Friday & Saturday

Having left home after dinner on Thursday, I was surprised to make excellent time to the landing, arriving at 7.25 for my 8pm pick up. I had a quick chat with a few Flax Block hunters, who reported excellent water levels and the best shooting in years. Fantastic, some of those guys have stuck it out through thick and thin, with low to no water having been a common recurring theme. Dad and I nattered for a while, spent some quality time and made ourselves at home. We were up early on Friday, and at the ponds early. Lots of electronica to setup. The morning flight was quiet but we were interupted by a flight of 4 mallardsand brought them down and that set the pace for the day. We pulled out at 11.00 with 10 in the bag, having missed not a bird. Dad even nailed a spoonie drake that buzzed the dekes while I was switching off the robos, he had unloaded and only managed to chamber one shell on its first pass, amazingly after the shot it roared off, turned 180 degrees and roared back, thuis time dad took him down with 2 shots. Bird # 10. We went back to the hut, had a massive lunch involving bacon, eggs, hash browns & mushrooms and set about cleaning our morning back and chilling down the birds. After a quick clean up we puulled the dekes off the Park pond; no one else in the party would be joining us it seemed. We brought the dekes in from Park, McLennan's & Watsons and then decided on a tramp thru to Tukes. Amazing what a difference high water makes, the Puru grass had died back leaving a much more open clearing. 2 Greys made their escape on our arrival.



Dad and Geordie with Friday's bag



We still needed a couple of birds and late in the afternoon they arrived, a pair of greys that we smashed. An amazing day's hunting really, not a single bird escaped. Not often we can say that! Steak, onions and salad for dinner, then we turned in pretty early. Hunting is tiring work.

Up super early Saturday, to a brekkie of muesli. Dad had porridge. Second Saturday of the season is normally a very busy day, with lots of shooters out and about. More on that later. We were set up at 5.50 so killed time chit chatting and waiting for legal shooting time. Right on 6.30 3 birds swung over head. We got into them and I dropped my bird, dad missed I think. While reloading another hen came over and I dropped her into the pond. Even in the semi light i could see she was a bit different - a dead ringer of a bird I killed 3 or 4 years ago. The ginger bird!

Ginger bird - too many Gingernuts?




Gingernuts - yum



The ducks played ball, quite a number came in chatting and with a decent breeze were quite sporting birds. I had a great chance on a flock while dad was away searching for a bird. Hit the drake with the first shot, pulled on a hen and bang, bang, bang, bang she was gone without losing a feather... along with another half dozen birds.

We needed 2 birds and at 10.30 after a decent lull another mob came in to our calling, We dropped one each and high fived. Another limit apiece, good times. We pulled in all the dekes, dropped the dekes back, went out to Willow for a check on the pond, came back in for a legendary meal, cleaned and chilled the birds and then set about tidying. Amazing how much crap we took out with us when we pulled out at about 3.



Saturday's bag



Monday & Tuesday

Monday morning saw me and dad at Puru, Greg & Tom at Park. It would prove to be a long morning. Ducks were about but making themselves scarce from the ponds, although we had one unprompted flock come in with landing gear down while we were both out looking for a downed bird. It was seriously quiet - where are all the ducks? One observation with having all the water around was that shooting seemed to be coming from all directions. We packed up at 11 and headed in to clean birds. Greg and Tom got a couple.

I spent some time moving decoys around as the wind was getting stronger - hopefully an evening flight would eventuate? It didn't really, but I knocked down a mallard hen that came too close. That was Monday over.

I woke early Tuesday to notice that the temperature had dropped, and the wind had moved around to the South. Not quite what I was hoping for as the fog was heavy. I sat in the mai mai listening for birds. Early on a flock came over cahtting quite happily and that was it for the next couple of hours. All was quiet, except the sounds of the electronic decoys. By 8.30 I was wondering if I'd get a  shot away. 8.45 the fog began to lift. At 8.55, 4 greys appeared and I took the near bird, figuring 1 in hand... at 9 I dropped a pair of mallards, and at 9.30 another pair. Suddenly it was a reasonably good shoot. Limit bird eluded me but I was pretty happy all the same.

Back home for the afternoon, just as the weather really began to pack up.... swapped watch duties with dad, hope he's doing ok.

