June 2023

Hunter	Valentin Stante
Catch date:	Sunday, 18. October 2026
Victim:	ugor
Weight:	kg
Depth:	m
Location:	Šibeniški arhipelag
Hunting technique	Lov po luknjah
Rifle:	Lancea Adriatica 80 “fusion”

“Ten pounds, twenty pounds, forty pounds, what difference does it make? The roar of the ocean, the cry of the seagulls, the cool sea breeze smelling of salt and cleanliness, /…/ these are the things that count. These are the memories that last, even after the season is over, when the fish are gone. /…/ These are the memories we take to the grave”

V.C. Hailner

The day was dark and not a little dreary. Low clouds pressed down on the earth and all living things with the weight of a huge iron hammer.

Počutil sem se kot v orjaški stiskalnici, blago omotičen in zdelo se mi je, da vso dogajanje okoli mene poteka neizmerno počasi in lenobno. Predebela potapljaška obleka je ta občutek še podkrepila in počutil sem se kakor orjaški mrož, kateri se nerodno kobaca po plitvini in še sam ne ve, ali si želi ostati in čofotati v morju, ali pa se hoče skobacati na kopno.

Dan je postregel z glavonožci in vranami. Tu in tam se je v hladilni skrinji zasvetilo telo srebrnega viteza in ulov je bil vse drugo kot pa skromen. Ampak še vseeno je nekaj manjkalo, nekaj posebnega, pravi bokun, kakor bi rekli Dalmatinci…ulov, ob katerem ti zastane dih in katerega še dolgo občuduješ v tišini, sedeč na čolnu…

I continued with my routine hunting. A torch in the left hand and a rifle ready to fire in the right. An inaudible dive, a fall into the immediate vicinity of the crack, a silent approach, a brief check and a return to the surface. I don’t know how many times I repeated all this, how many thoughts crossed my mind and how many times I broke the surface of the water with my flippers and plunged back into the blue, when suddenly the beam of light from my underwater torch illuminated a huge grey mass. It moved like a kind of hood, lazily and slowly, but still lightly and aggressively. Slowly, it turned its giant, silky head towards me, gently stretched its pelvic fins so that for a moment it looked like a dragon from Chinese mythology, and glided soundlessly through the water filter straight towards me.

The accurate shot was fatal for the giant.

The heavy and grey day dissipated towards evening and the only grey that remained was a huge and grey mass that swayed with me on the gentle and short waves of the young wind.