Stevo stuck his hand down his pants, wiped his sweaty bum crack then proceeded to check his own odour by sniffing his hand. It was the third day of a 3-day rock fishing trip in the far north, and it Stevo’s arse cannot have smelt good. It was Stevo’s bad luck that Dan (Rocky - the rock cod king) happened to walk into the cabin at that same very moment as the wiping to see him disgracing himself.

‘SNIFFY!!!!’ Rocky yelled, ‘Busted you sniffing your arse!!” Rocky is not the kind of bloke who holds back his thoughts.

‘What? no, what – piss off, I was scratching my back’ Stevo protested.

‘Bull****’ was the instant reply, ‘you smelt your own arse!!’

It was about now that I walked in on this scenario, I had to agree with Rocky – Stevo had no defence – he has a list of previous scratching and sniffing offences as long his smelly arm. Sniffy it was. An appropriate name for an arse-sniffing bandit.

‘C’mon Sniffy, lets go, its 6.30 already!’ Rocky downed the last of his morning litre of Coke and we were off. A bumpy fifteen minutes later across northlands unsealed dusty roads the dinghy made its descent off the trailer into the isolated waters of Matai Bay.

The dinghy struggled along, weighed down by kilos of bait, 10 rods, chilli bin, packs, myself at the rear, and Sniffy and Rocky at the front still debating the mornings events. Rough work for the maxed out 15hp yammie. At the spot careful manoeuvring, cooperation, and a lot of yelling saw the dinghy nudged up against a forgiving ledge, and the gear unloaded.

Today, Sniffy, Rocky and I were fishing at a secret spot called ‘TV’s ’ – a rocky finger stretching out and falling straight into 20metres of water. Deep, plenty of weed and muscles, hard to get to, plenty of room to move around - land based game fishing heaven. As usual, Rocky got the burley trail going and baitfish appeared from all over. As usual Sniffy secured the best looking possie and scratched his balls.

With baits in the water we started to get some promising interest – the unmistakeable sparrow like pick and run from pannie size snaps. Sniffy hooked up first and bought in a nice kelpie, then it was my turn, then Sniffy again.

‘C’mon Rocky you sad arse – cant even catch a rock cod today’ Sniffy laughed, as he struck into his third fish, this one a bit more respectable. Rocky is good at mocking – but he definitely doesn’t like being mocked, especially from a guy that makes a habit of sniffing his own arse. Rocky’s determination increased, as he rigged up his magic weapon – home tied flasher. Re baiting a big sloppy bonito guts bait he cast out in expectation.

Rocky was feeling pretty good about his magic bait and its location in the tide and settled in to wait for a big moucher to find breakfast. Trouble was the 1000mls of Coke that he had for breakfast had made its way through his guts and was now sitting impatiently in his guts. Being an innovative Kiwi male he decided he could hold his rod,…..and his rod, and fish and piss at the same time. Nice thinking Rocky.

Like a nasty car accident, this was a sight that Sniffy and I didn’t really want to see but couldn’t help watching. To his credit, Rocky was handling things nicely, that is until solid snapper bites got him confused about which hand was holding what. He struck hard; but to his misfortune used the wrong hand, and commenced spraying yellow coke all over his other hand, legs and feet. The messy boy had disgraced himself like a kindy kid that just couldn’t hold on. To make matters worse he started laughing hysterically as though secretly enjoying the warm shower. This produced more unwanted shaking, which didn’t help the situation. He lost the fish and continued on laughing and shaking like an irrigation sprinkler watering the rocks around him.

Sniffy spoke first ‘Nice work Pissy!!’ Sniffy couldn’t believe his luck. He knew this was just the kind of drama he needed to remove him from the arse-scratching spotlight that had shone so brightly all morning. What a sight, we all had to stop fishing from the laughter that had taken over. I think even the charter boat that slowly chugged past heard us and stopped to see what was going on. It took a good ten minutes before we could refocus on fishing.

As the sun came up the fishing went deadly quiet despite the burley and selection of prime baits that we offered, it was one of those perfect days when even the fish call in sick. Slowly, enthusiasm drifted and my mind wandered to the mega bag of Twisties that I had thought I had well hidden in the bottom of my pack.

‘Piss Fingers, Get your hands way from my Twisties’ I yelled, spotting Rocky just breaking the seal of the bag.

Rocky had found them somehow and got to them first. He just laughed as he dug his hand to the bottom of the packet. After Pissy, Sniffy had his turn at sticking his hand into my Twisties. They were both now chuckling away, having contaminated my lunch with a health inspector’s nightmare.

‘Here you go mate’ Rocky said offering the rest of the bag. ‘Piss off Piss fingers’ I replied. It wasn’t as though I would want them now, but Rocky already knew that, helping himself to another handful. It didn’t seem fair some how, Rocky had pissed all over himself, Sniffy smelt his own arse, and here they were enjoying my lunch!!