Opening Weekend

Roll call:

Dad, me, Tim, Tom, Rick, Andrew, Cock and Paul from the core group (Paul turned up with Cock near midnite), Greg came in from Au, with Bill & Marc as the guests. Dinner and drinks ensued after a big day of setting dekes and getting things just so. Plenty of birds were in the air so we were all feeling confident. Marc and Bill slept in a tent outside, man it was hot with the Northerly and the mozzies were out in force so we were all slightly drained when breakfast rolled around. I was hosting my cousin's husband Marc on the Park pond, dad had Greg & Bill at Puru, Tom & Paul were at Willow, Tim at Bollocks, Andrew at Watsons and Cock & Rick at McLennans. Fair to say that the predicted weather didn't arrive, so it was a blue bird day. Marc and I had a ball, limiting out later than I'd have thought, and enjoying ourselves. He's a moose hunter so knows his way around guns, no safety issues there. Once he got his eye in he was away.



Marc & ducks



 Rick & Jase had some really good shots, Andrew set himself up for a limit, Tim got his bag, Tom & Paul struggled and the Puru lads put up quite a few shots.

I think the group total was something loike 47, so all in all not a huge burden to clean and ready for eating.

Rick called in his mates to see how things went; AJ limited, his dad struggled, Guy had a slow time.. all in all it seemed as though the Waikato ducks had spread out. With duck shooting over, the duck hunting began....

I had Bollocks on Sunday morning and managed 3 birds including a spoonie hen. Rick & Jase smacked one each as well. Jase and I hunted Puru in the evening and I rounded out my limit. Andrew, Tim, Bill & Marc had left in the afternoon after cleaning the bag. All too soon another opening over, and it was great.

A week to go

Well, less than a week to the duck season... things have gone skewiff with the big Nthland but it puts me in a place where I can hunt the first week of the season completely - this hasn't happened in years so I'm pretty keen to get stuck in. dad's been a pretty regular visitor to the ponds, keeping the birds fed, warding off pigs, getting things ship-shape and care-taking. Lots of SE wind and rain over the weekend, almost perfect duck hunting weather.

Catch ezine is out again, fine photography indeed.

Lots of last minute fiddling going on in the snuffit household, getting stuff prepared for the swamp stay. Man I'm looking forward to it.

This year we have quite a party:

Der Schwampenfuhrer (dad), my brother Greg, Uncle Bill (dad's bro), Uncle Tom (mum's bro), cousin Paul (son of my mother's brother and child of my mother's brother's lover), Tim & Andy, Uncle Rick (best as I can tell he's no one's uncle...), Cock, me and then my cousin Sarah's husband, Marc. With a "c" as in there's some frenchy stuff going on. (He must be the son in law of my mother's lover's brother).

PARTY!

Big weekends

Last weekend was quite busy, starting with an AWF&G council meeting from which it became further apparent that there's not much new thinking going on. Leaving the meeting at 3 I followed AJ over to Napier, arriving before guy & Dickie. AJ was on business in his Beretta role; having to attend a H&F shoot. Guy, Dickie, me, Clive & James Needham were on a different mission - to shoot the first game birds of the 2011 season. Hawkes Bay had moved the opening of their upland season forward two weeks. Given time between picking up the gun, I was only too happy to get an eye opener on high fast flying Tuna Nui pheasants. Last year I promised myself that Í'd return and return I did. What a fantastic place, steeped in history, lovely terrain and massive drives. I seemed to do quite well with my pegs too; some days you win, some you lose. I started quite well too, was quite chuffed to begin the day with 3 doubles, then well... you know, I got a bit ordinary before scraping myself up and getting it back together. Highlight for me was a new drive they'd put in, I dropped 6 doubles in a mad mad 7 or 8 minutes of mayhem. There was quite a pile of dead birds behind me by the time I'd finished. Monday and I worked in Napier before hitting the road, just ahead of a fast approaching front that dumped snow on the Desert Road - I had visions of a chilly night on the Kaimanawas, but got through sweet as.

Yesterday was maimai dressing day, always a biggie. With many hands we managed it quite nicely and all the maimais are looking good.

