National News & Information >June 2007 Features

The idle thoughts of an idle editor by Jerry Flay

June2007: To guide or not to guide....

On Waiheke Island, where I live, we exist on rainwater from the roof. Because of this a culture of sparing usage has developed. Purchasing water from the delivery truck is seen as a sign of wastage, and worse, of inadequacy. Islanders gather in dark corners to utter sinister mutterings about those for whom the water truck has recently graced their driveway. Judgement is passed, and the offenders struck off the social register! Life can be harsh on our island paradise.

Oddly, I have always viewed the hiring of a fishing guide in the same light. For no logical reason, I see it as an aspersion on my own ability to ascertain water and capture the beasts that lurk within. Consequently, more often than not I spend an uncomfortable half hour telling the wife that catching fish is not important, it’s the being at one with nature that does it for me.

So when I recently obtained grudging parole from the boss to abscond for a few days with a couple of mates who are the fishing equivalents of 36 handicappers, I found myself in a curious situation. They wanted to hire a guide.

Now I need to clarify once again that I have nothing against most guides – they are splendid chaps, skilled at their jobs, and imbued with Job-like patience. But they are not for me.

So on the first morning, I dropped my friends off with their guide, and arranged to meet them at lunchtime, when we could compare catches. I scuttled off to try my luck at a couple of favoured spots, confident I would have one hand on the bragging rights within the hour.

3 hours, countless snagged flies and a couple of miserable sprats later, I decided to give it up as a bad job. Clearly there were no fish in the river. I jumped in the car and went to see how the lads were getting on, secure in the knowledge that even if their long suffering guide had managed to get them a couple of hook-ups, they would have doubtless lost them in the first few seconds. As I wandered up the river bank, my two sprats began to look a bit more significant.

“Catch and release, boys, catch and release. That’s the way the real fisherman does it”, I would tell them. “Oh yes, I’ve had a few, decent enough fish, but I do like to release most of my catch – let ‘em get really big for next year”, I would say.

I was pleasantly ruminating over this most satisfying of scenarios when I happened upon what I understandably mistook for a mobile fish market, a great pile of fresh, fat trout sprawled across the river bank. Besides them two grinning oafs, immediately former friends of mine, gazing proudly at their catch and behind them the guide, lovingly fingering his filthy lucre before slipping it to some secure spot down his waders.

At the end of the day there’s only one thing you can do in such circumstances, and that’s what I did – suggested a round of golf!

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