THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

LD50H would be good reels for the job.
Anything less and you would be making a rod for your own back in every painful sense of the phrase.
For make no mistake about it, as good as the fish may look in the photographs after-wards, each one
comes at a price in terms of back, leg, and shoulder muscle pain.
Associated audio interview numbers: 49.
NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand was a brief visit as part of a wider look at south east Asia and Oceania, timed to be as
close as possible to the international date-line for the millennium new years eve party at Christchurch
on South Island.
Fishing was a secondary consideration, but still a core
objective none the less. That said, the tremendously good
and expensive fishing I know they have over there for a
variety of big game species, and in particular broadbill
swordfish, was unfortunately never going to be a part of that
plan. A case of grab what I could on the hoof and make the
best of it.
Unfortunately, in the run up to new year, the weather was
appalling. So bad in fact that despite it being mid summer
there, the new years eve celebrations set up for the local park
had to be cancelled due to the severity of the wind and rain.
Needless to say my fishing arrangements also went down
the pan for the same reason, leaving me kicking my heels at
some tiny rustic little harbour whose name I completely
forget, with no chance whatsoever of the boat putting to sea.
The best I could muster was to try an hour from the jetty,
which turned up a string of small wrasse-like fish.
North Island proved to be a little better. There I managed to
get myself onto a boat trip out of Wakatane on a day when
Dawn Williams, Barrachouta the weather had finally picked up. A trip on which my wife
Dawn and I took the two remaining spaces on a boat
otherwise full of Maori's out for a picnic and days mixed fishing.
The women and kids sat around tucking in to all sorts of food and drink from huge cool boxes, while
the men fished, drank beer, and replaced the rapidly reducing contents of those cool boxes with fish.
Initially, they kept themselves pretty much to themselves, until one of them cottoned on to the fact that
we weren't New Zealanders and started to chat. Once he realised we were from Lancashire and lived
quite close to Wigan, the conversation very quickly turned to New Zealand rugby league player Va'aiga
Tuigamala, otherwise known to Wigan rugby league fans as 'inga the winger'.
That was it. The ice was well and truly broken, and we shared a very enjoyable day with the party,
including throwing all sorts of quite decent sized karawai and terakihi into their cool boxes. Barrachouta
too, which look sort of similar to a barracuda but without the same fearsome dental array.
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