In defence of game fishing

ACT Party MP David Garrett comments on his assault conviction, Parliament, Wellington, New Zealand, Tuesday, September 14, 2010. Credit:NZPA / Ross Setford

Opinion

Recently I was present when a friend landed a 273kg blue marlin. That is a significant fish — if not a record breaker, since he was using 37kg line. Big game fishing — along with duck shooting and other “blood sports” — is increasingly the target of wowsers who decry such traditional blokey pastimes. So I thought I would pen a defence of the venerable sport of game fishing, and try to educate the ignorant on some salient points thereof.

First, is it cruel to the fish? I strongly suspect fish do not feel pain. Consider their reaction to being hooked — they go like hell, and valiantly resist the tension put on the hook by a big game rod and reel with the drag wound up. That is the total opposite behaviour from that of a 500kg bull being led by a ring through his nose — the bull obediently trots along behind whoever is leading him, avoiding even slight pressure on his nose ring causing pain.

Second, it is quite common for anglers who have tagged and released a fish to hook the same fish again minutes after it has been freed. If the fish suffered great pain from taking a lure, is it likely it would immediately take that same lure again? I don’t know; it would seem not.

Is the contest one-sided? In my view, not at all. Any honest game fisherman will tell you that the number of “hookups” — after the fish takes a lure — happens about five times as often as fish which are eventually brought to the side of the boat. The line is usually a fraction of the strength of the fish. The blue marlin I refer to was landed — after a lengthy fight — on line with a breaking strain about one tenth of the weight of the fish. One toss of its head could easily break the line.

Most such battles end with the fish winning — either by spitting the hook or breaking the line. Only if the angler is skilled and the boat skipper is even more so does the contest move to the stage of “fish by boat”.

Most game fish these days are tagged and released. The ignorant say “so what, they die anyway”. Not so. There are many verified accounts of fish tagged and released in New Zealand waters being caught again in the islands as far away as Hawaii. It is not uncommon for a fish to be tagged here, tagged again in Tonga, and tagged a third time back here. Obviously some of the tagged and released fish die. Many clearly don’t, and live to fight another day.

One of the biggest gaps in knowledge about big game fishing is the age of a fish like the one I saw landed earlier this month. Marlin are not like large snapper, which may be 40 or even 50 years old. A blue marlin reaches maturity in five to eight years, and may live to be 25. If perhaps 100 mature specimens are taken in New Zealand waters every year, that is a small fraction of the much older snapper which are taken — without much fuss from the wowsers.

Do game fish get eaten? Absolutely. I have always opposed taking fish of whatever size and then dumping them. There are sad pictures of Zane Grey’s camps in the Bay of Islands in the 1920s with 10 or more magnificent fish lined up and simply left to rot. To the best of my knowledge that rarely happens today.

The fish I am referring to was taken rather than tagged and released because it was the biggest the angler had ever caught. He will have a cast of the head made and mounted. The 200-odd kilograms left after the head and guts have been removed will be smoked, and then distributed among his grateful friends.

The game fishing industry is a big tourist earner. Our trip cost $200 per person, or $1000 to the skipper for the day. Thanks to the efforts of Zane Grey and other later aficionados, New Zealand is a mecca for those who enjoy the almost sexual thrill of a game rod “going off” when a big fish takes a lure.

It is my view that the critics of big game fishing as a sport and pastime are largely either ignorant of the things I have covered in this piece, or simply “opposed” regardless.

I do not believe game fishing will survive for many years. The wowsers will eventually convince the ignorant to ban it, along with similar pastimes. So if you have never experienced the thrill of a loaded (in the fish’s favour) fight against a giant of the deep, I say go for it, before the ignorant and the overly-sensitive tell you that you can’t.

David Garrett is an Auckland lawyer and former Gisborne resident.