Gone Fishin’
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He loved to cast a line and lay
crab pots off the rocks down the bay.
I would tag along for the ride
and hope Tangaroa bless the tide
givin’ up its catch of the day
So the fish whisperer did call
on the sea god for a good haul.
But would say at fishin’ I suck
and complain I brought him bad luck
cos we always caught sweet f-all
He said to me “Skeet, have no fear
and I’ll catch one for you I swear”.
Out of his tackle box he took
his line and his bait and his hook
but what I needed was a beer
We cast our lines over the side
and waited there for a wild ride.
Bites were few yet fewer than some
but our whisperin’ catch had come
with the wind and gone with the tide
Turnin’ he snarled at me and said
“catchin’ fish ain’t the point, dickhead”.
Well bugger me! I thought it was
and cracked another cold one cos
we showed up but the fish had fled
He’d feel the spindrift on his face
and away it would his blues chase.
Pulled by the tides of time and sea
it was all just a lark to me
but for him was a sacred place
There’d be no fish or crab or cray
or tales of ones that got away.
Instead in our fishermen’s curse
we’d contemplate the megaverse
by the sandstone cliffs of Browns Bay
He had fished up and down this coast
but this old haunt he fished the most.
At ebb and flow without a care
I could see what pull drew him here
but in his haunt now haunts his ghost
Written: May 2025
Dedicated to Craig Bowden
1960 ~ 2021
Photo above is the northern point at
Browns Bay on the northern beaches
of East Coast Bays in New Zealand.
Tangaroa is the Maori god of the sea.
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2025
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