KEY POINTS:
"How's your ear?" Albie Gascoigne inquires as he casts his fishing line and narrowly misses his long-time mate.
"He's a dangerous bugger," Doug Williams responds with a broad grin as the two men try their luck catching salmon at the Waitaki River mouth - and not terribly successfully.
Both from Dunedin, Mr Gascoigne, 74, and Mr Williams, 73, have been friends since their primary school days.
"He used to get me in trouble at school," Mr Williams recalled. "I used to get the cane through this bugger. We were quite a notorious class."
Now both retired, the pair have annual pilgrimages fishing for salmon and also to Haast for the whitebaiting season.
While they had a good whitebait season, they said, the salmon were not quite so easily caught and the only ones they had caught were on the Otago Harbour - not the Waitaki.
The pair stayed in a caravan in Glenavy and said it was best to be down at the rivermouth at first light.
They had met a lot of good people on the banks of the river, the walking involved was good exercise and they always hoped it was their turn to catch a salmon, they said.
Several years ago, Mr Gascoigne was fishing near the bridge when he decided to have a "lie-down" after a "fairly big night" at the pub the previous night. A passing truck driver thought he had had a heart attack and stopped to see if he was all right.
"I thought, 'Stuff it, I'm awake now'. I got up, had a cast and got a fish," he laughingly recalled.
While Mr Williams maintained that catching salmon was all about luck, his friend said there was skill involved and that was why they were not catching anything.
At least 80 anglers were around the rivermouth at 10am yesterday, hoping to catch a salmon before the end of the season this weekend.
Fred Harder, at the Glenavy Fishing Camp, said numbers were significantly up this season.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
