The Boy from Gorge River by Chris Long

Author:Chris Long
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

The winter went on and by the time the whitebait season came around I had finished most of my year’s schoolwork. Ahead there was a physics and chemistry exam in November that I would sit under supervision in Haast. I was debating what to do with my hard-earned free time and was craving to go to Big Bay to stay with Warrick Mitchell and catch whitebait.

Two years earlier I had built myself an aluminium-framed whitebait net by connecting angle bars from the hardware store and covering them with brand-new netting from the shop in Haast. I bought an electric drill to plug into our generator and assembled the net at Gorge River. To save money, I also used some aluminium bars cut from the wreckage of Eoin Wiley’s old plane in the flax bushes near the river mouth. The entire net was designed to be disassembled so I could fit it in Roger’s plane; I reassembled it in the shed at Big Bay during our annual stay with the Mitchells. Warrick’s brother Grant had bought me some iron reinforcing bars, and Ian Todd and his son Willy had given me a quick demonstration on welding before leaving me to it. In a couple of hours, I’d managed to weld together two 1.5-metre-long metal frames that were then covered in metal whitebait mesh to use as screens to guide the whitebait into my net.

All of this whitebaiting gear was still at Big Bay and I had only used it for a couple of weeks, so I wanted to go back there alone that season. But I had to work out how to broach the subject with Mum and Dad. The opportunity came one day early in September, when Roger and his co-pilot Jess called in for a cup of tea out of the blue one day. They were returning to Big Bay to pick up a load of whitebait from Warrick. This was my chance. ‘Can I hitch a ride to Big Bay with you?’ I asked. ‘Of course!’ replied Roger. I turned to Mum and Dad and announced, ‘I’m going to Big Bay whitebaiting for a while.’ I packed my bag and loaded my brand-new pair of chest waders into the back of the plane. They must have known for some time that this day was coming, but it was still hard for them to watch me fly away with Roger, giving no fixed date of return.

Since Graeme and Anne Mitchell had moved to the North Island, their children Warrick, Grant and Kelly had taken turns doing the whitebaiting. Warrick welcomed me like a brother into their house and introduced me to his mate Fraser, who was helping him to fish their two whitebait stands for the season. Together the three of us caught whitebait, collected firewood, loaded and unloaded Roger’s plane with supplies every few days, and zipped out to sea at high tide in Warrick’s inflatable boat, with its 30-horsepower motor. One day we borrowed Ian Todd’s rifle and stalked our way up the track that leads towards the Pyke River, and I shot my first deer.

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