It helps to talk about pain and loss, right? That’s why group therapy and camp “Kumbaya” singalong sessions exist. With that in mind, in issue 38 we asked several very accomplished anglers about the fish that keep them up at night. You know, the ones that got away but that visit frequently in their dreams. Amid tears, rage, sorrow and vendettas (against inanimate objects and pizza grease), they bared the dark side of their souls. These are their chronicles of loss.
THE PLATOON POON – Conrad Botes
I was on a beach somewhere in West Africa. It was about 10 o’clock in the morning and the tarpon were going absolutely berserk just behind the shore break, in broad daylight. It was a spectacle straight out of some National Geographic documentary, and something that I had not experienced before during daylight hours.
There were five of us and we were fishing off a point just outside the river mouth. But reaching the tarpon was difficult, almost impossible. To make matters worse, real estate was limited to two anglers in the sweet spot, and even they needed to add about five metres to their cast beyond the point break to where the fish were rolling and smashing mullet.
I identified the very tip of the point as the spot from where you could reach the fish. The problem was that you would get washed off the point very quickly by crashing waves and end up in a gully behind it. A good name for the gully would have been Tarpon Alley if it wasn’t for the bull sharks we’d already spotted in it.
I walked over to Peter who was fishing close by. “Why don’t you try that point over there, Pete?”
“I don’t want to get washed off into Shark Alley by the first wave,” he replied.
“Do you mind if I give it a try?”
“Go for it,” he laughed.
Watching the surf, I took a lull between two sets of waves to walk out onto the tip of the point. I made a cast that seemed to land in the sweet spot. It must have been two strips in when a tarpon hit the fly and, simultaneously, a wave hit me off the point. All I remember was swimming towards the beach and holding onto the rod with all my might as a big tarpon jumped right on the edge of my peripheral vision.
Eventually I reached the beach where I managed to put the brakes on the tarpon. Some of my friends came running, getting ready to help land the fish. It had been long years since I’d caught a big tarpon in the surf and, while I was really slugging away at fighting it, I was overjoyed at finally catching one again.
I remember seeing the head of the fly line rolling onto the reel; the fish in the shallows with its back and tail fin out the water and Damien walking towards the tarpon in order to grab the leader and secure the fish.
Suddenly, without any struggle from the fish, the line went slack. The hook pulled. I watched as the tarpon slowly slipped over the lip of the sandbar and disappeared.
Later I looked at the photos Travys took of me fighting and losing the tarpon. It reminded me of the scene from Platoon where the dying Sergeant Elias Gordon (Willem Dafoe) throws his arms skyward in a gesture of defeat, desperation and betrayal.
Read the rest of the stories in ‘The Chronicles of Loss’ in Issue 38. As always, it free!