The fish was definitely confused – you might say it was surprised to see us - not that it stayed around long enough to appreciate the moment!
     Fishing Lake Opuha last Sunday with 87 year old George Adams was a new experience for me. George has the latest model - bells and whistles - hovercraft. It's not your everyday pumped up toy. It's not what the trout expected either.
     Occasionally we would go ashore . . . a simple matter of driving the hovercraft overland, and to return to the fishing we would cruise forward over the dunes and back over the water in a fluid motion that touched neither the land nor the water.
     The trout - about 4 pounds - was sunning itself close to the edge. I doubt it had ever seen a boat-like machine approaching so fast from onshore, and never an 80kph boat that had no bow wave.
     That trout twisted and turned in three different directions before realising that it was never going to outrun the hovercraft, and when it made it's escape towards deep water, it must have wondered why it wasn't chewed up by a propeller.
     Four fish landed and released was the tally for the day, but none were the size of the "excited" trout that will long have memories of a big yellow boat that flies!

NO FOOTPRINTS: George Adams puts his hovercraft through its paces at Lake Opuha recently

SI Consulting Editor
New Zealand Fishing News magazine
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