THE MISSION ISSUE 42

The end is nigh! We’re not entirely sure if that means the end of the world with the floods, fires, melting ice caps and unprecedented record temperatures that occurred in 2023 or just the end of the year. But it means we all, hopefully, get to take a break from work and worries. Whatever the case, there’s a general theme of “GAAAAAAH” escapism in issue 42.

It’s there in Leonard Flemming’s account of getting both broken and breaking some personal records among the scalies of the Mzimkhulu River. It’s there in Scott Diel’s Arctic Detox, deep in the tundra of Finland. It’s also there in Peter Coetzee’s Mexican Monk Mode story – a trip that was as much about quietening his own brain as it was about deciphering permit. Nic Schwerdtfeger touches on it in Cabin Fever, a meditation on purpose that crosses hemispheres from a Norwegian cabin in the woods to a sangoma’s cave on the Wild Coast.

Then we’ve got Ryan Janssens’ Great British Fish Off (pike vs salmon); Eugene Pawlowski’s stories of colossal Kiwi trout and the mice plague that sends them into a gluttonous spiral; a High Fives with Liam van der Merwe, a Lifer with Dr Andrew Baxter, Beers, Beats and The Hemingway Burger with Chef PJ Vadas of Vadas Smokehouse; Vundu as a Wish List Fish, a Franz Kafka meets Joseph Conrad Undercurrents with The Useless Recrimmercial, Jazz Kuschke’s Fluff think piece on collective consciousness in fly tying, plus micro skiffs, can crushers, tons of new clobber, films, books and more.