Stories of fish rising on poles (5)
I believe the answer is:
yarns
'stories' is the definition.
('yarn' can be a synonym of 'story')
'fish rising on poles' is the wordplay.
'fish' becomes 'ray' (ray is a kind of fish).
'rising' says the letters should be written in reverse (going up in a down clue).
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'poles' becomes 'ns' (North and South poles).
'ray' reversed gives 'yar'.
'yar'+'ns'='YARNS'
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for yarns that I've seen before include "Wools or stories" , "Anecdotes" , "rambling stories" , "Threads spun from wool, cotton, etc." , "Stories, threads" .)