If you want to catch a fish, you need patience. And even more than that. Viktor Funk teaches his son how to fish – or is it the other way around?
For a moment I lose myself in time and in my memories. On this late summer day, my five-year-old son is standing by the car, little fishing rod in hand, life jacket on, ready to climb into the boat. He’s waiting for me to come. And the way he stands there, full of childlike impatience and excitement that make life so worth living, I see myself in my mind’s eye at the lake of my childhood. I am waiting for my father and grandfather to finally come. Why do they dawdle so long? We want to fish!
If happiness could be captured in pictures, then this moment with my son at the lake would be such a happy picture. At this moment life is perfect. Now four generations of my family are united in my mind, generations who were not fortunate enough to get to know each other and yet are so close. What my grandfather and father taught me, that has become my job: to pass on the tradition to my son and to teach him by the water what is so often about life – about balance, about balance between strength and understanding, between tenacity and insight, between action and patience.
Some people laugh when I tell them that in fishing you can find parallels for all walks of life. I would even like to say that one can derive a single maxim for life from fishing. Balance, that’s what it’s about.
This becomes clear to me once more when my son is playing on the boat that we have attached to our fishing spot on the bank. He’s been climbing in and out all morning. Then he casts his fishing rod a few times, then we make ships out of reeds and let them drift away.
When he tries to climb back into the boat, it moves. My son jumps, clings to the bench and lands his feet in the water. He’s lost his balance.
His face is tense, the horror can be seen in his eyes. Then we both laugh so loud that no fish dares to come near us. I take off my son’s rubber boots and dump the water. He’s shivering. And grins.
It’s our first year together on the water. At his age I could only hold a bamboo rod in my hands and catch small whitefish from my home lake in Kazakhstan. I only caught my first carp when I was 14 years old in Germany. But my son has already caught two large carp. At least that’s how he tells it. After all, he was there when his grandfather caught a carp and he was there when I caught one. In his mind, being there is everything.
His curiosity, the countless questions as to whether there is treasure buried under every stone at the lake, and why he is not allowed to throw more food into the water, why he should be quiet on the boat when the fish in the water cannot hear anything – that Fishing with a child is like fireworks of happiness, but occasionally I also despair. How did my father endure me?
In moments when I don’t know what to do next, I remember my father baiting the hook for me, unhooking the bream and woblas, relatives of the roach, admonishing me not to keep running where someone was pulling out a fish. I remember my grandfather cutting tomatoes, cucumbers and bread for me on the large stones by the lake and wrapping his shirt around me to keep me warm in the cool of the evening.
Here, by the lake near Frankfurt, my old sleeping bag warms my son. This is our first time to go night fishing, he chose the spot. It is a popular spot, the breakthrough from one lake to another. As we set up, a few fish jump in front of our place.
Voluntarily, without discussion, persuasion or bribery, my son climbs into the tent and into the sleeping bag in the evening. His face is pressed into my old fishing pillow, his eyes closed, his breathing can be heard very softly. I’m sitting in front of the tent, the lake is as smooth as glass, the clouds are pushing in front of the moon, and only a few engine noises can be heard in the distance.
I didn’t go as far as the fish jumped. Hopefully they perceive the food and come closer. If I had further explained what makes sense at this point, then I would have to get into the boat if I had a bite. But I don’t want to go on the water while my son is left alone in the tent.
I wake up at night, my hand can feel the little one next to me, he is soundly asleep. I’m listening, there’s splashing somewhere, far too far away. In the morning the sun turns the sky purple, birds begin to sing. I get up, make myself an espresso, and with the taste of fresh coffee on my lips I photograph the lake in the first light of day. I would love to hear the bite alarm howl now, wake up my son and play the fish with him. But it remains silent. Instead, I lose my balance this morning.
The fish are active, rolling and jumping, even very close to the baits laid out. But they don’t bite. And if we adults find patience difficult, how difficult must it be for a five-year-old to understand that sometimes there is nothing you can do but wait?
My son passes the time throwing stones. “Please don’t do that,” I say. He climbs in and out of the boat. “We never catch anything like that, it’s too loud,” I warn him. He wants to mix feed. “We don’t need that.” He says he’s bored. “Then play something,” I reply. He throws stones into the water again … and then my collar bursts.
***
I grab it, first pretend to throw it into the water and then set it on a beam on the bank. The shock, my anger or whatever bring tears to his eyes. I silently curse myself, don’t understand why I did this, have long since regretted it and hold on to my son.
As we are packing up our things, I see small fish jumping out of the water. Perch.
“Do we want to catch a few more from the boat?” I ask.
“I want to go home.”
I feel angry with myself. Everything went well until my own frustration that we didn’t catch anything made me act wrong.
“We do a few throws and then go, okay?”
I take his silence as consent.
There is a place in this lake where I almost always catch perch. I row there. The sun is shining, a light wind ripples the water. As soon as we are close, I cast and immediately a fish attacks the bait. The first perch. My son takes his fishing rod, clamps the line with his index finger, folds back the handle of the reel, takes it out and throws it. His copper-colored spinner flies. After several throws, he decides to throw into the open water, not towards the overhanging trees.
“If the spinner falls into the water, then wait a moment, it has to sink a bit”, I say, “the perch are lower there”. He waits, starts cranking and soon throws out again. I doubt he’ll catch anything there. But then he screams, the tip of the rod trembles, he has hooked his first fish.
I would love to help him, take the line and play the fish carefully. But when adults used to help me and take my fishing rod or tool away from me, it annoyed me. So I leave him. Fever with him. He laughs and screams and his legs want to jump, his whole body is happy. And then he lifts the perch out, the water rolls off the fish, it glows golden-green in the sun, and my son is beaming.
He insists that we take our catch with us. In the end, there are five perch on our kitchen table. I cut them open, we discover small crabs and small food fish in their stomachs. I fry them until crispy and when we eat them my son asks why we only stayed one night at the lake. I am relieved and grateful for this question. We have both found our equilibrium again. And we’re planning the next trip.
***
A week later we are back at the lake, this time I decide on a job, a jetty on the north bank. From here I can fish the reed belt and a long sandbar in the middle of the lake. We set up, pull out the bait together and can look forward to the first fish, a sturgeon, sooner than expected. It is a little longer than a meter and looks really rustic with its few rows of scales, long barbels and pointed snout. My son is most fascinated by his mouth, the plump lips that take in food at the bottom.
I prepare new food, boiled hemp, wheat and tiger nuts. Bait the hook. We extend the fishing rod a little further away from the first bite point, lay out the bait and row back. The wind subsides.
At night the full moon keeps me awake. The lake lies so still and motionless in front of me that I almost wish not to disturb its calm with one bite. When dawn sets in, a bite indicator tears me from my bed. I’m standing on the jetty, the rod in my hand is twisting. My son is sleeping behind me. The fish can only be brought in slowly, passes through aquatic plants. I pull as hard as necessary and as weak as possible. In the boat? No. Wait, crank slowly, wait again. And then the fish is in the open water, offers its last strength against me in front of the jetty and finally surrenders.
At seven o’clock I wake my son.
“We caught a carp,” I say.
“Show.”
“Do we want to take photos?”
After taking photos, I make tea, we have breakfast and we pack our things.
Months later, I tell my son that we might not go fishing this year. It’s getting colder. He grimaces. “But we can go to the Rhine, we go for a walk and look for jobs for the next year,” I suggest. He nods. And he changes his wishes for the sixth birthday, which is coming up soon. “I want a car with remote control and fishing bait,” he says. “But I want to choose the bait myself!” (Viktor Funk)
