KERRE MCIVOR
KERRE CAN’T WAIT TO START REELING IN HER CATCH OF THE DAY
Ihave to confess, I’m not much of an angler. That being said, I thoroughly enjoy the process of attempting to catch fish. What’s not to like?
You head out on a boat on a glorious summer’s day with a good book and a packed lunch. You rock gently on the water, lulled into somnolence by the motion of the boat and the warmth of the sun, once or twice there’s a flurry of activity when somebody feels a pull at the end of the line, then when the sun sets, you head back to shore with either a couple of fish for dinner in a bucket or, if the fish weren’t biting, fish and chips from the takeaway on the way home. Nothing like it.
More often than not, though, I come back empty-handed.
The fish are well ahead in the points stake. My body count thus far is one kahawai (off Mahia beach), one gurnard and one squid (in the Marlborough Sounds) and one tuna (from a charter boat in Tahiti).
All fish were eaten – even the squid. I would never catch a fish simply for sport or for a trophy. Any fish I catch are going to be eaten and where possible, I use the skeleton for stock. Since we bought our place up in the Hokianga, I’ve noticed that the spot in front of our place seems to be a prime location for the local boaties.
Every morning, when we’re enjoying our coffee out on the deck, we see three or four boats anchored directly in front of us as the crow flies. They stay there for hours, then around lunchtime, they head back to port and there seems to be a certain self-satisfaction in the way the boats push through the water that indicates a good haul. If I needed any further evidence, my mate Wendyl Nissen, who lives just down the hill, seems to be able to pull huge snapper out of the water as and when she needs them.
She has never returned empty-handed when she heads out at sparrow fart. I am full of envy, even though it does mean getting up early. I’ve never really understood why things have to be done before the sun comes up. Like marathon running, milking cows, building renovations, rubbish collection – and fishing. I’m still a night person even after a year and a half of having to get up at 6am and work a daytime shift.
I guess 20 years of being on the radio until midnight has conditioned me to the see the evening hours as prime working time. But there we go.
The rest of the world seems to think it’s quite normal to get up before the birdies. And when I googled fishing forums to find out why you have to get up so early, contributors said that fish eat breakfast and dinner, so the best time to catch them is while they’re out feeding.
It makes sense, so this summer I have decided I will learn to catch my own dinner. In the confident expectation that I will be able to compare snapper sizes with Wendyl, I completed a fish filleting course at the local fish market and I am signing up for a coastguard course later in the year.
Then I’ll be looking for an old tinny on Trade Me, learning how to back a trailer and to put a boat in the water. After that, surely, it will simply be a matter of pulling the fish in.