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Fish On! (and Off)

Fish On! (and Off)
The kids and I enjoyed our first Kiwi fishing trip yesterday morning in Mt. Maunganui's Pilot Bay with our former neighbor, Pete. He's an ace angler who consistently lands dozens of fish in a single trip, then gifts friends and neighbors platefuls of fillets (pronounced "FILL-uhts" here). I've been keen to snare my own snapper from the first bite of Pete's fresh fish. So Fiona, Finley and I climbed into Pete's aluminum boat, named after a beach in India (whose name escapes me), to land our own fillets. Fiona foreshadowed the trip's outcome during a pre-fishing stop to the bait shop. "Oh," she said. "That's to feed the fish." Indeed, we got skunked - we fed the snapper other fish, plus calamari - the snapper didn't feed us.(In the interest of full disclosure, Pete did all the baiting and re-baiting - all the work. My job was keeping the fishing poles and the kids from falling overboard).
Fi and Finn both caught a snapper too small to keep. Ah, well - there's always next time. The kids' favorite part of the trip: steering the boat. From that standpoint, the outing was a success - if you ask Fiona. For his part, Finley insisted he got a raw deal when it came to driving. Finn whinged, "She got 3 turns - 1 long turn, 1 longer turn, and 1 even longer turn!" Fish on - and off. We enjoyed the bay's calm waters, decent weather before rain moved in, and got to see The Mount from a boat for the first time. Way to spend a morning. Even without fresh fish for dinner. Fish sticks on!






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