I have to admit I cannot think of any time in my life I have met a true hero in every sense of the word. It happened to me the other day when I was at a memorial get together for a friend of 30 years. There was quite a crowd and I looked at this guy and knew straight away who he was.
He did look a bit different from when he was on television in his army number ones and even different for the impressive photo that probably shouldn’t have been published. That was the one with him walking down a street in Afghanistan with another soldier, submachine guns cross their chests and kitted out in flak jackets and all the other gear SAS personnel wear.
You’ll probably have guessed by now the man I was honoured and privileged to shake hands with was Willy Apiata VC. While I haven’t exactly led a sheltered life and have found myself in the odd situations where firearms have been involved, it pales into absolute insignificance when compared with what this man has been through while serving his country. I suppose I was a bit surprised but shouldn’t have been when I saw he was just a typical Kiwi boy from up the East Coast but a Kiwi boy who just happens to have the letters VC behind his name.
Well, the Prime Minister, her government and the over-paid senior public servants plus those in local government especially Rotorua are still pissing me off. This month however I’m going to be strong and attempt to ignore the damage they are doing to me and my lifestyle plus of course the rest of the country. I’m not even going to complain about the physical and mental abuse I’m subjected to by my wife of 45 years, Lynne the Ruthless. Apart from the aforementioned, life is actually pretty good. Life would actually be excellent if Jacinda was gone and my boat fuel was a reasonable price but let’s not get into that.
Yesterday I had a reasonable few hours fishing and got my limit of seven snapper without too much problem. Nothing huge, with the biggest going eight old fashioned pounds. For the last couple of winters, I have found trout to be about the best snapper bait and yesterday was no exception.
I think only one of the fish I kept was on skipjack tuna. Skippy are a great bait but have been a bit hard to catch in recent times. They cost about fifteen bucks to buy and self-destruct when thawed out, while trout stays on the hooks and can survive pickers until a decent fish comes along. There’s only one thing, the best trout bait are the bright orange ones people like to smoke. I cop a bit of flak from mud fishers who seem to think it’s almost sacrilege to use trout as bait. I don’t subscribe to that opinion. We use mullet, trevally and kahawai for bait all of which are far better eating than trout, with the latter two being way better fighting fish, in fact in that department there is no comparison.
Well, that’s about all. My grandson has been feeding a pond on his parents’ farm and we’ve been getting a few ducks of an evening. He’s just turned 11 so later this year I’ll pull out the 410 and give him a few shots. That is of course if he wants to shoot. He’s more than happy just being there at the moment so I’m not going to push him.
Like I said earlier, life is pretty good.
