COULD HAVES DON’T COUNT

FOLLOWING THE LOSS OF A FRIEND, JAZZ KUSCHKE PONDERS THE LAST CAST.

Photos. Jazz Kuschke

Inever got to fish with G. There was a potential Richtersveld drift somewhere in 2019 but I couldn’t make the dates work. In 2020 I got to fish for homegrown tigers in Pongola (one of his favourite fisheries) but his guiding and work-admin schedule had him elsewhere occupied. When he started opening up his Clarens operation he flooded me with pics and videos and the door and a spot on the raft were always open. I hadn’t been back to the Eastern Free State since 2011 and was positively frothing to fish the Ash River with him from a drift boat and get to see some of the still waters he’d syndicated.

Again, life and responsibilities kept getting in the way and things were postponed. Always brushed off with a, “We’ll make it happen next time.” You know how it goes. In early and mid-2022 there were three times (or was it more?) when the open weekends again just didn’t line up. Finally, we penned one into the calendar for October. The dates were set and I was going to head down there with The Mission editor Tudor to fish the Ash and hang with G. Alas, by mid-September it was pretty clear that there was no way it was going to happen as his condition had taken a drastic turn for the worse.

I never got to fish with G. In late December he lost his brief, brave battle with aggressive cancer. I can’t begin to imagine the pain and loss his wife and young daughter have had to endure and my heart goes out to them. In the days that followed his passing, amid a flood of heartfelt social media tributes to a man hugely respected in the industry and loved as an all-around good oke, came a sting of personal, almost selfish regret.

I never got to fish with G. We’d become pretty good mates over some four years of working together and the often talked about “reality hit” struck me pretty hard, complete with the heavily clichéd “perspective” people often talk about after a traumatic event.

I could’ve gone fishing with G. I could’ve gone to Sedge with LeRoy the other day. I could’ve joined Johann when the bonnies were at their thickest right next to the bricks. Could have. Should have…

Could haves don’t count.

Long-time African overland guru and philanthropist Kingsley Holgate has a parable he famously relates around campfires when new travellers join his convoy. It usually starts with a question from the newbie on how Kingsley has managed to “justify” a life of adventure. By all accounts, he relishes the interrogation because it allows him to put forward his seven-pebble theory.

To broadly paraphrase what was retold to me on separate occasions by renowned travel journos and long-time mentors of mine, Don Pinnock and Patrick Cruywagen, it goes like this:

Kingsley will collect seven river pebbles and lay them in a row in the sand. The bearded old salt will then proceed to tell you, in between sips of rum, that each of these pebbles represents 10 summers, totalling 70 summers –the number of years in a “fortunate” person’s lifespan.

I’m 42 now, so, Kingsley would reach down and toss four of the seven pebbles into the darkness. Forty-odd years… gone forever! A healthy, happy family; a good batch of passport stamps; some great experiences as a full-time travel journalist and (eventually) freelancer; a fair amount of good fishing and the odd regret (but not too many). The point is those years are over. The run has been fished, and the pool purged.

I never got to fish with G… but there’s no use, as Kingsley would put it, “gazing into the rear-view mirror of life.”

Of the remaining three pebbles you now need to consider the seventh (last) pebble. There’s simply no way any of us can guarantee we’ll still have the legs to wade the Smalblaar, let alone clamber over the rocks to reach the bonnies and the yellowtail we have our sights set on right now. And if any of us do, it will be a gift.

So what? That leaves two pebbles. My two pebbles. How many do you have left? You already know the moral of the pebble story, but I’m going to lay it out anyway: If your mate calls today with a last-minute mission plan to head to Tankwa for this weekend, you should start packing. If you can take your dad or mom fishing tomorrow, do it. If your son or daughter wants to go chase leeries, don’t give them some everyday excuse and tell them you’ll go tomorrow when the tides and wind are better.

With a young family and a freelance business, I’m the last person to tell you to shirk life, relationship and work

“DOES IT EVEN MATTER HOW YOU FISHED IT? PERHAPS MORE POIGNANT IS WHO YOU FISHED IT WITH.”

responsibilities (and those who know me will attest to that). But the reality is that you just don’t know when you, or your mate, will swing their last cast.

And, if your last cast was the one you threw on your last session, would you have fished it differently? I know I would’ve. Could’ve … Does it even matter how you fished it? Perhaps more poignant is who you fished it with.

I’m a big fan of the late, great American author and essayist Edward Abbey. Much of his writing is centred around environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. Perhaps my favourite bit of his work is framed on my desk (a cutout of an old Outside magazine in which it was the caption for the inside back page’s “Parting Shot” as far I can recall). It reads:

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast… a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So, get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotised by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

The sad truth is Mr Abbey was only half right here: You or your mates might not actually outlive the bastards, but at least you can “live” richer than them.

Go make those pebbles count.