I love controversy, I love it when people are offering their perspective, preferable from a 180 degree opposite angle, this is what message boards are all about.

From a personal point of view, I have never understood what distance casting has got to do with surfcasting. I prefer to put a sinker to the zone where I believe the fish are feeding, and always with a bait attached.

When casting competitions copy their fly fishing brothers and have a trace attached, akin to a leader, plus a simulated fly, only then will I take any notice of the results. A casting competition should have something that simulates the shape, size and additional weight of a bait, and only then should it be used as an advert for sales, just casting a bare weight means nothing to me.

As for the NZACA. Again, speaking only for myself, I would love to see their efforts put into gaining the anglers who don't belong to their association. I believe this would serve to make them a body that truly represents all anglers, which at present it doesn't.

I appreciate this post will attract condemnation, so what's new? I will confess I am long past taking any notice of critique, I tell things like they are, and in this instance I have mentioned how many feel when trying to associate distance casting with actual fishing.

I have never purchased a rod because someone has managed to cast a long distance, I purchase all my fishing gear because it feels comfortable to my needs, skills and style. The satisfaction someone gains from casting a personal best probably matches the way I feel when I land a nice fat Kahawhai or similar.

Fishing is a funny old game, and the longer I have been involved with it, now some fifty-eight years, (I started when I was twelve) the funnier it gets.

I remember a long deceased angler called Wally Hale. He stood up at a very serious and well supported meeting of highly skilled anglers. He put forward the proposition angling has moved too far toward the callisthenics of casting and lost sight of actual fishing. His proposition was passed unanimously.

At a guess that meeting was forty-five years ago, I believe Wally was well ahead of his time.