UNDERCURRENTS: THE EDGE OF DARKNESS

LEROY BOTHA LOOKS TO FLY FISHING FOR A BREATH IN THE SPACE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

Artwork Conrad Botes. Photos LeRoy Botha

“No tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” – Carl Jung

My internal monologue is splitting into a conversation between the opposing poles of my psyche: “I’m not dead yet,” “Yeah? Give it a minute.”

I look back at a dense timeline of dark chapters, laden like a minefield with plot twists, loose ends and cliff-hangers. As long as I see no fat lady and hear no singing, I remind myself how many times I’d seen this show … and then I go fishing. It works at least half of the time, and that used to be good enough. But I’m not gonna lie. This isn’t a joke anymore. It’s a fucking nightmare. A bipolar musician with a fly fishing problem walks into a bar. Next thing you know, no more fishing.

Sure. It is more complicated than that; it’s not as bad and yet even worse than it sounds but, really, that’s it in a nutshell. I crack myself up. Ten seasons into a slow-burn drama, I find myself at the beginning of 2021 both physically and philosophically incapable of going fishing. By the time my arm (among other things) is sufficiently healed to really use a fly rod, I’d fallen so deep into a hole that I couldn’t bring myself to do so. Even if I could, I can’t afford to because, between the injuries and depression, my productivity grinds to a screeching halt. Thus, halfway through Season 11, I am also financially incapable of going fishing. It’s dark. By the time I realise that, for better or worse, fly fishing had been a lifeline, I reach the end of it. “I’ve got this.” “I know you want to think you do, but we both know you don’t.”

Over many years, I developed some sentimentality about certain fishing spots and bits of well-used fly fishing gear. My favourite hat, backpack and boots have a lot of river miles on them, (to put it politely), but they are super fishy and I have no desire to “upgrade” them. Some pieces of gear are bones of mercy chucked at this dog by friends who wouldn’t see me go without. I treasure those. But exotic destinations and forests of top-end fly rods are not a big deal to me, for more reasons than these things simply being out of reach. Hype gets a lot of good people to a lot of good water, but these days, mostly, it dilutes my desire to fall in line. I learned that good fishing could not only be found on the other side of the planet which, I admit appears to be teeming with massive, willing fish or something. To me, good fishing became a shitty cast in good company, or that sweet focus that only happens when I fish alone. Getting to drink from an ice cold trickle feeding a mountain trout stream, as though suckling from the very boob of Mother Nature. Or standing motionless like a majestic heron, in the middle of a vast mud flat - often on one leg to stretch the glutes and alleviate lower back pain that results from standing still for so long - in the vague hope that a spotted grunter will swim within casting range and that you’d notice it before it notices you. And then switching legs and standing there some more. It was all Zen and shit. I found it wherever I needed it to be. The decider was simple: where your head is determines the level of appreciation for the opportunities you get.

“TO ME, GOOD FISHING BECAME A SHITTY CAST IN GOOD COMPANY, OR THAT SWEET FOCUS THAT ONLY HAPPENS WHEN I FISH ALONE.”

I’m not saying I don’t have a bucket list, or that I never swoon over a quality bit of kit. But what’s the rush? In some ways, the radius of experience seems to grow against the odds in any case. Getting out is enough. Good fishing is where you’re at.

Consider, then, how earlier this year I used my bad arm to lob flies at big catfish living in a polluted river five minutes from home. Desperate for a fish, I saw an opportunity and I seized it. It was dirty and it stank, and it was fucking great. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your view point, I also caught a piece of shit which cured me of catfish fever before I caught anything more serious.

Barman, plot twist me. This catching a poo on the fly is the latest in a series of events that frustrates my ability to get out. Years of climatic degradation slowly dried up or even destroyed multiple nearby rivers that held smallmouth bass, yellowfish and trout. It also resulted in silted-up estuary mouths, which retarded tidal flows required for targeting grunter and kob. One after another, it felt like my home waters were dying. Combine this with the cacophonic background noise of a decade laced with loss, limitations and lacerations, culminating in the crushing crescendo of the last bullshit two years. Eventually I find myself as inspired to go fishing as I am to drink my own piss. It’s getting loud up in here, man. Where I’m at, you don’t find good fishing. I dangle about at the end of that line for far too long before, finally: “So I just found out …” “What, loser? That everything you touch turns to …” “… that I’m sick of you and your doomsday bullshit. Shut the fucking door on your way out.” Desperate and out of options, I speak up and see my doctor for the first time in more than a decade. It helps, more than I thought it would, but my friends and family encourage me to go finish this chapter on the water. To say that I’d be a long-dead man without them would be a sacrilegious understatement of the gift they are. When the things I cherish fade away, I swear, it feels just like a pneumothorax: the air can get in, but it can’t get out. By now, I know that death, divorce and losing your religion are just different manifestations of the same thing. I’m not empty, as people often say when they experience loss. I feel like I’m going to burst, while my heart tries to beat from the wrong side of my chest. I’d give anything to breathe it all out. At once innately sentimental and dangerously curious, I realise that I must once again revisit my roots to resuscitate the explorer languishing in my shadow. On the surface it might look like I achieve that, but it is, of course, never quite so simple. Something always seems to blur the line between a fever dream and things inescapably as they seem. Nevertheless, a soul-searching fly fishing road trip finally feels like a good idea. I leave later than planned on a Friday morning. Subconsciously, I’m still very aware of the passing of more friends and acquaintances than I thought statistically possible in one year. Some fell to the virus, some to cancer, some to themselves. Some were lost in car accidents. Once I’m on the open road, my train of thought veers towards a dark but comfortable paranoia. Perhaps it would be fitting if the road took me as well. I love being on the road. I only stop for a pee and a coffee more than three hours into the drive and an hour out from my destination because, in spite of and because of these thoughts, I’m eager to reach the Berg River valley. Over four days, I spend three sessions chasing smallmouth on the Berg. It takes only a few casts late on the Friday afternoon for the first bass to oblige me. By some bittersweet twist of fate, it’s the same big female I caught in the same spot two years ago. I start there again the next morning, honestly not expecting to catch her yet again before widening my search. But I do, so I proceed to hop from spot to spot searching for things to cast at.

