by Travis Kerr
A large fish, perhaps two feet long, leaped from the water, shaking its head back and forth before falling back in with a splash. Raine pulled back on the line, methodically bringing it in a little at a time. As she gained line on the fish that struggled on the other end, she wrapped the access back around the wood, leaving only the smallest amount of slack behind her hand.
Drom stared in amazement as she pulled her catch completely out of the water, depositing it on the deck of the dock in between them. He had never seen anything like it before. He had always suspected that people would fish with nets or perhaps spears, but nothing like what he saw now.
Of course, I’ve never really watched anyone fish before either, he reminded himself.
As the fish flipped and flopped this way and that she completely ignored it, instead pulling a rope that Drom had not seen from out of the water as well. This rope was much thicker than the line she had been using to catch the fish. As she brought the end out of the water he saw two more fish, similar to the first, attached to the end of it.
“You just caught three fish at once!” he exclaimed in amazement.
Raine laughed. “Not at all. These two I had already caught. I'll put this one here on this line too. I can keep them in the water until I'm ready to go in that way. They won't die, at least not as quickly, and they can't get off. Then I'll put more bait on the line and try to catch another one.”
“Do you think I could try?” he asked.
I won't be eating anything we catch, but I can still fish for them, he thought. It might help out, and besides, it looks like it could be fun.
“Sure, I've got another line you can use. Have you ever fished with a hook and line before?”
“I've never fished at all before, with anything,” he informed her. “Is it easy to use?”
“It's not that hard,” she told him. “I'm mostly fishing for fun now anyway, so I can show you how. First we'll have to catch you some bait. Let me take care of this one here, and I'll show you what you have to do.”
She picked up the fish she had just caught, opening its mouth and detaching a thick, hooked object from its mouth. Now that he could see it he realized that it must have been that hook that had kept the fish from getting away. It appeared to be a thin piece of carved bone, rounded into a half circle and barbed at the tip. How something like that was supposed to catch a fish Drom didn't know, but he was certain he was going to find out.
Once the fish was no longer connected to her line, she picked up the thicker line that held the two fish she had already caught. At the bottom of this line, where the two captured fish seemed to be attached, was a small metal circle. The line had been fed back through that circle, with the fish trapped in the loop that was created.
Drom watched as Raine pulled the line out of the loop, deftly fed the loose end through the mouth and back out of the fish's gill slit, then fed the end back through the metal ring at the other end. Now all three fish were caught on the line with no way off, neatly tied. She tied the loose end to the end of the dock and dropped the fish back into the water, where they would wait until she was finished for the day, or added another to the line.
She reached into the pack she had with her, which Drom quickly recognized as the one she had kept with her since the first day they had met, pulling out a second device like the one she had been using. A moment later she placed a small box on the end of the bench next to it.
“First we need to put a hook on your line,” she informed him. She opened the box to reveal several rows of smaller boxes. Inside one she brought out a small bone hook, similar to the one on her line, only a fraction of the size. She expertly tied this to the end of the fishing line she had brought out for him.
“Why is that hook smaller than yours?” he asked her.
“When you're fishing, your moving yourself up the food chain. In a little while you'll move up to a bigger hook,” she told him. When she saw that he clearly didn't understand she continued. “First you have to start at the bottom, with the small fish. That's what we have to catch now. Don't worry, you'll be catching the bigger ones soon enough. Now obviously this little hook isn't something that those fish are going to be interested in eating, so we have to give them something that they would be interested in. Usually I use small insects or worms, easy enough to find. For you, I'll start by teaching you what I would do if I can't get that kind of bait for whatever reason.”
She walked off the dock for a second, with Drom following close behind. He had no idea what she was up to, but had seen the results of her fishing techniques already. He couldn't hope for a better teacher. Once on the grass she bent down, quickly making herself a small bundle of twigs and grasses.
“The fish you are looking for first likes small insects. Since you don't have any right now, and we're assuming that sometimes there won't be any around that you can find, we want to make something that looks like an insect instead.” She motioned for him to get closer so he could see what she was doing. “If we take these small pieces of wood and put them over the hook like this, and then add this grass here like this, it kinda looks like an insect, see?”
He had to agree, it loosely resembled several of the insects he saw flying around every day. She had pulled brown grass over the twigs, and the result appeared very much like wings. With a piece of thin string she tied the small imitation together, careful not to push down on the wings she had created.
Once finished it appeared that a small insect now hung from the end of her line. If Drom hadn't seen her make it he might never know the difference, and was fairly certain that the fish would have just as much difficulty telling her decoy from a real one. About two feet down the line from the hook she tied on a small float, similar to the one on her line, but once again smaller than the one she used, just as the hook had been.
