Hook

Do you know what I love? Fishing, that’s what. Stringing up the rods, fustaring around for bait, being rank amateurs and digging up worms under the compost bin, sticking bits of bacon on hooks and heading down to the harbour to cast and reel and taunt the little rock gobys, and stray pollock, and hope to reel something in. We only catch salt water, but we all love it.

And today, we especially did. The kids were settled around the inner harbour, fishing with floats and spinners, dangling earthworms in front of crabholes, hoping for a nibble. I went out on the sea wall with my €30 rod and line, the weight too light, casting and spinning too close to shore.

A small boat took off from the harbour behind me, so I held in the line for a while to let it past. And as it passed, the red-jacketed fisherman called to me
“Have you got anything yet?”
“Not a chance. Not even a cold!”
“Well here’s one to get you started.”
And he tossed me a mackerel, gleaming and silver, and it landed stiff at my feet on the concrete, and we grinned at each other, me and the fisherman as he moved out to sea cause we both knew there were no live fish to be caught in this harbour, and it’s times like that I love this island, and fishing, and what you might catch if you’re lucky, what you might catch that will reel you in to this island life.