Before long, I’m in the flow. I may have left a quarter century ago, but this is home water, and always will be. By the last session, I’m chasing smallmouth only half as much as I’m chasing memories. Those, mostly, are mine to keep, but I think it’s worth noting that it’s all fun and games until some 13-year-old stands ball-deep in a river, in the pouring rain with a fly rod in hand, and somehow hatches a plan to become a rock star. But I digress.

In between fishing sessions, I visit my brother and a handful of friends and we share a few long overdue beers. On Sunday, my brother’s waterblommetjiebredie (a stew made with lamb and the flowers of the indigenous Cape pond weed, slowly cooked over a most welcoming open fire) proves effective (among other things) against any obsessive need to go fishing. I don’t know that I saw it coming, or that I’d believe it when it did but, so far so good.

. “BY THE LAST SESSION, I’M CHASING SMALLMOUTH ONLY HALF AS MUCH AS I’M CHASING MEMORIES.

And then the final day of the road trip dawns. I’d be lying if I said I’m not anxious. I’d wanted to catch one, hell, just lay eyes on one, for as long as I can remember. But this is the end of a crumb trail I started following two years ago. Back then, perfectly juxtaposed against the tale of my first encounter with the Berg River 20 incher, my eyes watered as I read the story of a species driven to the brink by the self-same bass I’d loved so much. It sowed a seed that grew to all but completely overshadow any other fly fishing ambitions, and a lifelong want became a bona fide need. It’s time to find The Sentinel. For perspective. Luckily, with more than a little help from my friends, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m very ready at all, but I have the flies and the gear, and I know where to go. As I commence the walk up the valley, a Booted Eagle brakes its glide mere feet overhead, apparently with the sole purpose of looking me straight in the eye. It’s a good sign. I have, at best, three hours to find a fish before I must make my way back home. For the first of these hours they elude me, but then I am distracted. Mountains fold around me like the hands of God. The scent of fynbos, the songs of birds and the gentle breeze compete for the attention of my senses. I revel, resplendent in a fucked-up pair of boots on their last fishing adventure, in searching for a creature I’d never seen, in a beautiful place I’d never been before. At last, my mind grows quiet; here is all that exists right now. I’ve known that cool, clear water feeds this space between the manic and the low, and now I know this: This is where it’s at. I sit down for a smoke in the shade of a tree. Resting my back against it, I close my eyes for a few minutes. When I open them, my brows furrow as I attempt to peer through the slivers of white light bouncing off the ripples on the water’s surface. A malachite damselfly flickers in the spaces where the sun pierces through the filter of overhanging branches, leading my eye across the water. Suddenly, I all but feel my pupils contract as they lock onto a shadow under the light show, sliding

“SATISFIED AND in my direction. A drop of sweat runs down the side of my face as my right MYSTIFIED, I KNOW hand gives the ground a small hiding, in an attempt to find the grip of my fly HOW LITTLE ANY OF THIS WOULD rod. I get up, unhook my dry fly, pull some line from the reel, and breathe out. Right in front of me, a witvis is HAVE MEANT IF rising. The Sentinel. LIFE WERE FREE OF HARDSHIP.” A little more than two hours later I am back on the road. Satisfied and mystified, I know how little any of this would have meant if life were free of hardship. Halfway along the R62 home, I stop for a beer in the colourful little town of Barrydale. I sit for an hour, reliving the past few days, smiling at where I am and where I’ve been. As my thoughts flow from then through now and onto what’s next, the internal conversation begins: “Been a hot second,” “Imagine a whole minute.” “Indeed. How’s that beer?” “Well, you know. It’s not half bad.” “I see what you did there. Good one.”