I only realised in hindsight, while casually throwing angling items into the boot of the car, that I had already effectively accepted our fate.
The year was an infant and only in its fifth day, so I figured the time was right to soil one's fingers with decaying shreds of bonito fillets - time to cast hook, line and sinker into the bounteous waters of the Bay.
In the pursuit of the gurnard or the kahawai ... perchance even a rogue passing kingfish.
Ahhh, what steaks they produce.
So I suggested to my son that we hit the beach and he agreed.
As he would - given that the last time we had a successful outing he obliged by providing the success.
Two gurnard, of good size, while I sulked after reeling in a crab.
But a good-sized crab though.
To add insult to injury, the brute attached itself to my forefinger as I attempted to free his body from the hook.
There's gratitude.
So an expedition to the foreshore, just north of Awatoto, was planned.
When I say planned - I mean I went to the local service station and bought a packet of bait and just threw the rods, a knife and a small bin of ice and drinks into the car. Took about seven minutes all up.
Which was all well and good but, as I finally tossed a couple of sun hats into the boot and slammed it closed, a thought entered my head.
Why were we going fishing?
Answer (I suppose) was, to catch some fresh-as fish and have them for tea.
We weren't going out there to watch the gannets diving and we certainly weren't going there with the intention of throwing anything worth filleting back.
At the dawning of time, the wheel was invented and that inevitably led to the creation of a rudimentary reel for a basic rod of bamboo.
For those early almost human creatures had seen splashes of silver in the sea. Creatures slithering and clearly delicious when smoked or grilled.
The hunter in us came out then and has stayed with us.
My son and I were noble hunters and gatherers ... except I had rained on the parade even before casting a line.
For I had earlier (even earlier than dashing out on the bike to get some bait) whipped up to the shops to get something for tea.
I had got some fish.
Red cod at $14.50 a kg ... not bad at all.
I could declare that it was a purchase of tea-time "insurance". A sort of safety net in case we failed to hook anything.
But in reality I was being realistic.
I kind of KNEW we wouldn't hook anything.
Was it the rust-smeared hooks?
The inner workings of the reels that were devoid of lubrication?
The fact our tackle box possessed one blunt knife and two spare sinkers?
Yes, I think all three.
Plus the fact the sun was blistering down and they reckon the fish don't like the bright light.
Whatever, we went, we cast and we waited.
Upon arrival, I spotted a decayed fish head.
"Someone's bagged a few here," I said optimistically.
And so it came to pass, that on my second cast of 2012 I hooked something - loudly yelling to my lad "I've got something ... I've got something."
I saw a flash of orange/red in the shallows and my heart raced.
The hue of the gurnard.
"It's a crab," he replied with a spreading smirk ... "good size one though."
My heart flagged racing and began to amble instead.
I placed the end of the rod tip over the brute's clutching claws while the lad extricated the hook and set the thing free into the outward wash of the waves.
But it kept coming back in.
So he dashed forward, grabbed its back and it, in turn, grabbed him in a fine pincer movement.
It hung from the very forefinger which, accompanied by laughter a year or two back, had pointed towards me and my own personal finger/claw tussle with a crab.
I figured then ... what goes around.
And so, with the only catch of the day finally back in the briny after he catapulted it out there as if throwing a discus, we cast away for 35 more fruitless minutes, managing to do nothing more than simply feed the decapod crustaceans out there. Later, the red cod was very good though.
Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.