Fishing lines: I'll have the hammerhead shark, please

Sadly, I shall not be in Florida next week for the year's most spectacular fishing auction. I'm still paying back from my last visit to the International Game Fish Association's annual banquet.

But if you have a few thousand dollars lying around screaming: "Spend me!", I can't think of a better (or quicker) way to do so. The event raises money for the IGFA's very worthy conservation and other work, and takes place at the Breakers Hotel, Palm Beach.

It is the sort of hotel where you can get lost trying to find your room, where a walk to reception is almost as good as a daily workout. The vast grounds include special parking areas for limousines. There are no cheap rooms, or even modestly priced ones. I worked out if I had won the $10,000 prize draw during the evening, I could have stayed at the Breakers for a week, as long as I chose my wines carefully.

Still, I wasn't overawed. Not me. Not even when I realised that I was probably the only person at the banquet with an off-the-peg dinner suit – and that I didn't know a soul.

About 1,000 people attend the dinner at $180 a throw. You are given a signed limited-edition print by US fish artist Guy Harvey to take home, but you won't get out of this evening just for the price of a dinner ticket.

The highlight is the auction. Many lots are open for written bids before the dinner. Typical among this year's 350 items are a day's scientific research with the Miami University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, studying billfish; a 6ft coffee table with a hammerhead shark set inside; hand-made rods, jewellery, and some spectacular fishing trips. There are even outings with some of the world's most famous anglers such as Billy Pate, Stu Apte and Bill Curtis.

I was astonished to find that I had bought several things in this pre-dinner auction, despite leaving what seemed like very low bids. But I later realised that most other guests hadn't bothered to bid. After all, they owned the companies that had donated the items.

Their big bucks are reserved for the post-dinner auction. The year I went, you could bid for a $100,000 boat. Next week's goodies include a week in Alaska, Costa Rica or Guinea Bissau. Don't fancy going on your own? Then take five friends and spend a week fishing the Xingu river, a tributary of the Amazon. There are 50 lots like this.

When I went, bidding started at $1,000, sometimes $5,000 and in a couple of cases, $10,000. On my table, I was the only one who didn't own a boat. I may well have been the only one in the room who didn't.

The night (and the $160 breakfast the next morning, though that's another story) left me near broke. I had planned two weeks fishing round Florida, and to make ends meet, I camped, slept in the hire car on three nights and lived on Big Macs.

But ah, what a night that was!

Details of IGFA write-in bid list from igfahq@aol.com