The friend I labelled as 'the Genius' recently purchased a boat with his old man. Having been incommunicado for the past few months, this was a bit of a surprise revealed to me over dinner on Friday night. My disappointment at being left out of the loop was immediately consoled by an offer to get out on Port Phillip Bay and conduct a little 'crusade' against the oceans. Those damn fish are asking for it anyhow.
It turns out that on a jaunt to Tasmania the Genius and the Genius' sire discovered this classic 1940s launch in a boatyard somewhere. It's made almost entirely of an Australian hardwood called Jarrah and is a 25' beauty. As with all good fortune though it has two sides, this one being that 'Argo' was designed for river travel and bobs like a cork on the ocean. Not to be deterred, I watched the intake on Saturday afternoon to carefully avoid any hangover-type complications. That fishing trip on Blue Magic a few weeks back was a near-thing in the burley department.
This time of year marks a clear slump in the sports stakes, meaning a marked lack of weekend conversation fodder. With the Aussie Rules Finals gone and the waiting for the cricket season there's only racing to be had. And this city really loves its racing carnival. Just in case you live underground, Tuesday is the Melbourne Cup and today you can tell by the strange calm has descended over the city. Usually if people aren't at the Cup Parade they're recovering from the weekend's revelry, in anticipation going entirely ballistic tomorrow.
If you happen to be in the city near sundown on Cup day you can expect to see two very common sights. The first being ladies in expensive frocks walking (or staggering) on tender feet with their high heels in hand. The second? Clusters of blokes in cheap suits wearing their ties around their heads Rambo style and singing 'eye of the tiger'. One word. 'Circus'.
Saturday foreshadowed tomorrow, but with glorious weather and the big hats out in force. I'm guessing that most people knew the forecast for tomorrow is supposed to be 'crap', and got out into sun on Derby Day instead. Not that this will deter many tomorrow mind you, even if it's hosing down there will be a repeat performance with miles of expensive marques filled with drinking and drunk punters schmoozing. Lucky buggers, with my income I can guarantee it wouldn't be the helicopter trip that would get me there.
Instead, this past Saturday the current housemate RockGod and I sat out on the front porch in the sun and got a barbeque going. He's following the missus to the UK and we've been conducting interviews to replace him by putting a person in the front room of the house. Normally this can be a chore, but we tried to combine 'Shallow Grave' with some serious drinking and burning gourmet snags. Not too bad an afternoon all in all. By the time some of the RockGod's mates turned up after their day at the carnival we were only slightly more sober than they were.
A good effort really. Dunno if anyone will actually move in, but at least saying 'and this is the galley kitchen, and this is the bathroom, and the bond is a month in advance, and the place is nice and cool in summer, and the rent is paid fortnightly, we do our own food and share bills, and what do you do, and the room gets afternoon sun, and yes, this is a great street, would you like to hear RockGod play some guitar, and we haven't buried many strangers under the concrete in the back yard' twenty times or so was appropriately blunted.
I didn't hear from the Genius until early Sunday afternoon, which was fortunate, by which point I had gathered my act together enough to pile into the car to head over to Williamstown. The Friday night dinner was on because Kitty (an ex-housemate and mutual friend) had recently gotten back into town, so the three of us and the Genius' King George Spaniel "Angel" headed out to the water.
By 3.30 we were sitting on Port Phillip Bay, which was miraculously like a duck-pond, and listening to the Genius explain that in half a dozen fishing trips he hadn't caught a damn thing. So much for decimating the oceans... maybe you should have told me this before I reserved a spot for 'fish' on tonight's menu? Stopping to buy a steak on the way home is an anticlimax like no other.
We resolved to check out one spot though and then move onto a reef some bogans who live next to the Genius told us about. And bogans can't be wrong. They're like the Obi Wan Kenobi of fishing. They just know.
Also, after the entire lack of fish action on Blue Magic a couple of weeks back my hopes weren't too high. But not to be deterred, I dutifully rigged with heavy sinkers (currents) baited up my hook with squid, and got my line in the water. Beer in hand (James Squire homebrew), I waited.
Naturally I was intensely pissed off when the Genius had hooked and lost two fish before I had even had a nibble. A fact that Kitty was all too happy to exploit.
If fishing has taught me anything over the years it is that it is the most Zen of sports. Unless you're chasing big game, in which case it's just perseverance and lots of money. A guy on Blue Magic described big game fishing as 'standing in a cold shower tearing up twenty dollar bills'. Digesting these sage words and drinking the Genius' free beer I pushed my pride way down deep, quietly contemplating fish nibbling my hook.
It worked. Before I knew it I had a bite and was hauling in a beautiful little Rock Flathead. Now, there's only two words to describe flatties. One is ugly. Really ugly. They're spiny bottom feeders and covered in these lances that not only leave nasty infections, but kinda sting. Being macho almost immediately cost me a large, large amount of blood from trying to handle it without the protective gloves. Damn thing pierced me through ring finger of the left hand sideways and I bled like a stuck pig.
Karma.
Fortunately, there is also a second word to describe flatties, and that word is delicious. Really delicious. I washed the bleeding hand in the ocean (burley) and smiled like a Cheshire Cat. A small price to pay for something that was, after all, my own fault. Note to self, being a 'real man' can potentially mean mild shock from blood loss. Rebaiting, I got the line back in the water.
Actually, there should be a third word for flatties, and that word is stupid. No sooner had the sinker touched the bottom than I was hauling in another fish! To make a long story short the Genius and I were soon hauling in fish so fast we had to delegate 'fetching beer and stopping the Spaniel from barking at everything that moved' to Kitty. Originally she had been assigned to 'removing fish from hooks with the protective gloves', but after seeing the Purple Heart I gained she wasn't having a bar of it.
Whereas that initial "FISH!!" was exciting, by dusk we were making comments like 'Oh. Another flattie'. Took us an hour and a half to clean and fillet all thirty flathead. But damn, well salted, flash-grilled with a little butter, a sprinkling of mixed herbs, and an accompanying glass of white? Very quickly made up for not being in a big tent tomorrow being force-fed caviar.