As I put fingers to the keyboard to ‘pen’ my final One Last Cast, it has caused me to reflect on over 30 years in an industry I have been passionate about.

When I was offered the editorship of NZ Fishing News at a community newspaper conference way back in early 1993, I was told it would most likely be a short-term position, as Independent Newspapers Ltd had me earmarked for a couple more steps higher up the corporate ladder.

When those offers eventually came I had to make a decision between lifestyle or a ‘suit’ job. It was a tough call, but the thought of giving up the opportunity to fish around New Zealand and the Pacific, and a company project boat and tow wagon complete with fuel card, was too difficult to pass up – and I didn’t. The biggest kicker of them all was the angling fraternity – both the participants and the providers.

The people in our industry spoke my language – in the main they are down-to-earth characters who, like me, appreciate the lifestyle it gives them. They are working in an environment they are passionate about – boating, fishing and the outdoors. They are the good bastards whose support over the years has enabled the NZ Fishing News team to produce a magazine that has been the leader in its field for over four decades.

Our contributors fall into the same ‘GB’ category. They have their own jobs, families and fishing, yet have found time to share their knowledge with a wider audience. Good bastards one and all.

Last but not least are you guys, the readers. You have willingly communicated your adventures and stories that have made the pages of the magazine and our social media for the enjoyment of all – good buggers through and through.

Then there are my colleagues and the corporate title owners. For many years the staff did not change, especially on the editorial side. I inherited a team of the very best writers available and they were loyal. If you wrote for NZ Fishing News, you didn’t contribute to any other competing title. And for them, being part of the leading magazine was a badge of honour where they gained recognition on a national stage. You were never going to get rich writing for an NZ fishing publication, but it did help pay the fuel and tackle bills! Bloody good bastards, the lot of you. Thanks for your efforts and, more importantly, the friendships that have developed over the years.

The relationships between the staff of competing titles have been an interesting one. Although we were all chasing the same advertising dollar and readership numbers, there has always been an air of professional courtesy among us. It is such a small sector – the NZ marine media – that it paid to work collectively. You never knew when you might need a little favour from one or another. We all fished and boated together, fiscal and readership rivalries becoming piscatorial ones! The oddballs, the square-peg-inthe-round-hole bastards, never survived.

Our then corporate owners always treated me and the title well. Most have recognised that its success was due to the fervor of the people involved and let it run itself with minimal interference from our handlers – well, as minimal as a corporate can allow! It helps when the CEO is a keen fisherman!

When the Blairs joined the Dixons to purchase the title, Fairfax NZ could not have been more accommodating, offering great support in the first six months, especially while we got our heads around being publishers, operating initially from our existing offices before transitioning to garage space beneath the Blairs’ home. They wanted ours, and the other lifestyle titles, to survive and thrive and testament to that is we have all endured in some shape or form to be around today. Print is not dead!

High up in the list of honorary good bastards have been my family and friends. Faith, Natalia and Miah had to put up with a father who was often AWOL for days at a time. I was regularly torn between my duties as a husband and parent and an obligation to the title. Unfortunately, in the early days the latter often came first. What made it difficult was my work was my passion, a fact that made my absence less tolerable.

I used to argue, “Would you get so grumpy if I was away as a travelling sales rep?” Probably not! Dealing with the demands of an infant solo diminished that argument! Faith and I have been blessed with two delightful daughters, with Miah in particular sharing my love of the marine environment.

There have been a few lessthan-savoury bastards along the way. One was a relief charter skipper of a then well-known Gulf Harbour-based operation. Sam Mossman and I were hosting a corporate trip and this character was more interested in his own fishing than looking after our guests, leaving Sam and I to do the deckie work. The anchor had not pulled up tight when he would muscle his way to ‘his’ favoured spot at the stern rail where he caught several snapper close to 20lb and then stuck the knife in by telling us how he had outfished “the best Fishing News had to offer.”

I got my own back sometime later when I named and shamed him in an article on charter fishing. The result was we crossed paths at a Gulf Harbour contest where he threatened publicly to deal to me in a most unpleasant way. Luckily the NZ Fishing News team was on hand to help me out – we had some big boys in that crew who managed to calm the situation down.

You know you have made it when you have a stalker. I have encountered two such bad bastards over the years. The first one took umbrage over a cover shot that showed a guy with a big bass. The stalker claimed the print image had been photoshopped– digitally enhanced to make the fish look bigger.

Despite the explanation that the angler was a jockey who weighed far less than the bass he had caught and that he had been photographed standing partly behind the fish, the stalker continued his campaign to discredit us/me and this included pointing out to people who came to purchase a subscription at our NZ Boat Show stand that we were “frauds.” Security removed him.

The other bad bastard was a Waikato-based boat builder and importer who took exception to a review of a craft he was peddling. We had found the finish was substandard and that in our opinion its ‘blue water aspirations’ were unfounded. A copy of the review was sent to him for comment prior to publication but he did not respond. He threatened myself and the reviewer with all sorts of bodily mischiefs and at the next NZ Boat Show stalked Faith and I. Wherever we went, he would stand close by, staring at us. Faith especially found him bloody creepy and I am pleased to say he is one bastard who is long gone from the industry, thank goodness.

In signing off this column one last time, I want to acknowledge (with apologies to the late Barry Crump) all the good bastards I have known, worked with, fished with, travelled with, boated with, shared a beer with, yarned with, laughed with, lived with and occasionally cried with!

I am not going to miss the monthly deadlines. Being able to go fishing and travel when and where I/we want unfettered by work commitments is something I am looking forward to. I will still be making the occasional contribution, as writing and photography has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of this job and you can’t go fishing 24/7 – or can you?

Tight lines, all you good bastards out there…

Grant Dixon Editor Tagged and Released