Only 2 weeks to go now. Batteries for flappy dekes are being recharged now, and final presps being made. May have to try some of this Remington HD that seems to be the big thing, apart from "Hypersonic".....

Roll on 7 May.

JB Fan Club prepping the field dekes

15 years between drinks - reminiscing

Shame I didn't get a photo really. 2 weeks ago on a wet windy Mt Maunganui Friday night, we realised that it had been something like 15 years since we'd all been in the same place. We were there to celebrate Brian's Stag Do and when I arrived to big old fashioned man hugs and back slaps, it dawned on us that it had been a long long time between drinks. "We" being Andre, Milo, Brian and me. After uni our lives sort of diverged, Brian heading to the UK where Mother of JB Fan Club and me caught up with him in 2001; Andre comes and goes as he's pursued a career as a top notch crew man on international yachts, Milo setting us his guiding business in Tauranga and me pursuing some sort of corporate career thingy in Ak. At one time or another, most of us had been in one place or another; combinations of me & Miles, Brian and Miles, Miles and Andre, me & Andre, me & Brian... most of these gatherings centering around a pursuit of some sort like fishing or shooting. It was really good to catch up. Long may the catch ups continue.

Wedding is this weekend. Looks like another catch-up, can't wait!

The BIGGEST week

Preparations for the biggest week are underway, starting with filling up my saltie flyboxes. The biggest week? Yep, its going to go something like this.

Friday May 6, arrive at swamp, set dekes, prepare for biggest day of the year. (In the world of the waterfowler, this day sh*ts all over Xmas)
Saturday May 7, the biggest day of the year
Sunday May 8, leave swamp, arrive home, pack car with gun, goose dekes, rods, reels, stuff... so much stuff
Monday May 8, pick up Ian's boat and maybe Ian, head North. Arrive at Parengarenga.
Tuesday May 9 to Thurs May 12, fish Parengarenga, hunt geese
Friday May 13, arrive home
Saturday May 14, Sunday May 15... well if I'm lucky I'll be duck hunting.

I'll certainly be tired....

Kiwis giving it a shot

Online magazines are quite the fad right now, especially those focussed on fly fishing.
Like Catch & This is Fly to name a couple. Rene Vaz put out a good old kiwi one which to the best of my knowledge is the first from UnZud. Then today a whole new vista of photographic magic was revealed, encompassing not just fly fishing, but also hunting and shooting. Ok ok its very commercially focussed, but then its probably a wee bit much to expect anyone to do it just for love I reckon. Hunter's Element / Riverworks is a kiwi brand, however I seriously doubt that they'd sell enough kit in this crowded marketplace to retire rich men.... so relying on the publication going viral is pretty good advertising. Sh*t, Dave Hern is looking old...... now Jack Kos, here's a guy living up his student freedom. My only complaint is that his stuff has been all over the fishing forums well prior to publishing this, so not too much new content there. Pretty solid effort all in all, I hope that they keep it up. Now I'm going to pick up my Fly Life and thumb through it, still prefer paper magazines, old bean!

Fruits of the PPPP

The off season's activities at the Piripiri Pheasant Pluckers Preserve have paid great dividends this time around, especially in that the cover crops 'took' this year (last year they failed) so the birds are in residence.

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_KxI3MCfZI

Really pleasing result, I'm stoked and i know the rest of the team will be too.

A Goose in hot water & an organisation sidelined

Following is the press release from office of minister of Conservation. Its a poor decision, based on invective from small group of Fed Farmers. For example, here in Auckland Waikato we receive more complaints about pukekos, than Canadas.


Press Release by New Zealand Government at 9:40 am, 17 Mar 2011

The protection status of Canada geese as a game bird will be changed to allow farmers, park owners and aviation managers to cull these birds themselves, Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson announced today.

Canada geese will be removed from Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Act 1953 and listed on Schedule 5. This means that Fish and Game will no longer manage the geese as a hunting resource. A permit will not be required to shoot them.

"As the population of Canada geese continues to increase so does their risk to aviation safety and the damage they inflict to pasture and crops," Ms Wilkinson says.

"The current status where the geese populations are managed as a game bird is not working.

"Farmers have been getting increasingly frustrated with these birds fouling pasture and damaging crops.

