Text by Marcelo Brea
I am from La Plata and I have a closeness to the Río de La Plata that many would like. From a very young age, my father taught me to fish in a club that today belongs to a union and that charges a lot of admission. That club is called silver fishing club and it is in Punta Lara, just 10 kilometers from my hometown. There I learned what the art of fishing is: how to assemble and disassemble a rod, to take care of the equipment, to embody and everything that makes up this beautiful discipline, today practiced by millions of people only in Argentina. I understand that my city is among the first in the world -if not the first- in terms of the number of inhabitants who practice sport fishing.
Until now, mine with fishing was framed only in fishing from the pier of a club that was deep in the waters of the wide river. But that day came when my old man said: “This summer I’m going to take them to see Mar del Plata.”
It was 1969. I was nine years old, the same age as my son Isidro as I write these lines. I liked all sports, but I felt a special weakness and a great attraction for fishing. I think that this made me fall in love with the sea and its breakwaters once we had settled that summer in the “Happy City”. While my three brothers wanted to go to the beach all day, the only idea of trying to fish passed through my little restless child’s head. They had told me about big fish, even sharks, and on several occasions I could see how, from the breakwaters, many fishermen aspired to get one. To my chagrin, my father hadn’t brought his equipment that summer. And the reason was very valid: he did not have rods, reels, or lines to fish in the sea, so then, mine was to observe and make the beach with my brothers.
The years passed and as an adult, my passion and desire to fish in the sea was fulfilled. He worked, and for that reason I had managed to arm myself with everything I needed to try to fish where I wanted so much: from a pier, over the sea. From then on, and reaching 2018, I never stopped doing it, with great joy and also long days of just renewing the bait without results. But that infatuation with being alone with the sea grew and grew; And the greatest gift he gave me was that sea last Saturday, April 28.
At the fishing pier in the City of Pinamar, around noon, when nothing was coming out and everyone was talking about how poor the bite was, my five-meter carbon fiber rod wobbled like it had never done before. It is a new rod, with three sections, which attracts everyone’s attention due to its length, and which allows very long spears to be made. The bait was a thick bank anchovy fillet that I had taken out the night before, straining water with a medium that I rented.
The fight of this “colossus”, because that’s what I called it, was as dignified as it was titanic. I had never experienced anything like this before. It took more than twenty minutes of pulling and opposing, waiting for a slack or sign of fatigue, to be able to pick up nylon on my reel which, together with the rod, responded perfectly to such a tough battle. After that period, my unexpected opponent, whom I had not seen yet, began to give in and show himself. About 30 meters from the nose, I saw a huge dark golden back, with thick fins that stirred the water and I said to myself “that’s it”; but I was wrong. This sea lord had only taken a short break and the five minutes that followed were unforgettable. I never thought that a “mutt” could put up such a fight and transmit such a show of strength through the cane.
No longer surrendered or exhausted in his strength, but visibly weakened, I could understand that he was giving me the pleasure of hoisting him to the pier, presenting, at that very moment, the tacit agreement that I would return him to the sea, after taking my photo. that immortalized all that moment. I was able to raise it only with the help of a medium and two other people who collaborated with me. As we had determined with this “master of the depths”, I gave myself the most beautiful of the images that I treasure in my fishing history, feeling enormous respect for him to immediately verify the pleasure that it is causing me to return it to the water with my own arms
Behind me, and as if I were an artist, many hands clapped and many voices congratulated me. Not for having fished such an outstanding specimen, but for having put it back where it deserved to be again: in its midst, to continue fighting future worthy battles.
by Juan Ferrari
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