Setting a minnow to catch a game fish

There we are, quayed-up so to speak, among the Hout Bay gulls. Three hundred broad-shouldered, muscle-honed specimens from the top drawer of South African deep sea angling.

And me. A minnow among leviathans.

Standing about, wiping nerve symptoms from palms, I find a public relations hand-out in the clutch of one. I read it and am startled by the small print on the last page which describes this event as “a must for anyone who has ever matched his strength and wits against the great fighters of the sea”.

Had I seen this before leaving home yesterday, I would still be there, mowing the lawn, though at 6am on a Saturday such activity might have excited the neighbours, not least before we don’t have a lawn.

I cast around for an escape route but am hemmed in on all sides by a phalanx of oil-skinned Titans, rods and foul bait to the fore, eager for the fray.

The sponsors, mine hosts, purveyors of last night’s free Italian whisky (what do you mean, Justerini isn’t Italian?) are in evidence too. One slaps another and points in my direction. The two become mirthful. Press-ganging suddenly takes on a new dimension.

So. Nothing for it but a bold face. However pale. Dread minutes pass.

When the boats arrive, all 35 of them, it is small consolation to find that ours is among the largest. Most of the rest I wouldn’t sail in my bath.

We board. I am consoled further to find at least a pair of kindred souls among our complement. They are immediately recognisable by the position they take up at the gunwales, heads well over the side. And we have yet to leave harbour.

They introduce themselves by shaking hands from a position somewhere behind their backs. One is the owner of a pizza parlour in Johannesburg, the other a wine farmer from Paarl. Nino and Theuns.

I meet the crew. Titans all, preoccupied with discussing traces and breaking strains, wind directions and, paramount, the prospect of landing the winning marlin or the tagged yellowtail worth 62 000 rands.

Our vessel moves out, motors growling like a well-trained Rottweiler. The growl says, those fighters of the deep had better watch out. For some reason, I do not feel reassured.

Up on the pulpit deck is the skipper, guiding us through the Hout Bay heads. He is a large, genial man. He is also a cigar smoker, one of which he lights as we accelerate through the first breaker.

Twenty-five grams of Marzine (my sole breakfast intake) struggle gamely on my behalf and barely win. The smoke wafts down to Nino and Theuns, who begin making goose-type noises. They both come close to abandoning ship.

The crew has set up the rods in their slots. There are seven of them, too many by four for my fancy, bristling out around the stern.

Reports start coming in on a radio from boats further out. No one is catching. How long did Hemingway’s Old Man of the Sea go without a fish? Eighty-four days? There could be hope yet.

At once, one of the lines goes with the sound of a small siren. I stumble down the gangway to watch the action. And discover, with abject horror, that I am intended to be it.

Protests are useless. The crew is insistent. Guests first and Nino and Theuns are hardly fit for that category. I am bundled into a swivel chair, harnessed up, handed the screaming rod.

To begin with, I decide big game fishing is a cinch. The angler is merely a fulcrum between a fixed point, the harness, and a moving force, the fish. All he has to do is heave and reel, heave and reel, heave and reel.

But after twenty minutes, I have the distinct feeling that the only thing still attaching arms to torso is the fabric of my windbreaker. Then the line goes limp. Reaction from the crew is as if I had dropped a vital catch in a Test match. I am slightly exonerated when they pull in the line and find the tunny has straightened the lure.

So to the cabin for liquid therapy and a stocktaking of limbs. Duty has been done, permanently, surely.

No such luck. Not an hour later, we strike a school. Five lines howl. This time we land five good-sized long-fin. The deck is awash with blood. I slip in the stuff and end up atop Nino and Theuns, by now prostrate in the bilges. We might be a scene from a Clint Eastwood movie.

For the record, our boat caught the largest fish of the day, and contest: 80 kilograms. The second day was aborted after an hour because of a gale. During that time, the biggest catch was five kilograms – about a quarter of the size of my biggest the previous day, as I shall remind by grandchildren.

There is a second national big game competition at the end of the month and another during the next. They will be at least one contestant short on each occasion.

Time Wounds All Heels column.