"They also pose an aviation hazard due to their large size and this change will allow for the birds to be more effectively controlled where they pose a risk to aircraft safety."

Ms Wilkinson says there are tens of thousands of Canada geese across the country and recreational hunting opportunities will remain.

"I expect Fish and Game to continue to work with landowners to assist with managing populations around the country.

"The geese are well established and on top of that farmers will have an incentive to provide hunting access to reduce their goose control costs."

Background

• The Canada goose is an introduced game bird managed by fish and game councils for the benefit of recreational game licence holders.

• Species listed on Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Act are declared to be game. This means the populations are managed by local fish and game councils for recreational hunting purposes.

• Species on Schedule 5 are not protected.

• Farmers, urban park managers and those responsible for aviation safety advise that current Canada geese management is not adequately meeting their needs.

• In 1995 the South Island Canada Goose Management Plan was agreed that set the maximum population number at 20,350. The population has remained well above that level and in 2008 was estimated to be 35,000.

• Fish and game councils are independent. Under the current regime, farmers, park managers, the aviation sector, and the Government have no direct input to goose management.

• Individual landowners can suffer thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of damage to pasture and crops from geese in a single year.

• Four to five geese will consume the equivalent amount of grass that a sheep does and this impact is further compounded by associated fouling.



ENDS

"I expect Fish and Game to continue to work with landowners to assist with managing populations around the country.......

The woman's freaking insane if she believes that crap. She knows what she's doing. She has, in one stroke, marginalised F&G and driven another nail into the coffin of an organisation thyat already is being lowered into its final resting place.

The duck boat project

Ok, so I can now disclose my duck boat project in a forum that perhaps swmbo (aka Justin Beiber Fan Club's mum) may stumble across it. Funny things about boats. When you need one, you never have one, when you have one there's usually something wrong with it, or a component of it, and owning one means that you're ready to sell one. I have some vivid memories of our duck boat hunts from when I was a kid. The thing I most remember were the huge bags that dad and grandpop used to get. They had it sussed. The boat was flat bottomed, enclosed, a bit of a barge, camo'd, could carry up to 4 guns, had a well stacked and stored complement of HUGE decoys (easy to see on the sea - you see?). A good single task machine, but you'd not want to fish out of it. Ok so, stuff that was important to me:

1. Sea worthiness. Some of the weather I envisage being out in, is what the met guys call "inclement". It needs to be able to take on water and not sink. Pontoon boat answers that one.
2. Stability. Standing to shoot means you want a platform that's not going to tilt sharply. Pontoon boat answers that one.
3. Horsepower. I want to be able to get up and go in rough water. So at least 30 horses are required.
4. I want to add a boat blind at some stage. High flat sides on the boat are needed.
5. I want to fish out of it in summer/winter.
6. I want to be able to single handed beach launch. Ak ramps are full of stupid people with no idea.

So I've ended up settling on a pontoon boat, with a few mods. The hull will be professionally painted in green and I've got the floor marine carpeted for noise and slip reduction. I think I'm barking up the right tree;
http://www.frewzaboats.co.nz/aluminium-dinghy-4-1m-high-sided/

I'll update as I go.

Coming to a restaurant near you: Preserve Provided Pheasant

I will start with a declaration of conflict of sorts: For the past 3 seasons I've shot on pheasant preserves. Some days you get good pegs on big drives, some days you draw a peg a little out of the way, but overall it evens out and you shoot birds. I think the most I shot in a day was in the mid 30's on a 5 drive day. Lets take that day. Did I take home all 'my' birds? Well, no. Did I take home some? Yes, I always do. The beaters take some, the dog handlers take some. I heard of a beater at one shoot taking something like 6 dozen home. There's an ethical question that needs to be answered about the use of shot game but I'm not going there today so will stick to the core laws - effectively until the birds are released they belong to someone, once released they belong to the state and once shot, ownership transfers to the person/s who harvested them. Its a paperless transaction and slightly care free in the case of the preserves - the rules are written but practicality dictates that they are mostly not observed. However, once you drive off the estate with birds it really pays to know where you stand legally. If a ranger pulls you over and asks you about why you have 72 pheasants in your possession .... Let's jump sideways a second. At this current point AW and other regions are having special Canada Goose seasons to assist in the dispersal of large populations which are able to devastate mainly grasslands through sheer weight of numbers. We're in the hottest period of the year. I can, from eyewitness statements and the grapevine get a back of a napkin account of over 1,100 birds harvested, and that's probably understated. 90 something percent of those will have gone in an offal pit... so, outside of the preserve arena there's a shed load of excellent lean game meat that is not being utilised. We're all responsible in some way. This isn't meant to be a moral commentary - I'd be filling my boots on goose hunts if my year had panned out differently. I'm just pointing out, as others have, that there is room to do things differently with the meat harvested.

