GO FISH

Go Fish, a game of greed, violence and intrigue ................  at least it was when I played it - with my younger sisters many years ago.


Nowadays go fish is ...... a game of greed, violence and intrigue  ...... perhaps I'd better explain.


I live half the year up north where I'm surrounded by the most beautiful bays, beaches, islands and sea aspects that the country has to offer.

This obviously attracts both recreational and commercial fishermen and some in between.

The seas are bountiful with snapper, john dory, kingfish, flounder and lots of other varieties. Often it only takes a half an hour to catch a legal sized fish or two suitable to feed the family.

But all so often some greedy scrotes take more than what's needed to feed a family 'because the law says that they can".
Yes the legal limit is way beyond what any one person needs to feed a (large) family and these fuckwits push it to the limit and beyond.

This last weekend I went with friends to a beautiful bay about an hours drive further north than where I live. We weren't fishing but merely picnicking.
While stopped by a beach outside the campervan enjoying a cup of tea (yes, obviously they're Brits) we watched a joker rowing in to the shore. He beached the dinghy, unloaded the fish he had caught which included two medium sized sharks.

He and the young boy with him mucked around for a while before loading the sharks back into the dinghy and rowing off.
They went out into this pristine and beautiful bay and then dumped the (dead) sharks into the water and then rowed back.
My friends and I discussed this and wondered what the hell this was all about.

I thought about it for a few minutes and then thought "fuck it, I'm going to do something about this".

When the fisherman beached his dinghy I went down to the beach and confronted him. I asked him what was going on and why he dumped those sharks.
He was surprised at first and then got belligerent, asking me , rather rudely I thought, "what the fucking business it was of mine, was I a fisheries inspector" etc. etc.
I, rather calmly and politely I thought responded by saying "No, I'm not a fisheries inspector but as a New Zealander I have a vested interest in what's happening with our coastal waters" etc. etc.

I found out (I don't know why he felt he had to explain himself so much as he was bigger than me) that he has a set net out in the bay where he catches snapper and other fish and the sharks come along to 'steal his fish!' and they get caught in the nets and drown.

"Aha" I said (actually I didn't actually say "Aha" I just put that in for dramatic effect). I did say that he has obviously done this before which he agreed to and also has caught stingrays as well in his nets. I then asked him why the hell he doesn't stop fishing in this way as he's obviously catching all sizes of snapper including illegal sized ones as well as killing sharks and other wildlife.

He swore and blustered a bit and stooped to pick up his spear.

Not like this.

More like this.

It was about 4 foot long with a trident on the end.

Now I've read all the Lee Childs Jack Reacher books (including the latest one Richard) so was well primed for these eventualities.

"Hope for the best but expect the worst" or some such so in my mind I envisaged him lunging for me and me shifting my weight to the right and coming at him from the side, grabbing the spear and in the same movement swivelling and bring the end of it up to ...... well it wasn't necessary as after he'd picked it up he put it in his dinghy.

We kept haranguing for a while before I wished him a long and happy life (I was being ironic) and I left to join my friends who had almost packed up and buggered off by this stage.
We sat down again and enjoyed our picnic and also enjoyed the fact that while there was nothing I could legally do to stop the fuckwit from pillaging our fish reserves I had probably upset his day (which was evidenced by the way he drove off spraying gravel).

Oh the joys of weekends.