charleville
17-08-2011, 12:08 PM
I am pleased that more people don’t fish at night because the marriage of the serenity of aloneness with the exquisite sensuality of the ambience of a winter’s night on the water, especially a very dark, star filled, winter’s night, renders a feeling almost of spirituality for those of us who relish nature’s largesse. Who needs a crowd to wreck that? :-?
I am not a spiritual man but it is often on a very black winter’s night on that trip home to Manly boat harbour from Mud Island, on the inside of St Helena and pointing the bow of the boat into the wide, black gap between two bright blazes of human existence, where the red and green entrance to the lead lights will eventually be found, that I often find myself thinking of things philosophical. The cold wind in the face as I am gently pushed along on a flat sea by a quietly purring four stroke behind me ignites my senses and excites my thoughts.
Last night, the question that I pondered was, “It is better in life to experience good luck or the absence of bad luck?”
Regrettably, such a question will immediately prompt the typical response from some idealistic, deluded, exuberant galoot, overdosed with heady, corporate, team building seminars, workshops and experiential exercises, fertilised by mindless utterings of Anthony Robbins’isms, that “we make our own luck.” >:( If you are that galoot, this post is not for you. Go back to dreaming about what might be, what might have been, or what a new beginning for you might look like, with or without fish. Find joy in both situations, for your life will be one of condolence and commiseration. :P
There will be others with the sublime, cerebral, astuteness endowment of a suppository who will immediately respond, “I want both.”
...and so do we all, you intellectual gnat. :smash: But if given the choice in life, what would you wish for? A life of good luck or a life without bad luck?
When my day started yesterday, I thought that I was in for a day of good luck. I had an omen. Or at least I thought I had.
It started when I decided to go fishing at Mud Island and, giving myself the choices of whether I would fish the 11 am high tide or fish the 5 pm low tide, or both. I chose the latter but alas I was a bit slack getting away and missed the hour-before-and-hour-after the high tide that I like to fish. In fact, I was really in no hurry as I stopped along the way at the Water Tower Bait and Tackle shop at Manly to get some ice. It was there that my “luck” omen occurred.
The sign on the outside ice freezer said “Ice $3” . I rummaged around my wallet and the taxi type coin dispenser that I keep in the car and found insufficient small change, just a $50 note. So I sheepishly approached the nice lady in the tackle shop and told her that I wanted ice but only had a $50 note and asked if that caused her problems. “No problem at all,” was the response and so I dipped into my wallet to get said note.
Alas, though, said note was nowhere to be found. In desperate disbelief, I tipped out thirty-one plastic cards onto the shop counter in a mad scramble to find the $50 note. Credit cards, bank cards, driver’s licence, shop loyalty cards, library card, medicare card, MBF card, various club membership cards, marine radio operator’s card, coast guard membership card, Go-card - the collection seemed endless - but alas, no $50 note. “Did you leave it in the car?” voiced the nice lady at Water Tower Bait and Tackle? I did not believe that I did but I would check anyway.
A moment later, I re-entered the shop and announced that I had lied. I did not have a $50 note. I had two. Wrapped together..... and there they had been, lying on the ground behind my car. What a stroke of good luck! :D
Or at least, that was my interpretation.
In fact, the other customer in the shop immediately lamented that he should had left the shop minute earlier because if he had he might have been able to afford the better of the two reels that he was perusing. ;D Perhaps he felt that he was out of luck but I felt that I was in luck.
And so, I drove away to the ramp feeling that I had indeed received a sign, an omen, that I was in for a day of good luck.
It was not until that almost beyond corporeal trip home from Mud Island nine hours later that I realised that the omen was not one of good luck but, perhaps, one prophesying a day with an absence of bad luck.
For I did not catch any personal bests - hardly likely after the River-to-Mud blokes had cleaned out the place over the weekend ;) - and indeed, my catch was just a very modest basic “feed” as seen below but what the heck, it was a feed and I did not really care if I caught anything or not. It was just nice to be on the water.
The glassy seas of the morning gave away to a bit of chop in the afternoon and evening. I was on the water from 11 am through to 8 pm. Less than a handful of boats were around up until early afternoon and then I had the place to myself for the rest of the day and into the night. The fishing was slow until around 3 pm when the tailor started. 99% of them were either undersized or too close to the 35 cm line on my rule to safely keep them. Once they start, it becomes almost impossible to get an unweighted bait down to where the snapper might live.
Baits used were pilchards and banana prawns.
So I took home a modest reward for a long day on the water.
But what a day! What a beautiful day!
..and one without any bad luck! No motor problems, no equipment failures, nothing lost overboard, no rain, no hooked fingers, no dopes crowding my spot, not even any indigestion! ::)
Just as I was feeling very happy on that trip home with my realisation that my day had indeed been a good one, just 600 m from the lead lights a shooting star lit the night in front of me. I still feel a childish joy every time that I see a shooting star.
Then I turned my head left to check that no other boat traffic was approaching the leads and then I saw the most stunning sight of a huge orange moon slowly rising from out of the blackness behind North Stradbroke Island above the horizon. My excitement at experiencing this sight was almost carnal. I could not stop turning back to see its progress into the sky as I motored through the leads.
Nah - I don’t need luck. I have plenty. A life without bad luck will do me. 8-)
https://img.skitch.com/20110817-rtxttqqp5mwa512ywmkpin2jq3.preview.jpg (https://skitch.com/charleville2/fxs3u/skitched-20110817-113652)Click for large view (https://skitch.com/charleville2/fxs3u/skitched-20110817-113652) - Uploaded with Skitch (http://skitch.com)
.
