il-Qamar

When I was younger, in the early 90s, my father would take me fishing, mostly in the summer when you’d be better off spending a night outdoors rather than indoors, with some ventilator whirring in the night, struggling against the stifling heat. My father’s favourite was the imrekjba (A triangular raft made from reeds with a little pole stuck in its middle having a sail attached to it, which serves to drive the raft (with a long line of fishhooks attached to) a long way out from the shore), but the most fun I had was when we would go line-fishing for saddled bream because grandpa would come along. It was an adventure for me, like when he would take me trapping early in the morning. In the same way, we would leave the house and drive for around twenty minutes. Far away from the buildings, toward the island’s north-west. On our way there, we’d pick up Grandpa Frans (my father’s father). A man of few words. The only difference between the journeys was that to fish for birds, we would leave before dawn, but to fish for saddled bream we would leave before dusk, late in the afternoon.

We would have to descend the cliffs, walking for around half an hour, and since I was young, everything seemed larger and more difficult. It was a whole adventure. Once we’d reach the site, grandpa would begin setting up the fishing rods, while my father would bring me along to catch the worms from the seaside. With a hand broom and dustpan, we would collect as many as needed. Nowadays, these worms seem to be gradually disappearing. Before, there would be swarms of them along the coast, particularly on those sharp rocks at the water’s edge. These worms live there, where the sea meets the land. I don’t know if they are actually worms or rather insects, since they have legs and antennae, but my father always told me they were worms of the sea, and I became used to the same word. Grandpa would be feeding the saddled bream to see if they would come (which it almost always did, because the site was a good one). You would see it frothing at the surface, snatching at the bread.

I remember my father teaching me how to hook the worm – you put the hook into its ass and pull it out of its head. 

You put the hook through its ass and pull it out of its head. These worms are around a centimetre long. We would choose the bigger ones, and let the small ones go. I clearly remember that while looking for the fishing hook in the dark, my father and grandpa would place the worm between their lips, to keep it from escaping and avoid squashing it. Nowadays, when I think about it or explain it to someone, this act of hooking the worm sounds harsh… 

The fish are really attracted to this worm, and you would definitely catch something – if not saddled bream, at least bogue. I would always fill up a bucket, unless I would have tangled up all the fishing lines, which we would have brought, into one big knot. The line for bogue and saddled bream would be very fine, and neither adult would want to stop his doing to make me another one. In the dark, this was nearly impossible anyway, and I would make them angry when I did this. So until the time came when I learnt how to tie the hooks and line, I often ended up staring at the moon and stars, thinking a thousand questions about the moon, stars, sea, fish and worms. 

Why do fish love bread? There is no bread in the sea. Why do fish love worms? Do the worms swim in the sea, or do they drown? Why do shearwater cry like infants in the night? And why do they cry after the moonrise?  Why does the moon rise from the sea? Where does the wind come from? Who makes the wind? And the waves? My grandfather was a quiet man who did not tell me much, and he would always go to the cliff’s edge on his own, but my father taught me everything he knew. Whenever I’d ask him: but how do you know all this? He would always reply in the same way. Because I know! Because that’s how it is!

Nowadays, to teach a boy to hook a worm in that manner would be considered a cruel act towards the animal, and a cruel experience for the child. It would probably set a lot of people’s teeth on edge. But these worms can’t be found in masses like they used to be, and they are slowly disappearing. Cruelty is occurring with the actions of people; not with the fishing hook, but with the pollution of air, sea and water. Because of unbridled construction brought about by man. My father has a strong bond with nature; a fish eating a worm or another fish, or a wave breaking and crumbling and a flood drowning, are not acts of evil, but simply nature’s design. Only man could do evil.

I started wondering about who could have been the first one to come up with this idea of fishing for saddled bream using this worm. I think we would have to revisit the time when the island did not possess food resources as there was not so much soil or space to rear livestock. So people had to improvise, and they learnt how to catch fish and migratory birds. Nowadays, this hunger is no longer present. From the 90s onward, supermarkets opened, importing all kinds of food and drink, and we progressed. But we might be suffering from another hunger. A modern hunger. A hunger for fresh and pure air; a hunger for the quiet and peace of mind. 

Maybe this is why, as I grew older, I felt the need to start collecting the wisdom that I could not find in books – with some exceptions here and there which, with time, rose to the surface, like MALTESE METEOROLOGICAL AND AGRICULTURAL PROVERBS by J. AQUILINA which exists as a PDF on my computer and serves as a reference for that which I collect verbally from others.