“OK, now we have a lure that the small fish should find enticing,” she said with satisfaction, handing him the line and the wooden device it was stored on. “You're ready to start fishing. First take off some of the line. Once you're ready to start fishing for larger catches you'll have to put your bait further out. Then you'll need to get it to unravel all on its own, but for now we'll just take the line off and start that way. Once you have enough line out, toss the end of the line over there, just at the outside edge of those reeds.”
He did as he was told, tossing the line out into the water. He got closer to his target than he had expected to, considering he had never done anything even remotely like this before.
“OK, now what?”
“Now we wait,” she replied. “Pull back, just a little bit, on the line from time to time, so that the fake insect at the end moves a little. Don't pull it hard, you don’t have to. Just move it enough so that the float moves an inch or so. That will be enough. If you're lucky, something will see it and come in for a bite. When it does, you'll see that float start to move. If this was a real insect, we would wait until the fish ate it completely, but the fish will spit out this fake lure as soon as it realizes that it isn’t something that it really wants to eat, so as soon as it moves pull back on the line. Now this fish is going to be pretty small, so don't yank on it too hard or you'll pull the fish's mouth off.”
He glanced her way, trying to decide if the last thing she had said was serious or if she was joking with him. She had a look of concentration on her face as she watched the float on the end of his line, even though it wasn't moving at all.
She must not have been joking, he decided after a moment.
After a few seconds, the float began to move toward the reeds, obviously not on its own momentum. Something was moving it, just as he had seen the fish she had caught had moved the one on her line before.
“Now!” she exclaimed, and Drom tentatively pulled back on the line.
There was something on the end of the line, he could tell that much, however it didn't pull as hard as he had expected. He wrapped up the line as he pulled it in, just as he had seen her do before. When he finally got t
he fish to the dock, he felt a slight pang of disappointment. It was nothing like the one she had caught. This one was only perhaps three inches long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail.
“Perfect!” she said happily. “That one's great!”
“What do you mean?” he asked in confusion. “This thing’s way to small to eat. You'd have to catch a hundred of them to make a decent meal.”
Raine burst out laughing. “This fish isn't to eat,” she said once she had stopped enough to talk. “This one is to catch the bigger fish. Now we'll take this one and put it on the line I was using. I'll let you use it for now, so you don't have to change gear yet.”
“Aren't you still going to fish?” Drom inquired.
“Of course. In a bit I'll go back to it, but right now I'm having fun just showing you how. I'll let you catch one first, and then I'll fish some more. Now I'll hook this little guy through the bottom jaw, like this. Go ahead and toss him out there. Throw him out as far as you can.”
Drom did as he was told. It took him a few tries before he had thrown it out far enough to satisfy Raine. The larger, heavier float made it easier to put more distance on it, but he had trouble getting it to unwind from the wooden device it was spooled on. Unlike before, he couldn't take the line off first, Raine informed him. It would become horribly tangled if he took off that much line. Eventually he got the feel for it though, and the float hit the water very close to where it had been when he first arrived.
“Now we wait,” she said again. “It might take a while before something takes it this time, but eventually something should come across it. That far from shore a small fish like that doesn't have anywhere to hide, and there are plenty of different types of fish that would love to make a meal of it. This time you don’t want to pull as soon as something moves it like we did with the fake lure. You want to wait until something pulls the float under the water entirely.”
“Seems like fishing involves a lot of waiting,” Drom observed.
“There are other ways of fishing that are a bit more active,” she told him. “I prefer live bait, which usually yields better results.”
“How long do you think we'll have to wait?”
“There's no way of knowing,” she answered. “Something could take it in the next second or two, or you might wait all day and not get a single bite. I've had pretty good luck here so far, so I'm betting we won't have to wait too long.” That said she sat down on the bench next to him, lounging in complete relaxation.
Drom watched the float for nearly a half an hour with almost nothing interesting at all happening. From time to time the float would shake back and forth some, but nothing else. The first time it happened Drom thought that a fish had taken the minnow he was using, but Raine assured him that was not the case. It was just the minnow moving around, she told him.
He was really starting to wonder what the fascination was with the pastime.
This is just so incredibly boring!
Granted, he supposed it was a bit relaxing, but then just sitting here doing nothing at all wouldn't be any different. It wasn't until Raine nudged him that he realized that he had stopped paying attention to his line.
The float was moving rapidly across the top of the water, so fast that it left a long, trailing wake behind it. It had traveled over ten feet before it disappeared under the water entirely. Raine opened her mouth to tell him to pull, but found she didn't have to. As soon as the float left his sight he pulled back, the line going taunt in his hands at once.
“Don't pull too hard!” she exclaimed. “You have to try and get a feel for the line itself. If the fish pulls back too hard it can cause the line to break, so you have to give it line when you need to. It looks like you've got a good one, so you want to be careful. Bring in line when you can, and let it take line out if you think it's pulling too hard.”
He tried to do what she suggested, but had no idea what too much pressure might be. She had said that with too much the line would break, but said nothing about how much pressure that might actually be.
