I couldn’t wait to get the Freshwater Worlds 2023 having missed the last one due to Covid.
Preparation for any event starts months before.
Organising, boats, accomodation, cars, contacts, the right equipment to use in the conditions etc…
Get all these things right and you are well on your way to winning!
Im lucky enough to have a number one wife to assist and travel with me for these events. She’s a master at tracking stuff down on the internet.
We had the perfect vehicle, accomodation and trip planned out mostly due to her skills. She also ended up and our Captain for the comp days, a job so important again it can make or break your results.
Having the right team members also has a huge impact on how the comp can go.
From day one we had the best bunch you could hope for. All had different skills to make the trip go well and there was never an angry word spoken between team members for the 3 weeks we were together.
When you travel half way across the globe to get to an event, rest time is extremely important. Jet lag is a reel thing as is different time zones. We made sure we had a week of easy days while we drove to Utah. By the time we arrived we had spent quality time with some really top Americans who welcomed us into their homes and made us feel like part of the family.
We also explored a bit, there is so much to see in a country of this size.
We drove a lot, during this time we discussed all things spearfishing especially what was ahead of us. I don’t think you can put a value on this.
The boat company I rented our boats from ended up being one of the best operations you could ever hope to use. Outdoor Adventure Rentals Lake Powell never let us down!! I say this really meaning it, boats are notorious for having issues. They fixed any problem we had and managed to launch all our three boats on comp days with ease, on time and with a smile!
Our scouting days were long, we made sure we did the hard yards. It’s important to understand the terrain and fish. You can often liken a fish at home to the fish you are hunting in a new place and use the skills you have built up over the years to get them.
This is exactly what we did. I found the striper acted exactly like our Kahawhai or sea salmon as some know them.
The walleye lived anywhere you found a bush that had blown off the land and sunk into a muddy gutter. Catfish could turn up almost anywhere, you had to constantly be ready to react if you spotted one, they were very spooky and didn’t give you much of a chance.
The carp were in big numbers in certain places, shallow bays or under floating debris in canyons especially on bends with little water movement.
To get these and stripers I found it best if possible not to move your gun to track them. You needed to let them swim in front of your gun, requiring a longer breath hold sometimes.
Carp needed to be bought under control as fast as possible, they are strong and very slimy, it made it really hard. At the end of day two I was had it, wrestling with 57 of these brutes is no easy task. I had two spears break off, both I retrieved but it showed the strength and fight these fish have. I had anticipated this, I had several back ups in the boat ready to go, a quick change had me hunting, very little down time between shots!
Stripers were very particular in where they live, go two metres either side of a spot you generally never saw another one.
I learnt these spots and hunted them hard.
The thing I really liked about this years Freshwater Worlds was the camaraderie. It’s so good when you go to events where everyone is happy. It was warm, the scenery unbelievable and the organisation top notch. There was potential to shoot a lot of fish and to take pests out at the same time making for a win win situation.
The events organised around the event like a visit to Antelope Canyon and Can Am Off road and Up Lake Adventures really was the icing on the cake. Mike Retford has an amazing organisation, it’s an absolute must to visit this place if you’re in the area, Can Ams are an absolute blast.
Antelope Canyon organised by Mati and Tova Matatyaou is almost described as a spiritual experience, unbelievably beautiful.
People pay thousands of dollars over years of holidays to experience what we crammed into 3 weeks.
Thank you to all those people who made it possible for the New Zealand team to have such a good time as well as extremely well fought Freshwater Worlds meet.
See you next time.
