The snow we’re enjoying (well I am, to browse social media and listen to the tv, it looks as if everybody else is complaining like Kiwi’s) is getting me in mind of one of my favourite pictures, Grumpy Old Men with Walther Matthau and Jack Lemmon. I like the scenes where they all go out onto the lake where they all have their own small shacks for keeping their bait and tackle and lock themselves up inside and fish through the ice.
I do question how that works though. The rods they used were stumpy things, they cannot have been more than two feet in length, and I wonder how, if the fish they are after are fighters, they cope. Possibly it’s just me, but if I am into a large fish that is not very sweet on the thought of being pulled into the shore and out of the water, then 1 of the requirements is to move about the bank to counter it sprinting for weeds or a clump of tree roots. Or perhaps, ice fishing needs such heavy duty bait and tackle that as soon as they get a bite they just drag it in with no need to fret about the line snapping.
But then, that can’t work because surely the line is clearly visible to the fish, so it would have to be either very brainless or careless. The utter point of maggot dangling to my mind is to choose the bait and tackle to fool the fish into thinking that all is well and it is in for a nosh using the nicest bait and tackle set up as light as possible and designed not to be spotted and when the fish bites and you strike to snag it, the authentic skill comes in, playing the line out when it runs, winding it in when it stops and trying to make sure that it doesn’t break the line and swim off.
One of the things that impressed me in Grumpy Old Men was that the fishing tackle shop had a caf space which I thought was a brilliant plan. What better, particularly on a freezing day, than being able to get a warm drink and a snack and be able to natter, swap yarns and information? The fishing tackle shop that I live nearest to is just that, although as a specialist shop it gets my interest as I can browse around them for hours, looking at the various goods.
But the finest things were the little cabins. What jollies to be able to shut yourself away, deck it out with tools and fun things just as you like and just have a fabulous day. I do acknowledge that it appears anti-social to do that but, to be candid, as most fishermen tend not to fall into the category of pretty and female, in fact generally the diametric opposite, you don’t always want to look at them for very long across the water.
All of the above is naturally entirely academic. I have no disgrace in saying that I am very much a good weather tackle dangler and it would need to be a very fine motive to haul me out in the freezing cold, but it looks lovely in the film, and that is where I’ll leave it.
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