Jumping back again - at F&G National council level, the topic of the sale of pheasants from preserve shoots was discussed and then regional councils were asked to either support or not support the idea that if handled and processed properly, would we support the sale of preserve shot pheasants. A couple of councils supported, a couple didn't... we at AW ended up on a different route and supported the status quo. The status quo actually makes the giving of game illegal. So we supported a notion that is open to legal challenge. We stuck our head in the sand. The joys of democracy. I wonder how this will end.

I reckon the bit that was missing was if it comes to pass, what will the likely proceeds be, where will they go, who will benefit. Its fantastic that the public could potentially nibble on a bit of phesant with their garlic mash and cream spinach and hopefully gain an appreciation of the benefits of game meat but I think there's more that needs discussing. At what point does the game transfer from ownership of the shooter/gun back to the preserve? Does an agreement need to be signed? If the gun still owns the bird, should they receive proceeds from any subsequent sale? I'm no lawyer but damn, I can see this becoming fun for real lawyers down the track.There is always a twit out there who would challenge this sort of thing.....

No posts

Work & stuff is a bit crazy at the moment. Nothing too much to report. AWF&G meeting tomorrow followed by Tim's Stag Do... you'll have to wait for photos of that one..... ;)

Flood scars on the creek

TT wanted to go for a fish and the sort of loose plan was to get to toots for a marlin, but being sort of loose it went the way of many a loose plan and ended up a trout trip. We decided to go on a creek that's a bit over 2 hours drive from home, and no sooner had we arrived than Milo pulled up with a client onboard. We decided to all head downstream, dropping Milo and client off on the way while TT and me went further downstream into heavier country. Well!!! Last weekend's flood had absolutely devastated the big corner pools but created new holes also. At first we were nervous about finding fish, even some of the normal spots looked a bit barren.

A couple of pools up we found our first fish and TT snagged it on a dry. From there we began to find trout here and there, including in some new water created by the flooding.

Some pools held good numbers and we managed a few fish in each

We caught up with Milo later in the day, just as he nailed a good brown with a trick cast from a difficult spot...

And got a bit of video of fish taking dries...

Yup, TT loses another.... tee hee.

The humidity was heavy. It was sweatier than a camel's armpit out there, so Subway Smoothies gave us both the hell icecream headaches... man it was hot. Good to see the little water and its fish survived the flood.

Helpless in the face of hoardes of pigeons

Hoardes of pigeons... absolute hoardes of them. The cockie sounded sort of desperate. Friday's big rain event had put his paddocks under water, leaving the pigeons with not too many options to find food and dry land so they descended on his moozlie. He called Milo. Milo called me. We only had a day to organise ourselves and get there. What greeted us was several thousand birds, all over the cattle feed and sitting in the surrounding paddocks.

I dragged out the layout blind and got it set up in a paddock, then we set to work on some of the moozlie munchers. The shooting was steady and it was different - all decoying birds. The layout blind worked a treat, each of us got some pretty fine shooting.

How many birds? Well a shitwack really. Check out urbandictionary.com and you'll see that a shitwhack is less than a fuckton. Maybe there was actually a fuckton of pigeons there. All that i know is that somewhere is some footage of a zillion birds approaching and me not shooting, claiming "stagefright" and giggling like a fiend.

Oh yeah, there was definitely a fuckton of pigeons. We got 115 in hand and maybe another 15-20 that came down in the distance.... but we made very little difference to numbersof birds around.

A little taster... here birdy, birdy

I'll get a full write up done soon, I promise...