I am not a spiritual man but it is often on a very black winter’s night on that trip home to Manly boat harbour from Mud Island, on the inside of St Helena and pointing the bow of the boat into the wide, black gap between two bright blazes of human existence, where the red and green entrance to the lead lights will eventually be found, that I often find myself thinking of things philosophical. The cold wind in the face as I am gently pushed along on a flat sea by a quietly purring four stroke behind me ignites my senses and excites my thoughts.
Last night, the question that I pondered was, “It is better in life to experience good luck or the absence of bad luck?”
Regrettably, such a question will immediately prompt the typical response from some idealistic, deluded, exuberant galoot, overdosed with heady, corporate, team building seminars, workshops and experiential exercises, fertilised by mindless utterings of Anthony Robbins’isms, that “we make our own luck.” >:( If you are that galoot, this post is not for you. Go back to dreaming about what might be, what might have been, or what a new beginning for you might look like, with or without fish. Find joy in both situations, for your life will be one of condolence and commiseration. :P
There will be others with the sublime, cerebral, astuteness endowment of a suppository who will immediately respond, “I want both.”
...and so do we all, you intellectual gnat. :smash: But if given the choice in life, what would you wish for? A life of good luck or a life without bad luck?
When my day started yesterday, I thought that I was in for a day of good luck. I had an omen. Or at least I thought I had.
It started when I decided to go fishing at Mud Island and, giving myself the choices of whether I would fish the 11 am high tide or fish the 5 pm low tide, or both. I chose the latter but alas I was a bit slack getting away and missed the hour-before-and-hour-after the high tide that I like to fish. In fact, I was really in no hurry as I stopped along the way at the Water Tower Bait and Tackle shop at Manly to get some ice. It was there that my “luck” omen occurred.
The sign on the outside ice freezer said “Ice $3” . I rummaged around my wallet and the taxi type coin dispenser that I keep in the car and found insufficient small change, just a $50 note. So I sheepishly approached the nice lady in the tackle shop and told her that I wanted ice but only had a $50 note and asked if that caused her problems. “No problem at all,” was the response and so I dipped into my wallet to get said note.
Alas, though, said note was nowhere to be found. In desperate disbelief, I tipped out thirty-one plastic cards onto the shop counter in a mad scramble to find the $50 note. Credit cards, bank cards, driver’s licence, shop loyalty cards, library card, medicare card, MBF card, various club membership cards, marine radio operator’s card, coast guard membership card, Go-card - the collection seemed endless - but alas, no $50 note. “Did you leave it in the car?” voiced the nice lady at Water Tower Bait and Tackle? I did not believe that I did but I would check anyway.
A moment later, I re-entered the shop and announced that I had lied. I did not have a $50 note. I had two. Wrapped together..... and there they had been, lying on the ground behind my car. What a stroke of good luck! :D
Or at least, that was my interpretation.
In fact, the other customer in the shop immediately lamented that he should had left the shop minute earlier because if he had he might have been able to afford the better of the two reels that he was perusing. ;D Perhaps he felt that he was out of luck but I felt that I was in luck.
And so, I drove away to the ramp feeling that I had indeed received a sign, an omen, that I was in for a day of good luck.
It was not until that almost beyond corporeal trip home from Mud Island nine hours later that I realised that the omen was not one of good luck but, perhaps, one prophesying a day with an absence of bad luck.
For I did not catch any personal bests - hardly likely after the River-to-Mud blokes had cleaned out the place over the weekend ;) - and indeed, my catch was just a very modest basic “feed” as seen below but what the heck, it was a feed and I did not really care if I caught anything or not. It was just nice to be on the water.
The glassy seas of the morning gave away to a bit of chop in the afternoon and evening. I was on the water from 11 am through to 8 pm. Less than a handful of boats were around up until early afternoon and then I had the place to myself for the rest of the day and into the night. The fishing was slow until around 3 pm when the tailor started. 99% of them were either undersized or too close to the 35 cm line on my rule to safely keep them. Once they start, it becomes almost impossible to get an unweighted bait down to where the snapper might live.
Baits used were pilchards and banana prawns.
So I took home a modest reward for a long day on the water.
But what a day! What a beautiful day!
..and one without any bad luck! No motor problems, no equipment failures, nothing lost overboard, no rain, no hooked fingers, no dopes crowding my spot, not even any indigestion! ::)
Just as I was feeling very happy on that trip home with my realisation that my day had indeed been a good one, just 600 m from the lead lights a shooting star lit the night in front of me. I still feel a childish joy every time that I see a shooting star.
Then I turned my head left to check that no other boat traffic was approaching the leads and then I saw the most stunning sight of a huge orange moon slowly rising from out of the blackness behind North Stradbroke Island above the horizon. My excitement at experiencing this sight was almost carnal. I could not stop turning back to see its progress into the sky as I motored through the leads.
Nah - I don’t need luck. I have plenty. A life without bad luck will do me. 8-)
https://img.skitch.com/20110817-rtxttqqp5mwa512ywmkpin2jq3.preview.jpg (https://skitch.com/charleville2/fxs3u/skitched-20110817-113652)Click for large view (https://skitch.com/charleville2/fxs3u/skitched-20110817-113652) - Uploaded with Skitch (http://skitch.com)
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