• Solo • Fishing with quarrels; quarrels with fishes

The shallow bay Egilrun is situated upon is used, these trials, for crafts and crafting. From boatmakers to weaponsmiths, glassblowers to metalworkers, the sound of hammers and saws can be heard almost every break of the trial, with crews working in shifts to produce the beautiful craftsmanship which they might, one trial, become famous for.

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Oram Mednix
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Fishing with quarrels; quarrels with fishes

23 Saun 721

Oram had fished. Oram had hunted with a bow. But Oram had never fished with a bow.

So it was with interest that the Ranger watched a man stalked along the bank of the river outside Egilrun, near the bridge where he had encountered Ruffin McGuffin; the stranger held a small bow nocked with an arrow that had twine attached to it. The twine was wrapped around a spool attached to the bow itself. The wiry fisherman waded slowly like a crane along the rushes, peering at the water. From where he stood, Oram could not see any fish, but clearly the man could, as after several expectant trills, he raised, drew, and fired the bow into the water.

Line spooled from the reel after the arrow, and came to rest along the surface. The fisherman then reeled in the line by hand until the arrow emerged, without any fish at the end. Oram could not help but feel some disappointment for the fisherman, who, just then, noticed him watching. Although startled, the man smiled and nodded a mute greeting as he prepared to reload his bow. Since he did not seem to mind the audience, Oram sat down against a tree and relaxed as he continued to watch.

The bowfisher continued to stalk up and down the riverbank, and took a couple more equally unsuccessful shots; only on the fourth try did he strike. Oram could tell by the churning and thrashing in the water immediately around where the arrow had struck. Oram noticed that the fisherman, this time, waded out as close as he dared to the fish before reeling in the arrow, at the end of which writhed a small freshwater carp. As he retrieved his prize, the fisherman looked up and smiled once more at Oram. ”You fish, sir?” he asked brightly.

Oram nodded. Curious, and taking the invitation, the traveler approached and introduced himself. The fisherman gave his name as Loris. He worked at the docks in Egilrun, but whenever possible liked to fish in freshwater. Loris was clearly proud of his hobby and his gear, and was willing to show it to Oram and answer all sorts of questions about it. As Oram questioned and listened to him, he made mental note of what he would need if wanted to bowfish himself. A bow he already had; however, it looked like he would need to either obtain or make his own reel and arrows. Fishing arrows were different from hunting ones: they were stouter of shaft, often had no fletchings, and had a distinctive head with prongs. The first two traits resembled the traits of crossbow bolts, Oram thought. The heads would require some modifications.

Oram took leave of Loris and thanked him for his time. He walked back to the Egilrun Ranger Headquarters with a head buzzing with schemes.
word count: 479
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Oram Mednix
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Re: Fishing with quarrels; quarrels with fishes

The real deal, or at least the deal with the reel.

The schemes Oram had in mind involved making his own fishing bow, or at least, his own hand reel and fishing arrows. For that, he would need some time in the Ranger compound’s workshop, which would not be too difficult to arrange. Neither the village of Egilrun nor the ranger outpost were large, but the supplies and tools Oram needed were basic: he would need some fishing line, something cylindrical for a spool, some more twine for lashing, and his trap-making tools. The shape of the arrows Loris had initially made the traveler think of crossbow bolts; however, as Oram contemplated the task of attaching the spool to the bow, he decided to try using his flatbow instead. It would be a much simpler build that wouldn’t risk disfiguring or damaging one of his most expensive pieces of equipment.

The first task was to make the reel itself, which was not too difficult. Oram turned to his old standby: a section of bamboo, which in this case he cut to slightly more than palm’s width, and into which he cut and bored a few suitable notches and holes, both for holding the fishing line and for the lashing that would attach the spool to his bowstaff. The reel would attach to the bowstaff at one end, with the reel jutting forward just below the grip. Putting it above the grip would place it in his line of sight while trying to aim. Since he was attaching at just one end, the lashing would need to be especially tight and firm, so the hunter took his time getting it right.

Braided fishing line would probably work best, so Oram went into town to get some. Braided line was highly visible in the water, which was a minus for angling; however, that wouldn’t matter for bowfishing, since the line would only be extended after the arrow had already been shot. Egilrun, being close to both the sea and fresh waterways, was pretty well-stocked in fishing supplies for a village its size, so Oram found the linen braided line he needed easily enough.

Once he had finished attaching the hand reel to the bow and spooling on some line, Oram tested his rig by attaching the line to an arrow and then going out to one of the archery butts to shoot a couple practice shots. After a few tries, he decided that the rig would work alright out to about fifteen to twenty feet. Any range farther than that, and the weight and friction of the line would affect both the aim and the speed of the arrow too much to be usable.

Having finished with the hand reel, Oram’s next task was to make a couple fishing arrows. The modification he had in mind was simply to take some wire, the same sort he would use to make a strong fish hook, and twisting it around the base of the head to make the characteristic backward-pointing prongs. These would grip the fish after it was shot and keep the arrow from pulling loose while reeling it in. Forming the wire with pliers, vice and wire cutters was trivial; the trick would be attaching it firmly enough to the arrowhead. Ideally, one would remove the head and affix the hook to the base before reattaching the head to the shaft. For that sort of work, the crossbow bolts he had would once again have been much easier to work with than the field points he used with his bow, since the shafts had a thicker diameter, and also since Dyrgen had thoughtfully designed those shafts and their heads for convenient user modification.

