By Monday, the lack of sleep had taken its toll but I had never expected that a fishing competition would be the ideal way of recovering. I arrived at Gaston's pond just after 9 where things were just beginning to get started.
Being a trout on Pentecost Monday in Gaston's pond is no joke. First of all, you have been removed from your previous surrounding and immersed into this new area so a lack of orientation is understandable. Secondly, later, unless you are on a trout's version of a weight watcher's diet, you have to avoid the sheer endless row of temptation dangling in front of you. You have to do that all day. The fatter you are as a trout, the more prized you become, clearly contradicting the dieting principles. Only the cousin Carp has a higher price tag. Orientation and resisting temptation is the order of the day. Eat without getting hooked on it.
Higher up the food chain, the ducks, who last Monday were still oblivious to the upcoming peace shattering invasion had begun to beat an orderly retreat. In the middle of the lake is a small island. The ducks had converted it to an airport control tower and all remaining ducks were given clearance for take off. They took off in pairs avoiding the closing of airspace in the form of 10m long fishing rods. Later we noticed that the light aircraft didn't make it. A young mother with 9 ducklings stayed behind and with female supremacy chose to ignore the males lined up on the bank, fishing rods at hand.
I strolled around until I saw Vincent who, as it became abundantly clear that morning, was net”working” again. Vincent is a local businessman who clearly has his ducks in a row. He is not only on the committee of the local fishing club, he also on the committee of the local faction of an insurance company and probably on every other important organisation in the town. His wife works in a beauty parlour and his once photogenic daughter sits in the jeweller's shop located almost under our house. Vincent's work is in PR for his own small local business empire. He has the stomach for it, both physically as well as entrepreneurially. After the parade on Sunday, he was strategically located in the lobby of the Marie where a local artist was exhibiting impressions of the town. You could barely enter the building without squeezing past his stomach and if you were a desirable, shaking his hand. Vincent and I do not see eye to eye because we live where he wanted to but somehow couldn't. When I saw the familiar bulge and the green T-shirt at Gaston's pond I felt it prudent for the enjoyment of both our respective days to move to a more unobtrusive location.
I found a bench on the far corner of the lake. A few minutes later an elderly man, slightly stout equipped with a competing stomach and limp joined me. Not much was said until “Bertrand” with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, slurping from an Orangina bottle in one hand and carrying a Bratwurst in the other and fishing rod jammed under his arm, stumbled past us. Bertrand is the town comedian. On most mornings, he and his wife can be seen walking down the Rue Nationale with plastic bag in hand and waving and shouting to all passers by. Most of them respond which prompts a joyous counter response. He must be in his mid fifties but has the cheerful disposition of a young child. He never misses a rubbish bin. It was this that prompted me to open the dialogue with the person sharing the bench, commenting on the rubbish bin bit. This prompted my neighbour to say that he was probably looking for bottles which have a deposit. He then told the story of how the largest supermarket in town, just north of the border had all but removed the containers used to recycle glass and that two entrepreneurial Russians were now making a small fortune in collecting the glass bottles.
He continued, in a deep guttural voice to convey the impression that he was a man of authority, stature and vast experience and also that he too was an ace fisherman but didn't like such competitions because you were lined up too close to the next competitor, the fish didn't do what you wanted them to do. Also, the mere detail, that fishing competitions were forbidden in Germany, a fact which caught me by surprise because I had met people who had taken part in them in there. He also, later in the course of general conversation had, with the greatest authority, informed us that the trout were the dumbest fish around. How this was ascertained remained unchallenged because in his view, any fish so hungry that it would eat a metal hook, simply had to be stupid. Unless they are on the weight watchers program I thought.
Places 52 and 53 were the two closest to us. They were soon occupied by a husband and wife couple and their cocker spaniel. The wife was out to kill such were her organisational skills. In a matter of seconds she had her rod ready, bait hooked , holding net placed. She was not to be trifled with. We were impressed. Her husband had a more leisurely approach. The dog provided moral support.
By this time, still some 15 minutes before the start of the first round, we were joined by another elderly gentlemen with a youthful air about him. Why was abundantly clear. He had joined the ranks of fellow countrymen who were fans of the latest sport craze: Nordic walking. This activity involves high speed walking and propelling yourself forward with the help of two thin metal sticks. A company in Finland with too much aluminium in stock and sales plummeting came up with the concept that normal skiing rods could be relaunched as summer walking sticks. The marketing campaign was enhanced by the scientifically based facts that this new concept, if trained properly, (another quality based revenue generator), could do wonders with all the muscles in one's body. Germans, always open for new ideas in the well being and fitness worlds were quick to respond and sales shot up.
Despite his obvious health, we were subjected to the long and dramatic encounter of his 25 days spent in hospital so far this year. Not being outdone, the other spectator had to provide an even more life threatening and even more dramatic tale of his emergency triple by-pass operation. That topic now thoroughly exhausted, they then moved on to the culinary qualities of their respective wives whom they loved dearly despite the terror they imposed on them if they would dare to be late for lunch. But of course this was deemed impossible because each wife was the best cook known to humanity. An exchange of eating experiences soon followed probably leaving any trout listening hungrier than before.
At last the competition got under way. In the first round the fish almost leaped into the holding nets voluntarily. The catching was swift and easy and required almost no effort. Provided you were at the right part of the pond. The husband and wife combo were not one of the lucky ones, catching only a couple of normal sized trout. Later, in round two, when both gentlemen and limped and Nordic whisked away to enquire as to the state of what was in the cooking pots at home, one angler caught a carp which was so strong and putting up such a fight that it snapped the fishing rod. The game was over for the Angler the only compensation being that he might just have caught first prize.
As I walked away, three hours later, I felt a buzz of faint excitement about this competition. The leisurely pace was encouraged by the quiet excitement of trying to lure the fish and the hope that whatever bit the line, it would be the ticket to the first prize. This surprised me. As two two people sharing the bench joked: Says one sports person to an angler, “fishing, that isn't a sport. You don't even break into a sweat” Replies the other, “try fishing with out a permit, then you'll sweat”.
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