This is the story of how Cliff Barnes became the TF, or, to put it another way, the greatest liar unhung. Much of it he owed to his old man, who was doggedly independent and unschooled, but possessed a great talent for teaching himself the skills he needed to survive.
‘Fishermen,’ says Cliff Barnes with a chuckle, ‘are the greatest liars unhung. ’ It’s an expression he often uses at the grand old age of nearly 80 as he looks back over his adventurous life fishing commercially along the Northland coast. When he says it, he is not referring to the tendency of amateur fishermen to exaggerate the size of the ones that got away. Rather, it’s the secretive nature of the professionals who keep their tricks up their sleeves and, when they find a good spot, prefer to keep it to themselves. In his day, Cliff was one of the best in Northland and would often be asked, ‘Where’d you get your fish?’ His answers ranged from evasion to outright lies.
‘Over there,’ he would sometimes say, keeping his arms crossed and thus giving no clue to where ‘there’ was. Other times he would say, ‘At such-and-such island’, when he had been nowhere near the place. And when he devised a new and more effective way of catching snapper, he hid the gear when he came back into port so that none of his rivals would twig what he was up to. ‘I don’t like people to know my secrets,’ he declares and no wonder. In those days you could make a living from fishing only by working hard ‘and doing lots of days anywhere you could get out a little bit’. Not only was he secretive, he was also a great risk taker. ‘Too many risks,’ he says. ‘Too many to talk about.’ And yet he does talk about them.
The stories roll in like breakers on the shore, one after the other – stories of disasters and near disasters, all told in a strong, clear voice with flashes of self-deprecating humour. At one point, he muses that he must have used up eight of his nine lives, but on a recount, he realises that he is understating things; he has used up the lot. There were numerous close calls at sea – lost propellers, broken rudders, leaky hulls, problems with the drive shaft – which might well have proved fatal. Then there was the time his boat was smashed against the rocks and sank under him. Another time, while alone and well out to sea, he slipped and fell overboard, leaving him treading water, fully clothed in a Swanndri, fisherman’s apron and gumboots as his pilotless boat motored away into the distance. Perhaps most memorably of all, a storm once forced him to take shelter in a big marine cave in a distant archipelago. He was stuck there for seven days and seven long nights waiting for the storm to blow itself out, with nothing to eat but a rotting octopus and nothing to drink but the rusty radiator water from his boat’s engine. He had many boats in his time.
Hook, Line and Misadventure: Stories from a legendary New Zealand fisherman Cliff Barnes is available from all good bookstores and online. Author David Hastings is a journalist, writer and English teacher based in Auckland, New Zealand. He has worked in London, Melbourne and Auckland in newspapers and in broadcasting. He was TV news editor at the ABC in Melbourne from 1983 to 1987. In Auckland, he worked for the New Zealand Herald where he was deputy editor from 2001 to 2011 and editor of the Weekend Herald from 2011 until his retirement in 2013. He studied journalism at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in the 1970s and has an MA (hons) in history from the University of Auckland.
After retiring from newspaper work he retrained as an English language teacher completing his Cambridge CELTA course in 2016 and subsequently taught at the NZLC language school in Auckland.
GIVEAWAY!
We’ve got FOUR copies of Hook, Line and Misadventure to give away!
This wild, salty yarn tells the incredible true stories of legendary Northland fisherman Cliff Barnes – a man who fished hard, took big risks, and kept his best spots secret (even if it meant a few lies!). From sinking boats to surviving on rotten octopus in a sea cave, Cliff’s tales are as gripping as they are unbelievable.
Written by award-winning journalist David Hastings, this book is a must-read for any lover of the sea.
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Winners announced on 27th July.
