Take your kid fishing, they said
Father-son bonding through fishing memories, reflecting on peace, tranquility, and shared experiences in nature.
When I was 11 years old, my dad decided to take me fishing. I remember it being a process accompanied by substantial paperwork: we had to go to the local Post Office to purchase my "fishing licence" which would prevent angry bailiffs from insisting we leave the pond.
I still don't know what prompted him to take a near-teenager with him on a fishing trip. We had to get up at 5am—apparently to catch the early-rising fish—and carry a significant amount of equipment, warm clothing, food supplies and other accessories before we could sit down and actually start fishing. Teenagers aren't famed for their attention spans or tolerance of boredom: maybe my dad was just a glutton for punishment.
I'm now near the age my dad was when he used to take me on these early morning trips and I think I understand a little better: there was a peace and tranquility to those secluded ponds that he didn't get much of back home with three kids and a busy job to juggle. Once we'd baited the lines and cast our floats to sit wobbling on the pond surface, we'd sit back in chilly silence (the weather, not our relationship) and fix our eyes lazily on the bright orange tips sticking out of the water. Any attempts I made at conversation were gently hushed as he cautioned me to avoid disturbing the fish.
Of course, I got bored. I remember wandering the edges of the pond in a desperate search for entertainment and accidentally falling in, up to my wellies in pond water and earning reproachful looks from other fishermen (and they were men – I never saw a woman at these places).
Things became quickly less boring when someone bought me a tackle box full of exciting fishing accessories: a catapult, ostensibly for targeting bait to the region you were fishing in, but quickly repurposed by teenage Matt into a device to launch maggots improbably large distances across the pond. There were lures and floats that wiggled underwater, and devices you filled with live bait which would come pouring out once submerged underwater. I loved it.
Sometimes I caught impressive specimens, including on our very first trip when my unbaited line—left resting on a pole while we set up the other rods—somehow landed a small but feisty perch. I also caught a 7lb mirror carp which is immortalised somewhere in a photograph in our family album, featuring a genuinely happy grin from me as I held the wriggling proof of my early-morning commitment.
With a son of my own these days, I sometimes wonder about repeating the experience when he's a little older. The appeal of half a day of blissful silence, surrounded by nature, with only the mild challenge of reeling in a small fish and disgorging the hook to reckon with: sign me up, please. Corralling a child, though? I'm less keen on that.
It's something I'm grateful to my dad for, now. It would've been easier (and cheaper) to leave me at home and go and get some well-earned downtime in peace. But this was an early experience (for me) of male bonding: my dad would sometimes bring his fishing friends with us, and this was my first taste of that male-specific bonding culture where few words are spoken, but an experience is shared and a warmth and care develops, perhaps through the cloaked language of technicality: what kind of hook should I use with this line, Dad? What bait works best for carp, Stephen? Bryan, can I use your spare rod? These experiences were love dressed up in the safe metaphor of hobby and masculinity: we were hunters, we were experts, we were men. Maybe my dad knew exactly what he was doing all along.
Mini feels this week
'Cos this is Zillas
I'm blessed with a son who's a keen performer: he loves acting, dancing and singing, and will convert any group of random strangers into an audience (whether they're up for it or not). I can't remember how or why but I recently introduced him to the song Thriller when he asked about music to dance to.
Forgetting just how disturbing the full-length video is for the song, I showed him the clip on YouTube and then had to explain that zombies weren't real and the dead don't rise from their graves. He quickly recreated the famous dance, though, and has already produced an illustrated storybook retelling his version of the narrative.
We then got a report from school that he'd hit another kid: but as he tearfully explained to us, he was doing "the Zillas dance" in the playground and flung out a zombie arm, whacking another child in the process. Some careful questioning revealed he'd misheard the name of the song and was confusing his teachers as well until they saw him attempt to moonwalk. Lesson learned.