Death Comes To All (Book 1) (44 page)

Of
course, I’ve never really watched anyone fish before either,
he reminded himself.

As
the fish flipped and flopped this way and that she completely ignored
it, instead pulling a rope that Drom had not seen from out of the
water as well. This rope was much thicker than the line she had been
using to catch the fish. As she brought the end out of the water he
saw two more fish, similar to the first, attached to the end of it.

“
You
just caught three fish at once!” he exclaimed in amazement.

Raine
laughed. “Not at all. These two I had already caught. I'll put
this one here on this line too. I can keep them in the water until
I'm ready to go in that way. They won't die, at least not as quickly,
and they can't get off. Then I'll put more bait on the line and try
to catch another one.”

“
Do
you think I could try?” he asked.

I
won't be eating anything we catch, but I can still fish for them,
he thought.
It might help out, and besides, it looks like it could
be fun.

“
Sure,
I've got another line you can use. Have you ever fished with a hook
and line before?”

“
I've
never fished at all before, with anything,” he informed her.
“Is it easy to use?”

“
It's
not that hard,” she told him. “I'm mostly fishing for fun
now anyway, so I can show you how. First we'll have to catch you some
bait. Let me take care of this one here, and I'll show you what you
have to do.”

She
picked up the fish she had just caught, opening its mouth and
detaching a thick, hooked object from its mouth. Now that he could
see it he realized that it must have been that hook that had kept the
fish from getting away. It appeared to be a thin piece of carved
bone, rounded into a half circle and barbed at the tip. How something
like that was supposed to catch a fish Drom didn't know, but he was
certain he was going to find out.

Once
the fish was no longer connected to her line, she picked up the
thicker line that held the two fish she had already caught. At the
bottom of this line, where the two captured fish seemed to be
attached, was a small metal circle. The line had been fed back
through that circle, with the fish trapped in the loop that was
created.

Drom
watched as Raine pulled the line out of the loop, deftly fed the
loose end through the mouth and back out of the fish's gill slit,
then fed the end back through the metal ring at the other end. Now
all three fish were caught on the line with no way off, neatly tied.
She tied the loose end to the end of the dock and dropped the fish
back into the water, where they would wait until she was finished for
the day, or added another to the line.

She
reached into the pack she had with her, which Drom quickly recognized
as the one she had kept with her since the first day they had met,
pulling out a second device like the one she had been using. A moment
later she placed a small box on the end of the bench next to it.

“
First
we need to put a hook on your line,” she informed him. She
opened the box to reveal several rows of smaller boxes. Inside one
she brought out a small bone hook, similar to the one on her line,
only a fraction of the size. She expertly tied this to the end of the
fishing line she had brought out for him.

“
Why
is that hook smaller than yours?” he asked her.

“
When
you're fishing, your moving yourself up the food chain. In a little
while you'll move up to a bigger hook,” she told him. When she
saw that he clearly didn't understand she continued. “First you
have to start at the bottom, with the small fish. That's what we have
to catch now. Don't worry, you'll be catching the bigger ones soon
enough. Now obviously this little hook isn't something that those
fish are going to be interested in eating, so we have to give them
something that they would be interested in. Usually I use small
insects or worms, easy enough to find. For you, I'll start by
teaching you what I would do if I can't get that kind of bait for
whatever reason.”

She
walked off the dock for a second, with Drom following close behind.
He had no idea what she was up to, but had seen the results of her
fishing techniques already. He couldn't hope for a better teacher.
Once on the grass she bent down, quickly making herself a small
bundle of twigs and grasses.

“
The
fish you are looking for first likes small insects. Since you don't
have any right now, and we're assuming that sometimes there won't be
any around that you can find, we want to make something that looks
like an insect instead.” She motioned for him to get closer so
he could see what she was doing. “If we take these small pieces
of wood and put them over the hook like this, and then add this grass
here like this, it kinda looks like an insect, see?”

He
had to agree, it loosely resembled several of the insects he saw
flying around every day. She had pulled brown grass over the twigs,
and the result appeared very much like wings. With a piece of thin
string she tied the small imitation together, careful not to push
down on the wings she had created.

Once
finished it appeared that a small insect now hung from the end of her
line. If Drom hadn't seen her make it he might never know the
difference, and was fairly certain that the fish would have just as
much difficulty telling her decoy from a real one. About two feet
down the line from the hook she tied on a small float, similar to the
one on her line, but once again smaller than the one she used, just
as the hook had been.

“
OK,
now we have a lure that the small fish should find enticing,”
she said with satisfaction, handing him the line and the wooden
device it was stored on. “You're ready to start fishing. First
take off some of the line. Once you're ready to start fishing for
larger catches you'll have to put your bait further out. Then you'll
need to get it to unravel all on its own, but for now we'll just take
the line off and start that way. Once you have enough line out, toss
the end of the line over there, just at the outside edge of those
reeds.”

He
did as he was told, tossing the line out into the water. He got
closer to his target than he had expected to, considering he had
never done anything even remotely like this before.

“
OK,
now what?”

“
Now
we wait,” she replied. “Pull back, just a little bit, on
the line from time to time, so that the fake insect at the end moves
a little. Don't pull it hard, you don’t have to. Just move it
enough so that the float moves an inch or so. That will be enough. If
you're lucky, something will see it and come in for a bite. When it
does, you'll see that float start to move. If this was a real insect,
we would wait until the fish ate it completely, but the fish will
spit out this fake lure as soon as it realizes that it isn’t
something that it really wants to eat, so as soon as it moves pull
back on the line. Now this fish is going to be pretty small, so don't
yank on it too hard or you'll pull the fish's mouth off.”

