PM's partner goes fishing
Anyone who loves fishing has a ‘‘one that got away’’ story. Clarke Gayford’s nearly killed him. It was several years back – before the launch of his successful television series, before his partner, Jacinda Ardern, became Prime Minister.
He was freediving (that’s without tanked oxygen) in Niue and hunting for fish with his spear gun. He’d just come up from a dive to around 25 metres, and was catching his breath when he spotted a dogtooth tuna swimming beneath him.
‘‘The trouble with the tropics and the clear water is you can see too far,’’ Gayford says. ‘‘I didn’t breathe up properly at the top again, I should have taken some time out to breathe properly but I got too excited, and dived too quickly on it.’’
The fish was swimming around 20m deep. Gayford, an experienced freediver, swam down to it and lured the inquisitive fish to him with small movements.
As it passed under his feet, he took his shot. ‘‘I got a really clean shot through it. But it was far bigger than I thought and it just took off.’’
The fish’s strength snapped Gayford’s line at the swivel. ‘‘I instinctively grabbed [the line], knowing that I would have lost the fish anyway, and it flipped me upside down and dragged me down, and I probably would have been down at 30m before I realised the stupidity of what I was doing.’’
He released the line and began swimming for the surface. At this point, he’d been underwater for more than two minutes, and he was beginning to run out of air.
Around two metres from the surface, all the remaining air burst from his lungs, and he blacked out. Luckily, friends were on hand to haul him out of the water as he came to. But it was a close call.
‘‘It taught me a lesson about limits and how to conserve oxygenbetter,’’ he says.
Gayford got a rematch with the dogtooth tuna in the new season of his fishing documentary show, Fish of the Day. This time he was in Vanuatu, and he fished from a boat using a rod.
He started work on Fish of the Day‘s first season shortly after the dogtooth tuna incident. He’d just quit his job in radio and wanted an adventure.
‘‘It was made from a fairly selfish pursuit of sitting back and thinking, ‘What do I really want to do? I really want to go fishing and diving in the Pacific and around New Zealand. Well, all right, let’s engineer that’,’’ Gayford says.
‘‘I’d sort of grown slightly disillusioned with radio and I just wanted an adventure, basically. All of the jobs I’ve taken, it’s usually been because they’ve seemed interesting or seemed like a fun thing to do, and I’ve been really lucky that I can do that. My overheads are low, and when I’ve needed to I’ve had lean years to make all these things happen.’’
He teamed up with old mate Mike Bhana, who was returning to New Zealand after a stint making nature documentaries overseas for the likes of the BBC.
They dreamed up an idea for a show that would combine elements of travel documentaries with the traditional fishing show elements of catching a whopping fish and cooking it.
‘‘We kind of think of it as a show that uses fishing as an excuse to show off the destination, as opposed to a hardcore fishing show. It’s a show you can watch with your partner who’s not into fishing,’’ Gayford says.
While Fish of the Day is aimed at an international audience (it airs in 38 countries, including on National Geographic), the first season was popular with Kiwis who watched it on Choice TV, and now Prime has picked up the second season.
But just as the show’s building momentum here, will it have to be put on hold while Gayford does his dad duties? Gayford’s expected to be a full-time father when his and Ardern’s baby arrives – in June.
Gayford says he’s hoping to make a third series happen. ‘‘Obviously being a Dad’s going to come first. There’s quite a few unknowns. I can’t speak to how full-on that role will be until I’m doing it.
‘‘But we’re also in a pretty privileged position where we’ve got family members who are keen to help out. If we pare things back, then maybe ask one of our Mums through a couple of periods of time, we might be able to make it happen.’’
Until the baby arrives, Gayford’s trying to get out on the boat as much as possible. ‘‘I’m trying to get as much fishing in between now and June in, I figure,’’ he says.
❚ Season 2 of the Fish Of The Day debuts on Wednesday at 8pm on Prime.