Stories, like fish, don't magically land on your plate.
You have to be prepared to put the work in.
And the best thing about being a reporter is you never know what might unfold in one day.
It's a bit like fishing.
You could set your heart on a tuna but might end up with a wormy old barracuda.
Or 77 albacore.
So it was that I turned up at Westland district councillor Kerry Eggeling's place a week or so back, thinking we were going to talk about tourism.
Instead, the commercial fisherman handed me a lunch box and a life jacket and said I was going fishing.
All day.
It took all of a second to agree, without remorse.
And another second to thank the fates that Haast doesn't have cellphones so I wouldn't have to explain what I was doing against what I could only imagine would be quite vocal opposition from the boss in Dunedin.
I found out later that not one but three Dunedin editorial department managers would have cheerfully filleted me if it had meant they could be in my shoes.
I had never before thought about why tuna fishing makes some people go all silly.
I'd only ever eaten it out of a can.
I had no idea the fish were shaped like torpedoes, had retractable fins so they could speed like a bullet through the water or had the most amazingly jewel-like blue and green colours I have ever seen outside a polished paua shell.
All I knew about tuna fishing was what a friend had told me: tuna fishermen eat pie sandwiches.
That turned out not to be true on Mr Eggeling's boat, Mako.
They were ham, lettuce, tomato and pickle sandwiches.
It was a typical West Coast summer's day: hot, blazing sunshine and a calm, clear, bright-blue sea.
Mako has no facilities other than a large plastic bin filled with ice and a pile of buckets to sit on.
It's small - just big enough for skipper and one crew - but with two extendable booms, it can support about 10 lines of varying lengths.
Each line is attached to the boat by a large black rubber band, which snaps and straightens each time a fish takes hold of the plastic, fringed lure.
The lures are all colours of the rainbow.
The hooks don't need barbs.
The tuna chase the lures, overtake them, turn around, gobble them head on and then get spun back around, causing the hooks to dig into their jaws and the lines to snap.
"They are an amazing fish, built for speed," Mr Eggeling remarked, as we motored out of the Okuru River mouth towards the troughs and ocean canyons where the tuna like to run.
Mr Eggeling says his annual catch is variable.
He got 23 tonnes the year before last, when the tuna arrived early, in November, but last year he only caught three tonnes.
This year, the run has just started and he already has one tonne.
November is when the tuna usually start their run up north, at Kaitaia, swimming against the Humboldt Current that flows up the coast from Milford Sound.
They generally arrive off the West Coast in February and March, when settled weather arrives and the water is clear and blue, and between 17degC and 20degC.
Once the tuna hit the colder waters of Fiordland, they turn back to sea again and are gone for another year.
Mr Eggeling sells his fish to Talley's.
They are transported on ice to Timaru or Greymouth.
From there, the frozen fish are sent overseas to be canned.
Commercial fishers must get their tuna boats certified for export.
This means there have to be facilities on board to cool the fish as soon as they are landed on the boat.
Mr Eggeling stays out fishing as long as it takes to fill a bin with, maybe, up to 120 fish, depending on their size.
He has noted this year the fish are quite small.
During the run, up to 100 boats could be out on the sea anywhere off the West Coast, and at Haast, between five and 12 boats might be fishing for tuna on any day.
Some will be recreational anglers, whose numbers have been increasing in recent years.
There is no quota for tuna, so everyone is allowed to try catching them.
Mr Eggeling hopes the status quo remains.
"We are saying don't bring them under a quota system.
"It's the only free fish we can have . . ."
Tuna fishing is also a great training ground for young skippers, who can learn to handle their boats without being forced into a big capital outlay for quota at the beginning of their careers.
"If you make it hard for these young guys today, you will force them out to do crayfish and other things that are much more dangerous," Mr Eggeling said.
Sometimes, tuna fishers catch barracuda, but they don't want them.
They are usually full of worms and their sharp teeth tear the lures.
"If we catch a barracuda we will . . . go somewhere else," Mr Eggeling said.
Tuna fishers become familiar with a wide range of sea-birds, including albatross and mollyhawk.
They also get to enjoy the company of dolphins and the occasional whale.
Seals, too, are common.
We pass a couple lying on their backs in the water, flippers in the air, having a good old snooze in the sun.
Mr Eggeling has seen them grab fish on the line.
Getting a "full house" is "bloody brilliant", he assures me, as we wait for ages for the fish to take.
I begin to doubt it will happen.
We talk of many things: Haast's two high-profile murder "cold cases" (Jennifer Beard, Mark Roderique), roads to nowhere, the blooming rata trees we can see from miles off shore, television programmes, the Hokitika Wild Food Festival and tuna recipes.
Mr Eggeling's wife Fay has a secret recipe which apparently involves marinating tuna fillets in a small amount of soy sauce and crushed garlic for as long as it takes to heat the oil in the pan.
Any longer than 10 minutes in the marinade and the meat will go mushy.
The fillets must be quickly seared on both sides.
It has to be pink inside, almost raw, Mr Eggeling insists.
"It just melts in your mouth," he said.
All of a sudden, we have fish on seven lines.
Almost a full house.
Mr Eggeling marks the spot on his GPS and then it's chaos for a while.
I quickly learn to pile my lines tidily on the boat deck and not let them fall into the sea in a knotted mess.
With the fish landed and binned and the lines out again, Mr Eggeling turns the boat and trolls back through the same spot.
And there we spend the day, pulling in the lines as the fish bite and putting the world to rights between times.
