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Fishing is known for its stories and
characters. In a place like Mercury Bay, where
fishing really is a passion, there must be many
a tale to be told. It’s just a pity they’re not
recorded.
CONNIE SIMMONS
One character well remembered by old hands
is Connie Simmons,
reputed to be
the world’s first
female charter boat
skipper as well
as a winner of the
Miss New Zealand
beauty contest.
Along with her long
time deckhand
Koni Tamehana
she successfully
skippered the Ngaire during the 1950s. Sadly
she drowned, not from her boat, but from
an unfortunate car accident that left her
submerged in the harbour.
DON ROSS
Don came to Whitianga after a diving career.
He invented his own apparatus in the days
before scuba and ran a salvage operation in
Auckland from his small yacht.
Arriving in Whitianga in 1949 he started a
charter operation from his boat
Ngaroma
until 1963 when he changed to
Miss Lidgard
,
which he skippered until 1984.
His favourite story featured an English
client who returned year after year in an
unsuccessful pursuit of a marlin. Finally
he hooked into a fish and struggled
unsuccessfully to control it. Strangely the
“fish” never surfaced. Don finally realised
a car tyre he carried on the deck had
disappeared overboard and caught into the
hook, which eventually broke off.
Don decided that silence was the best option
and the angler left the charter delighted that
at last he had fought a game fish even if he
had not seen it.
The launch
Ngaroma
owned by Don Ross,
1950
F
ish tales...
including the one that got away
New Zealand travel poster from 1925, later
immortalized in a postage stamp in 2013.
The painting shows a striped marlin, the most
common marlin in these waters. The blue and
black marlins are also caught here.
The launch
Ngaire,
owned by
the area’s first female skipper,
Connie Simmons, in 1947.
Pre-Photoshop: Photographs
were enhanced for publication
with paintbrush.
The
Ngaroma
photo was
also painted to
colourize it.
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COROMANDEL LIFE LATE SUMMER/EASTER 2015