Kids Fish Out Weekend November 2025

It’s called it a “Kids Fishout” but it was at least as much fun for the oldsters as the youngsters. I was only free on the Sunday and was given the role of photographer in the morning and intermediate fisho in the afternoon. So I snuck around photographing all the different rigs our expert fishos were using to ensure a respectable catch rate so that when it was my turn I could demonstrate the sort of expertise that was on show in the morning session. Fly rods were in evidence, plus the spinning option, complete with floats for the uninitiated, alongside nets worthy of kingfish capture.

BUT… For some reason the fish weren’t obliging in the way that was expected. Perhaps the journey from the nirvana of north to the butt end of the south gave them pause for thought. Whilst they showed a vigorous response to handfuls of fish pellets, nothing that was offered by way of a vegan option was taken.

I sympathised. A couple of days earlier I’d been performing in Logan Brown event and, along with my colleagues, was treated to lunch as well as a significant amount of liquid refreshment of the vinous kind. The main courses were Hapuka, Lamb or Cauliflower. No-one at our table went for the cauli.

As the day progressed our experts could be seen huddling in corners comparing strategies. Evidently the clouds were too low, the novices (that’d be me) were scaring the fish, a drain was blocked, and the wind was in the wrong direction. We set to and did our best to raise the cloud cover by blowing plenty of hot air from both ends. Having taken on board the overheard intel I decided it was time to put it into practice. I rigged up a 7 wt rod with a 9 wt line and a heavily weighted budgie on the end.

It didn’t take long before my student was casting like a pro. The only thing he wasn’t immediately perfect at was the direction. The half a dozen experts and their acolytes were a wee bit grumpy when his line, budgie and all, had to be disentangled from the lines he’d covered.

Sometimes valour is not as effective as discretion, and as I’d spotted a much larger lake just around the corner, I decided my budding world champion deserved a bigger target. Strangely, he didn’t seem to be that interested and wandered over to where the occasional weed affected rod bend was in evidence. Undeterred, I gave myself a good warm-up, false casting for a minute or so until I had at least 15 meters of fly line outside the rod tip. Nothing. 

I retrieved the fly and an impressive amount of bank-side vegetation from the budgie. This time I reverted to the time honoured Tongariro technique; chuck as much line downstream as possible, pull it tight then load the rod on the backcast. This should be worthy of a few beers in the pub I thought.

And it was. Fish on! I yelled at the assembled company that I needed some kid to help me land this monster and my acolyte decided to investigate the veracity of my bellowed shout.

Fish successfully landed, the experts gathered around to admire its vivid colouration only to be interrupted by said spotty youth advancing with a large rock. This was one fish that didn’t get away. Given that I’ll be spending most of the summer harvesting fat rainbows along with the occasional brown from Taupo and Rotorua I figured his family would enjoy the results of the largest fish caught that day and will forever be singing my praises. 

If any members have yet experience the excitement and the camaraderie of a fishout day I can thoroughly recommend it.

Greg Squire

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