Living Like a Small Green Hairy Fruit

It Took 6 Months But I Got One

Thursday 6 December 2007

Mark had come home early as he had an appointment, after which we went fishing to Kairaki beach.

It's supposed to be the start of salmon season when they start migrating from the sea up the river and Kairaki is where the Waimakariri River flows out into the Pacific so we thought we'd try our luck.

As usual we weren't getting anything.  I walked over to Mark for a hug with my head hung low, sad that I'd never caught anything.  Shortly after, he caught one, a baby Kahawai. We were all really pleased for him and went to see.  He unhooked it and put it back.  As I turned round I saw my rod lying in the sand.  Typical I thought. Can't even get the rod to stay upright. What hope then of catching owt?  Dejected I picked it up and it pulled hard I started reeling the line in but couldn't.  I was so excited and shouted to Mark to come and help.  He reeled it in.  I was so elated there was going to be a fish on the end and that I hadn't just got it caught up on logs or weed for a change.  We could see the fish jumping and splashing as it got pulled in, but we weren't expecting the size of it when Mark finally landed it on the shore.  It really was yay big!!  Mark unhooked it and I just jumped around so happy.  And I know you're suppossed to put your first catch back for luck but this was, to me, a monster of a fish so I was buggered if it was going anywhere other than home to our dinner plate!

Mark handed me the kosh, a lead dolly, and told me to hit it hard.  I didn't want the poor thing to suffer so I did hit it as hard as I could.  Which didn't even stun it.  It just rebounded on the soft sand and carried on trashing about.  I hit it again.  And again.  It stopped moving so I prodded it.  It trashed about again.  So I hit it again.  Mark was laughing his head off at me.  The kids, like me, had gone from mildly concerned to shouting 'die you bugger!'.  In the end Mark came over and smacked it one and not convinced it was properly dead I gave it a couple more blows.

Andrew took the nappy bucket to get water to wash all the sand off and I popped the catch into the bucket. Only it didn't fit and its tail and back end were sticking out.  I was still jumping around so happy to have FINALLY caught something, the fact it was something worthwhile was a bonus!  Another fisherman came over, told us what it was and that it would need 'bleeding' straight away.  So I cut its tail off, put it back upside down in the bucket and put it under the car (I was worried about a passing seagull flying off with it - Mark said it would have to be a bloody big seagull to carry it off but I hide it under the car anyway).

We caught another few each after that but only baby ones that went back.  Mark caught a yellow eyed mullet that was a decent size so we kept that.

Me overjoyed with my first catch!  He weighed 5 1/2lb.

Mark doing an impression of a yellow eyed mullet!

Mark cleaned and gutted his fish and told me what I needed to do, which I did.  It was amazing seeing all the bits inside and we tried to work out which organ was which, much to Kaela's horror who kept peering into the kitchen then running away making lots of eeew noises.

We went back on Friday night and the kids had their rods this time too.  Mark and I only caught one or two little ones each which went back and Mark got a decent sized one to bring home.  But it was the kids that amazed us.  Every minute one of them was shouting 'got one' up the beach to us. 

Kaela was ecstatic to get her first catch ever!  Mark had done the lines up with 3 hooks on each and Kaela reeled hers in and had one fish on each hook as her first ever catch! What a result!

She insisted they all went back in the sea and went on to catch another 3 fish that night, only one at a time.

Andrew did well too.  He caught 5 in total, 4 were all baby ones too that he put back but 1 was a fair size and he wanted to keep it.  And fair play to him he killed it, washed it, bled it and gutted it and Mark cut it up for bait for him to re-use.

So no salmon, yet, but we're all having a great time with this fishing lark.  Mark has a fly fishing rod coming that he bought off Trade Me so hopefully we'll have some more fishing news to report once he's mastered that.

WOW!!!

4:15 PM, Thursday 13 December 2007 .. Posted by LittleBird94

pretty kwl fish ae?
congratulations, kaela!!
that's amazing.

Untitled Comment

4:21 PM, Thursday 13 December 2007 .. Posted by LittleBird94

and also congratulations mandie and mark!!
mandie, well done, that looks like a heffer!!
mark, well done too. you are GRRRRRRRRREAT!!!
andrew and kaela, you 2 r kwl, catching 6 kowahi in one night!!

well done for killing and gutting the ones that were big enough to take.