 

Benny Hill style videos

When your camera is set to take time-lapse video the results are quite funny - even if not quite what you're expecting... Reminds me of Benny Hill footage, now if i could just load a sound-track.

A flyrod kingi virgin deflowered

During the week TT texted me that we should go for a fish Saturday.... the weather on Friday afternoon had me thinking because it was shocking. Saturday dawned chilly, moving frontal system has sucked some cooler air from the south and we had a sub 20 degree day for the first time in a while. Southerlies don't normally float my fishing boat, so I checked in with TT because the weather was supposed to be worsening.... his reply was ..."hell yeah lookn mint". It was calming down, but somewhere out to the south was a bunch of weather just waiting to pounce. Met up at TT's and met our third musketeer, Lucas, a mate of TT's. We had the boat in by 3 and headed out to the channel markers for a fly rod session on the kings before looking for snapper on soft baits. I rigged up a couple of rods, the 10 for Lucas and the 8 for me. I wasn't sure about Lucas's fly fishing pedigree and didn't want a broken rod so gave him a few tips about how to cast, strike and not raise the tip and point load my rod. First marker  I fired the fly in to the buoy, 2 maybe three strips and it was on. The rat gave a good account of itself on the 8, and with TT motoring us off the buoy steadily we led him out into clear water where he played a straight up and down game and was in the net after a good fight. I hit a fish at each the first 3 buoys we rocked up to, the final being my best of the day.



Grunting into it



Don't want to jinx myself but for once I landed 100% which is unlikley to happen again, normally the buggers seek out structure like the buoy chains and ping off, so that was neat. Lucas meanwhile struggled away - getting the hang of hiffing a chunk of T-14 (tungsten impregnated line) is not easy. We pulled up to another buoy, I got tail nipped and then tangled my running line when suddenly he was taken. He played the fish like a pro, not high sticking, handling it gently and not freaking the fish out. Now the rain had started.

A happy man

The fish led Lucas around the boat until finally it was in the net... by now the rain had started. The kingis were really on the chew, and TT had the next fish on.. and the next. And the next. His luck was out, pinging off 2 larger fish and landing perhaps the second smallest kingi I've ever seen.

We left to head down to Motuihe Channel to look for a snapper, and boy did we look. We each boated reasonable fish on plastics but it wasn't a hot bite... and by now the wind was not quite howling but we were getting wet and cold out there. We stopped and fished in a few spots before deciding to soak some pillies on local reefs. The tides were huge, so when we anchored at our final destination the current flow was something else again. Little did we know that within 12 hours much of low lying Auckland would be in flood. Er struggled for a few more small snaps before heading back to Okahu to pull the boat. I couldn't believe the time, and at about 9.30 we were in KFC looking and feeling like cold drowned rats.

Saltie fly at its best, 5 landed, 2 lost (broken) and a few missed takes. Snapper fishing at almost its hardest. A mixed bag.

A triumph for commonsense

After the last (Nov) AWF&G council meeting, a Councillor stalked off muttering because no one (not staff, not council, not the hunters) supported the premature closing of the AWF&G owned blocks, per last year's abbreviated block season. As such, it was not particularly surprising that he looked to have rallied some of the 'not newly elected' AWF&G councillors to support a motion for a special meeting to discuss the goose season length, and to overturn the council's decision to leave the blocks open for the duration of the waterfowl season.

There are some pretty important principles at stake here; those blocks were purchased with YOUR money, and MY money. As license holders, we are effectively the landlords of these blocks. Our license fees are actively spent in the blocks, yet we were being asked to deny the licenseholder the opportunity to benefit from the use of the facilities they own. This IS NOT what F&G is about. An additional detail was that in the previous council meeting, Councillor Carey asked the council to consider zoning the region into management areas, a remit that was roundly dismissed as "being unmanageable". So there we were, being asked to consider denying license holders their right of access to their own land asset; and by doing so set in place a separate management zone.

The meeting, which was not particularly well advertised, was surprisingly well attended. And the attendees, rather than relying on a proxy who was perhaps not representing their wishes faithfully, had their say. And the things they had to say were enlightening. They wanted their blocks open. They wanted a say in voting about issues affecting their blocks rather than having minority will imposed on them; they felt sideswiped by last year's block closures and they certainly had no inkling of it before the regulations were passed last year.

