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Wednesday 12 December 2012

Prize

Well i had a very unexpected suprise when i tunred up to the AFAC christmas party last night. I got second in the litarary awards and won a years subscription to fishing news. To think i wasnt even going to go but i had a cup to return that i hadn't even been rung about. That just shows some of the smaller problems the club is having. At present there are not enough club members and if they cant get enough the club will need to be disbanded. not a happy thought.

Anyway i am sure they will sor tthings out but at present i just dont have time to be involved in the club

Monday 10 December 2012

A World Away



It’s funny how living in Auckland distances you from what living in NZ is really like for the average kiwi. It was while on a fishing trip to Putararu that I learnt this all important lesson.
 
Staying at the Putararu hotel was the first eye opener. An interesting place that looked like it was a top class place to stay in its day but now looked like it had seen better days. The place was tidy inside but definitely aged and while we had what may have been in its day the penthouse suite with big bay windows overlooking Putararu township I would now call it average accommodation. There was even a hole in the wall for used razors.
Now if you were thinking that we were going to straight retire for the night or spend our time hanging in the room you would be wrong as we had spotted the gaming lounge next door and we had to just check it out.
On entering there was a sign on the door that said “no gang patches” which filled me full of confidence and the place was full of people all dressed in fluro wigs and other peculiar outfits. I kept looking around me expecting to see “Jake the muss”.
Just to make us fit in we ordered 750ml bottles of DB draught and Waikato beer and sat round a table looking quite the part especially Toby with his handlebar mo. We took some photos for memorabilia sake.
I went to the bathroom and found myself looking behind me continuously worried that I was not going to be able to make it back out without being defiled. The place was dingy and I was too afraid to touch anything. I did my business and left as fast as possible.
This was turning into one crazy trip and we hadn't even started fishing.

It was morning and the day of our fish and we were rearing to go although we didn’t get to the river any earlier than if we drove down in the morning but that wasn’t the point.

You would think that after the amount of fishing trips we have done we would have done  all the legwork and know exactly where we are going and how to get there

but it turns out that the gravel back roads we were on didn't have street names on the map so all we were doing was guessing and backtracking for an hour so it was time for plan B

Plan B was a river I had fished before and had some great fishing on but our first hour was a bit slow and I was starting to doubt our decision until……. This one pool that Steve was fishing and he hooked into a fish and a pod of 20-30 fish came screaming around the pool behind it and back into the head of it. This was not something I had seen since the pods on the TT in spawning season.

Both Toby and Steve caught a couple of fish in that pool but we moved on only to spook a lot of fish in the shallow water. We started fishing a bit more wary now and sight casting to the fish in which we caught a few and had some great fun before returning to the main pool and taking turns at the large number of fish

At this point lets just say that this hole was so productive that we managed to pull a total of 13 fish from that one spot and we spent a good part of our day their without having to move, a testament to Steve and his spotting as most of the time we were having to strike without our indicators even moving.

It was a little sad that we moved from that spot and even the river for the end of the day but time was not on our side and we had wives and babies to go home to but hey there will always be a next trip.