’s really not helping.

  Bob: ‘When you come out here you gotta be ready to focus because it’s high-end. If someone really doesn’t want to come fishing with me, I don’t take them. I never phone my crew guys, I never phone ’em and say “Will you come with me?” No way. They gotta wanna be here and it’s the same as when you’re captain: you have gotta wanna be here, so you’re absolutely at your best.’

  My internal monologue cranks up. But I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to go fishing! I am not at my best and no one will let me get off this fucking boat! I wish you’d understand that! I stay silent and swallow my frustrations.

  Bob: ‘I’ve been in some very serious storms where I really thought that this wheelhouse was gonna get knocked off the boat . . . and you know, what I’m saying is, I’ve been scared before.’

  ‘OK,’ I whisper. Robson, you pillock, listen to me – if he’s been scared, you’re fucked. I mean, look at the man! He’s gnarly, nails, hard as fuck. He’s like out of another time, where sailors wrecked four or five ships a career and that was normal.

  Bob: ‘You know when you’re four hundred, five hundred miles off shore and it’s blowing so hard you can’t even hear it . . . you think that it’s peaking . . . it’s just screaming, it’s just woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, wowowooo . . . and you think it’s peaking and then it just comes: wahhhhhhhhh . . .’

  I swallow.

  Bob: ‘And the whole boat’s just shaking and you literally think your wheelhouse is gonna get knocked off . . . That’s, erm . . .’ – he turns and looks me straight in the eye – ‘. . . when you do really see God, believe me.’

  I do, I see all sorts of horrible storms in those haunted grey eyes – it’s like looking into one of those snow globes all shaken up, but there’s a ship in there being gobbled by the waves.

  ‘Thanks for the chat, Bob. It’s really helped.’

  For fuck’s sake, I’m going to die. I’m seriously going to die. I feel light-headed, my teeth feel too big for my mouth, I’m delirious and I need to breathe, but the boat is all over the place and I’m on board for thirty-six hours.

  As we slowly head northwest towards the C
ape of Storms, the waves are already four metres high and rising, just as the temperature is plummeting. Well, at least, according to the weather report, we’re going to miss the worst of it. But somehow, as time slowly ticks on, it really doesn’t feel that way. The swell continues to rise and rise and the wind speed increases. Bob admits this is gale force now.

  ‘But don’t worry, Robson, this trawler is built for a hurricane.’

  I do not want to test it out, I think to myself.

  A conservative description of the ocean would be ‘lumpy’; the reality is that its peaks and troughs are about twenty feet high. It’s like driving over the tummy-lurching Northumberland Hills at breakneck speed whilst, at the same time, being thrown violently around by some prison animal who wants you to be his bitch.

  ‘I thought we were missing the storm, Jason,’ I spit.

  He shakes his head: ‘We’re going straight into it. The weather pattern changed at the last minute.’

  I am so unimpressed. To Jason, it’s terrific news – this is his Deadliest Catch moment – but for Mike, Stuart and me it’s terrifying. Especially as those guys are carrying such heavy equipment and don’t have an extra pair of hands to hold on. The wind screams. I am frothing with ire.

  ‘How dare you put us in this situation?!’

  Boom! Boom! Waves hit the side of the boat and spray the deck. I am glad I’m wearing a survival suit: it’ll give me three minutes of important thinking time should I fall in. That’s enough time to mentally say goodbye to everyone I know and love. The crew have located their marker buoys so I need to help them get what they’ve come for. The sablefish are located two miles down in waters chilled by the Arctic winds. The reason why these guys risk life and limb week after week is that black cod, as it’s known in high-end Asian restaurants, brings top dollar. On a good day, the Ocean Pearl can land £100,000 worth of sablefish. It’s black gold to these men, and as we all know riches can corrupt the mind . . . and indeed it has done, because these guys are fucking mental to do this job. But not only are they addicted to the booze, the women and the lifestyle the money brings, they are also addicted to the thrill and adventure. As these men prove, the life of a sailor hasn’t changed much over the last 500 years.