The fish on the end fought strongly. Drom left himself some slack as he wrapped up the line he gained, just as he had seen Raine do when she pulled in her fish a short time before. That way the fish pulled line from the slack instead of pulling against the device.
It should put less stress on the line that way, he surmised.
Finally, after perhaps ten minutes, he managed to wrestle the creature to the dock. Raine reached down and pulled it from the water for him.
“Very well done Drom!” Raine exclaimed seriously. “You've brought in a good sized fish, and on your first try no less. The first time I had one on the line this big it snapped after only a minute or two, but of course I was only five or six years old at the time. Still, you did a good job.”
Now Drom understood why people enjoyed fishing.
That was fun!
It all made complete sense now. A person could relax just as easily while fishing as they could sitting in front of their fireplace, and still find a level of excitement not dissimilar to battle on occasion, whenever a fish decided to bite. It seemed like the perfect pastime, and had the added benefit of bringing in food for his friends at the same time.
“Now that you know the basics behind fishing, you're ready to start trying it on your own. You only caught one minnow before, so first you'll have to catch more bait. Decide what you think that the fish will go for. If you think they'll be going for minnows like the one you just caught that fish on, you'll have to catch more. You can also catch insects or other things that you might think a fish might eat, and try that. I've seen big fish go for little bait too, so all sorts of things could work. Decide what you want to try and go for it. I'm going back to my own fishing, but I'll watch from time to time.”
They once again switched rigs, Raine wanting the rig that was already set for big fish. Drom wondered what she had in mind to use for bait, but didn't have to wait long to find out. The feral woman walked right off the dock to the edge of the reeds growing along the shore. Staring intently into them, she saw what she had been looking for.
Quick as a striking snake, her hand darted in, clutching a fairly large frog in her hands when she pulled them back out. Satisfied with the croaker, she returned to the dock, skillfully running the hook through the animal's mouth and tossing the bait and line back out into the water.
Drom thought about it for a moment before deciding to go back to using a minnow like he had done the first time. His line was already set up for catching them after all. As Raine had said before, there wasn't any point in changing out his hook for a bigger one if he was just going to change it back again.
“If you're going after minnows, you might want to catch a couple of them before changing your gear,” she suggested, mirroring his thoughts. She reached into her pack to pull out a small bucket, filling it with fresh water before putting it on top of the box containing the hooks and other gear she had taken out before. “Just put them in here as you catch them. You'll have to either make another lure or catch a some small insects to use as minnow bait first.”
“What happened to the imitation fly you had made?” he asked. It had still been there when he had taken the minnow off of the hook before, he remembered.
“I took it off,” she admitted. “The best way for you to learn how fish on your own is to make you do it by yourself. That's how my father first taught me. It's how everyone in my village learns. So that's how I'm going to teach you. I showed you one way to catch them, and told you about another. There are plenty of others that you can learn as you go. As long as you're not so bored of fishing that you still want to do it that is.”
“No, I think I'll keep going. It seems like a lot of fun, and a good way to relax. Just don't expect me to want to eat one of them.”
“That's fine,” she replied with a grin. “It leaves more for me!”
Raine seems happier than normal when she's out here fishing, Drom noticed, if how she seemed at that
moment was any indication.
He had expected her to be depressed now that Raiste was gone, but she seemed fine with it. She must be very confident in his abilities, Drom thought. She didn't seem worried about their friend at all.
Instead of trying to make an imitation insect like Raine had, Drom decided to simply catch one for himself. After only a few minutes in the grass nearby he came up with a small cricket, certainly worth trying. He hooked the small insect to his line, and threw it back in front of the weeds as he had before. In only a few minutes, his float went under. He put the caught minnow in the bucket and repeated the process several times, until he had enough bait to last him for at least a little while.
The two friends fished for most of the day, until the sun had dipped almost to the edge of the horizon. Once they were finished Drom helped Raine clean the fish they had caught, more than a dozen between them. He didn't enjoy that part of it, but it no longer disturbed him any longer either. Now it felt to him like just a natural part of the process. With the cleaning done, they went back out to the living room to relax for the rest of the night, eating a quick dinner cooked over the living room fireplace.
The next several weeks continued much the same way. Drom would wake up, start off his day with his sword practice, and then the two would go fishing for the greater portion of the day. Raine would watch each day as he practiced, occasionally bringing out her own weapon and practicing the techniques she fought with, though the two refrained from sparing. While neither of them said it, they both understood the reason why.
Drom wasn't just practicing his techniques, which were formidable enough using Ocean's Hand, he was also using his magic when he practiced. Sparring would just be too dangerous. When he used his magic he was faster and stronger than the feral woman, and his new technique defended by striking an opponents attacking blade. Such a fighting style didn't work well against someone you didn't want to actually harm.