He
glanced her way, trying to decide if the last thing she had said was
serious or if she was joking with him. She had a look of
concentration on her face as she watched the float on the end of his
line, even though it wasn't moving at all.

She
must not have been joking,
he decided after a moment.

After
a few seconds, the float began to move toward the reeds, obviously
not on its own momentum. Something was moving it, just as he had seen
the fish she had caught had moved the one on her line before.

“
Now!”
she exclaimed, and Drom tentatively pulled back on the line.

There
was something on the end of the line, he could tell that much,
however it didn't pull as hard as he had expected. He wrapped up the
line as he pulled it in, just as he had seen her do before. When he
finally got the fish to the dock, he felt a slight pang of
disappointment. It was nothing like the one she had caught. This one
was only perhaps three inches long from the tip of its nose to the
end of its tail.

“
Perfect!”
she said happily. “That one's great!”

“
What
do you mean?” he asked in confusion. “This thing’s
way to small to eat. You'd have to catch a hundred of them to make a
decent meal.”

Raine
burst out laughing. “This fish isn't to eat,” she said
once she had stopped enough to talk. “This one is to catch the
bigger fish. Now we'll take this one and put it on the line I was
using. I'll let you use it for now, so you don't have to change gear
yet.”

“
Aren't
you still going to fish?” Drom inquired.

“
Of
course. In a bit I'll go back to it, but right now I'm having fun
just showing you how. I'll let you catch one first, and then I'll
fish some more. Now I'll hook this little guy through the bottom jaw,
like this. Go ahead and toss him out there. Throw him out as far as
you can.”

Drom
did as he was told. It took him a few tries before he had thrown it
out far enough to satisfy Raine. The larger, heavier float made it
easier to put more distance on it, but he had trouble getting it to
unwind from the wooden device it was spooled on. Unlike before, he
couldn't take the line off first, Raine informed him. It would become
horribly tangled if he took off that much line. Eventually he got the
feel for it though, and the float hit the water very close to where
it had been when he first arrived.

“
Now
we wait,” she said again. “It might take a while before
something takes it this time, but eventually something should come
across it. That far from shore a small fish like that doesn't have
anywhere to hide, and there are plenty of different types of fish
that would love to make a meal of it. This time you don’t want
to pull as soon as something moves it like we did with the fake lure.
You want to wait until something pulls the float under the water
entirely.”

“
Seems
like fishing involves a lot of waiting,” Drom observed.

“
There
are other ways of fishing that are a bit more active,” she told
him. “I prefer live bait, which usually yields better results.”

“
How
long do you think we'll have to wait?”

“
There's
no way of knowing,” she answered. “Something could take
it in the next second or two, or you might wait all day and not get a
single bite. I've had pretty good luck here so far, so I'm betting we
won't have to wait too long.” That said she sat down on the
bench next to him, lounging in complete relaxation.

Drom
watched the float for nearly a half an hour with almost nothing
interesting at all happening. From time to time the float would shake
back and forth some, but nothing else. The first time it happened
Drom thought that a fish had taken the minnow he was using, but Raine
assured him that was not the case. It was just the minnow moving
around, she told him.

He
was really starting to wonder what the fascination was with the
pastime.

This
is just so incredibly boring!

Granted,
he supposed it was a bit relaxing, but then just sitting here doing
nothing at all wouldn't be any different. It wasn't until Raine
nudged him that he realized that he had stopped paying attention to
his line.

The
float was moving rapidly across the top of the water, so fast that it
left a long, trailing wake behind it. It had traveled over ten feet
before it disappeared under the water entirely. Raine opened her
mouth to tell him to pull, but found she didn't have to. As soon as
the float left his sight he pulled back, the line going taunt in his
hands at once.

“
Don't
pull too hard!” she exclaimed. “You have to try and get a
feel for the line itself. If the fish pulls back too hard it can
cause the line to break, so you have to give it line when you need
to. It looks like you've got a good one, so you want to be careful.
Bring in line when you can, and let it take line out if you think
it's pulling too hard.”

He
tried to do what she suggested, but had no idea what too much
pressure might be. She had said that with too much the line would
break, but said nothing about how much pressure that might actually
be.

The
fish on the end fought strongly. Drom left himself some slack as he
wrapped up the line he gained, just as he had seen Raine do when she
pulled in her fish a short time before. That way the fish pulled line
from the slack instead of pulling against the device.

It
should put less stress on the line that way,
he surmised.

Finally,
after perhaps ten minutes, he managed to wrestle the creature to the
dock. Raine reached down and pulled it from the water for him.

“
Very
well done Drom!” Raine exclaimed seriously. “You've
brought in a good sized fish, and on your first try no less. The
first time I had one on the line this big it snapped after only a
minute or two, but of course I was only five or six years old at the
time. Still, you did a good job.”

Now
Drom understood why people enjoyed fishing.

That
was fun!

It
all made complete sense now. A person could relax just as easily
while fishing as they could sitting in front of their fireplace, and
still find a level of excitement not dissimilar to battle on
occasion, whenever a fish decided to bite. It seemed like the perfect
pastime, and had the added benefit of bringing in food for his
friends at the same time.