Fine! that did it: Oram would figure out how to attach the hand reel to his crossbow after all. After making a quick trip to his quarters to retrieve said weapon, the hunter quickly saw that there was a simple solution staring him in the face all along: he could simply attach the reel to the underside of the stirrup at the front end. He could have kicked himself for overlooking such an obvious solution earlier. He settled for grumbling at himself as he unlashed the hand reel from the flatbow and re-lashed it onto the crossbow. He realized afterward that having the reel attached to the stirrup required that he adjust how he reloaded the weapon, since the reel would be where he habitually placed his foot while doing so, but after some trial and error he figured out a workaround. He repeated the test fires at the archery butt for his new reel setup.

Now he could turn his attention back to modifying a crossbow bolt into a fishing bolt. The quarrel heads were much moreconvenient to remove and reattach than those of the arrows, and moreover he wouldn’t need to cut off any fletchings, meaning that he could revert the bolts to normal easily after he was done fishing. He attached the wire hook he had made to the base of the bolt head as tightly as he could, then reattached the whole assembly back onto the shaft, helping the process along with some glue.

He now had a bowfishing hand reel mounted on his crossbow, and a crossbow bolt modified for bowfishing. It was time for some practical tests.
Last edited by Oram Mednix on Tue Feb 08, 2022 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 904
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Oram Mednix
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Re: Fishing with quarrels; quarrels with fishes

24 Saun 721

The suns did not tire nor descend to rest during Saun, but Orams did, and besides, the glue the hunter had used to reinforce the attachment of his fishing bolt head would take a few breaks to set properly. In the meantime he could take care of some official Ranger business and then call it a trial. The following morning he set forth to try out his homemade bowfishing gear. Since this would entail getting his feet wet, he put on waders.

As a child hunting crayfish with his father, Oram had learned how water bent light, which caused objects in front of one to appear farther out than they actually were. “Aim low, then aim lower” was a rule of thumb for correcting one’s aim when shooting or thrusting a spear at something underwater, and it would come into play here as well. As it turned out, Oram had a tool for helping him calibrate his aim. Xiur had imbued his crossbow, this crossbow, with the Shooting Star enchantment, which produced a beam of light that shone on the spot at which the weapon was aimed. While Oram tried not to overuse this ability as a crutch, it would nonetheless prove useful here while he was experimenting.

He picked a brightly colored patch of sand for his underwater target and aimed. It was interesting to see the two different spots, one on the surface of the water and one on the object, and how they lined up, or rather how they didn’t line up. The spot landed on the target when Oram corrected his aim lower, just as it did when he was using a spear, and his bolt hit the target when the crossbow was pointed so that he spot lined up with the target. That was intuitive, and useful to know. It probably made sense physically, too: the light that showed his eyes where the object was must bend the same way as the light beam from the crossbow, he supposed.

Oram took two practice shots before deciding to actually look for fish. He would not have minded more practice; however, the modified technique he was using now for reloading his crossbow was awkward, uncomfortable, and tiring, requiring that he grasp the stirrup with one hand while jamming the stock of the weapon into his waist and working the gaffe with his other hand. Bowfishing was not his new favorite activity, the hunter decided; at least, it wouldn’t be until he figured out a less inconveniencing way to attach a hand reel to his weapon.

Oram stalked the bank for about ten bits until he spotted a carp; it scuttled off even as he aimed for it, however. It was another ten or fifteen bits before Oram spotted another fish. This one got away, as well, but only just as he fired. After reeling the arrow in, he reloaded once more and decided to stalk even more carefully. He went into a stand of rushes, where he wouldn’t be silhouetted as clearly against the sky as seen from under the water. He decided to try his Snow Falls Silently ability to see if it worked on the sloshing sounds made when walking through water. Apparently, it did.

Perhaps another ten bits passed before he spotted another carp. It didn’t spot him. Carefully, moving slowly and as much along the line of his body as possible, Oram aimed and fired. A brief flurry of activity churned in the water and then died down. Grinning, Oram reeled in the fish.
word count: 599
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Doran
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Re: Fishing with quarrels; quarrels with fishes

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Oram:

Knowledge:
[Combat: Ranged] Correcting one's aim when shooting into water.
[Hunting] Bowfishing is a thing!
[Hunting] Bowfishing calls for specialized arrows.
[Smithing] Modifying a crossbow bolt for fishing.
[Stealth] Minimizing the amount of sound one makes while moving in water.
[Strength] Using an uncomfortable workaround for reloading a crossbow with a reel attached near the stirrup.

Loot: One homemade fishing reel.
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: -
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 10
- - -
Comments: The title of this thread was, as always, great. You have to tell me how you come up with all those creative thread titles sometime!

With that being said, the opening line immediately piqued my curiosity. I was just as interested in finding out how exactly you fish with a bow as Oram was. Loris sounds like an interesting individual in my opinion. I wonder what kind of questions exactly Oram asked him though!

In the review request, you claimed that the thread was a bit choppily written. I have to disagree. I found Oram making his hand reel and fishing arrows interesting to read and easy to follow.

And what more, I learned something!

(That’s one of the things I love about ST; when I review, I learn about so many things that I wasn't familiar with beforehand!)

I like that Oram wasn’t immediately successful when he finally tried out his new fishing reel. In the end, he managed to catch a carp though. I wonder if he’ll cook it or fry it. If he does, I hope he’ll enjoy it!

And you enjoy your rewards!

P.S.: I would have added "Stealth" to the list of skills used. You even requested a Stealth knowledge!

word count: 288

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