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Fish with Bish Newsletter
March 2000

Well now, holding onto the Americas Cup 5 -0 was a good way to kick off March, if you are a New Zealander!
It is to my way of thinking quite extraordinary that a small country of 3.6 million people can go out and beat the very best of all the boats the rest of the world can offer. I think it is only right that we puff up our chests over this one.

Fishing around the country in both salt and fresh water continues to be very good.

In the North, snapper are in good supply with some truly huge fish. Including a 14.4 kilo fish that is a new World Record. There are plenty of kingfish (Southern Yellowtail Kingfish) about. Some good fish amongst them too. A boat out of Whakatane recently caught four fish over 41 kilos. The big game season is now getting into full stride – dammit!

Why dammit? A friend of mine who owns "Striker’  one of the top boats out of the Bay of Islands, offered me a FREE seven day trip, with just him and I fishing. The boat was going to fish North Cape and the Three Kings islands. But I could not go. I have a new book "Tips and tricks to catch More Fish"  to finish by the end of this month. My bad mood was not helped by John reporting what they had caught – seven stripies, a blue and a black, heaps of yellowfin – I cannot go on, my tears of frustration are dripping onto the key board.

New Article:

One of the more confusing things about fishing is dealing with the myriad of hook shapes, sizes, and styles. The new article tries to wend a path through this confusion. Having a look at the Sharp End may help.

Beware Buck Fever

This is an excerpt from "Fishing Smarter for Trout." There have been a couple of occasions recently when I wished I did as I write, not as I do!

There you are quietly walking along the bank of a river, Polaroid’s scanning the water –and you spot him. Must be 10 pounds at least, definitely 10 pounds, not 4.5 kilo – that would sound too small. He sits there, slowly moving slightly to one side or the other to pick up some morsel.

Then it starts – buck fever. The symptoms are very evident. Out comes the fly box, and it drops, spilling the flies. How on earth can trout see nymphs in flowing water, when you cannot see them in the grass at your feet?

Finally you find one and tie it on. Despite the fever raging through your body, you test the knot, which slides undone. This is the same knot you have tied four hundred trillion zillion times, at a conservative estimate. The knot you can tie behind your back, with cold wet hands, in the dark. Retied, you move into position behind a bush to screen yourself from the fish, and plan your cast.

It is not a long cast, maybe only 10 metres in all, to land the nymph 7 metres above the fish. Plan decided, you slowly stand up and swing the line out, a couple of false casts to lengthen the line, and then into the final back cast. Eyes riveted on your cast target you swing into the forward cast, but come up in a dead stop. You just knew the blackberries would get you didn’t you? Well, you would, if buck fever had allowed you to note their presence.

Out you back from behind your cover and try to pull the line from the blackberries. The nymph too deep in the thorny clutches is sacrificed. With another nymph tied on you test the knot. Failed again. Not the knot this time – but the leader. So you replace the leader which in its blackberry thorn-nicked state would have probably lost the fish anyway. Bent-backed, you return to the bush and peer over it. Where’s the fish? It’s gone. Damn, and worse.

Standing up, and moving from behind the cover of the bush, you spot the fish moving back into its lie at just about exactly the same time it spots you. It bolts for the deep cover on the other side of the river. This time the fish is gone – for good.

Furious at yourself you look around and easily work out a much better casting position, with clear room for the back cast, and cover from the fish – and a much better drift line too. One of buck fever’s more insidious side effects is short-term blindness to all that surrounds the sufferers. Something along the lines of – there are none so blind as those who will not see – springs to mind.

There is only one cure for buck fever and that is to come to a dead stop. Stop whatever you are doing, take 10 deep breaths, and think about what you are doing. Then look at the fish, and forget the 10 deep breaths you just took, and enjoy. In this over-shackled world of ours, an occasional adrenal-burst is just great for the system.

Have fun out there, and keep safe.

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