I think that last night the AWF&G council made a quantum leap - the paid staff's advice was adhered to (almost faithfully). The fact that we spend far too much time endlessly debating regulations WHICH HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IMPACT ON GAMEBIRD POPULATIONS and then do the same next year, and the year after ad nauseum... the fact that this cacophony stops us from discussing and supporting real research... well as Guy pointed out quite rightly we just need to put this behind us forever and do some REAL work. And I think that shifting the powerbase in the council back onto a proper management course was a vital step-change in this particular council. The effect of the license-holders input and feedback was dramatic; from a position of what looked to be a split small majority of the council voting in favour of closing the blocks, the decision to keep them open was a landslide.

The license-holders saw that they do have a voice, and hopefully from this point onwards they will use that voice.

A triumph for commonsense and democracy and a massive vote of support for the paid staff.

A 23 day break

Happy New Year! Stuffing about is fun. I decided to have an extra long Xmas break, starting Dec 24 and returning to work Jan 17. 23 days off in a row, the longest break I’ve taken since 2001. And it’s been a good break too – nice weather, beach days with the family, not too much work drama (you never really escape). Some really good fishing too and some new experiences. I took Marce’s nephew Josh down to Shank’s to do some work on the pheasant rearing pen, which we cleaned up relatively fast which gave me and Josh some time on the river prior to an evening pig hunt.

Our little charges - looking good!

Check out the camo

The river was discoloured (which it is 90% of the time) but we extracted a fat brown and hooked and lost dinner, a medium sized (couple pounds) rainbow. That evening we drove up to the airstrip which was planted in crops – the pigs had nailed it. As soon as we stopped the car there were pigs everywhere, but as we stalked in they disappeared – who knows where? Later on Shank’s neighbour came over and we had a hunting party of kids, dogs and spotlights. The dogs caught a couple of piglets and that was that for hunting. Next trip was a fly stripping day on the hydro lakes, fishing over the weed beds. Quite a big fish number day, I lost count after 20. Fish were mostly rainbows but I stalked a couple of browns in 50cm of water and nailed them, all in all quite satisfying but not what I’d call a challenging fishery. I put the yak into the harbour a number of times, but everyone was struggling to hit fish. Tons of anchovies in the channels but the fish were reticent, not really helped by the southerly. A trip to the Waikato spring creeks soothed my non-snapper conundrum, with sun beating down and insects buzzing the fish were looking up for food, another 20+ fish day but I didn’t net a brown, losing the 4 I put a hook into. Not good form really, but so nice to have such an array of rises from slow sips to splashy grabs – I missed a few on the rise but who cares? Dad and I snuck out real early one morning to fish the mussel farm at Waikawau Bay; again it wasn’t an easy session but caught some nice snaps on bait and soft plastic.

Mussel Barge on the move

Kingis were about and I briefly had a couple chase my lure cast hard against one of the buoys; and then later in the day a couple chased a yellow tail mack that I hooked up on a Clouser. I kept the fish down there and fished a livie for an hour or so but nope, the kings just weren’t in the mood. We took home seven reasonable snaps between us. A trip to the ponds to lay more bait in the stations, clear some willows and lay new carpet in the hut showed the ponds to be in superb order, still plenty of water although lower than it could be but good for high summer. Lowlight of the day involved smashing the prop on the same stump that dad hit 25 years ago, despite his warnings to “turn around, there’s a big stump in here…” yow, expensive… But yesterday was the crowning highlight of the break. Nik and I had arranged a trip on the harbour flats for kingis, chasing them on 8 weights with floating lines. The deal is that the kingis follow the big black rays and feed off the fish that the rays disturb. OH MY GOD.

Act like a fool Al, and you'll be published (...punished)

Kingi Fodder - Piper imitations

Spot the kingis - there are 2 there!

Steeeee-RIKE!!!!

This seriously will be hard to beat as the fishing highlight of 2011, running around after rays with kingis sitting atop…. Yellow tails sticking out of the water… well we were both hooting. So there’s the holiday wrap up. Hopefully my brownie points jar is slightly fuller than it has been as well J.