Kayaking Kanakyland Kiwi Style - Canoe & Kayak

Fishing
Kayak Fishing
By Andy Doncaster
Holiday Style...
All the best ideas are never planned and this was definitely
the case with our summer holiday. Having a good yarn with
some mates around the BBQ, talk always revolves around
our adventures kayak fishing. Then the inevitable happened.
Suddenly we were all going away together for our December
holidays and it was agreed Tauranga Bay was the go. Booking
with the Tauranga Bay Holiday Park was easy but packing my
fishing gear even easier - my gear is ALWAYS packed ready
for the next trip.
A few short weeks later a rainy Auckland was in our rear-view mirror
as we headed to the far north for a week of kayak fishing,
oh and some time with the wife
and kids of
c o u r s e .
Our first
m o r n i n g
was clear
but crisp
so out came
my trusty
Sharkskins
and by 5.30
am we were at
the water edge
being greeted
by a wide
open ocean.
S t e v e n s o n
Island was off
in the distance,
a slight swell
running and the
predicted offshore
breeze. In this
region the offshore
breeze is common
until about 9am then
it normally swings to
an onshore making
the trip home a bit easier, yes it’s a kayak fisho’s paradise. On
the water I immediately kept my eye on the sounder to find at just 500 m
off the shore the area was teeming with fish. One of the guys decided to
head out further but my mate and I turned round and paddled about 200
metres back in and set the drift anchor
in order to drift back over the spot where
we had seen the activity.
Drifting back I got my line in the water,
gave it about 40 seconds for the soft bait
to get to the bottom in around 15 metres
of water then bam! First fish resulted in
about a 35 cm snapper brought to the surface, in this area this is a small
fish so these ones we put back. Every cast after that resulted in the same
success as well as kahawai we caught for live bait because we were
planning some kingfish action. Next I landed a 14 pound porae, which I
have formally nicknamed the rubber lips fish, and a few casts later ended
in me losing some tackle to a kingfish that reefed me. All in all a great
Andy’s best ever!
Boaties were all whinging about
how slow the fishing was. Kayakers
on the other hand were cleaning up.
start to a week’s fishing, boy oh boy it had only been about an hour. What
a welcome to Tauranga Bay!
Day two arrived with the same great weather and by 6.30 am were
we heading for Stevensons Island’s hotspots. Not long after arrival we
were again into the fish this time we however had managed to find the
nursery with not much over the 30 cm mark. Moving to another local
hotspot about 2.5 kms further around the point of the island we were
introduced to the full brunt of the swell running and fairly soon some of
the guys were feeling a bit ill. But fish we did and were rewarded with
a nice catch. That night I whipped up a batch of my world
famous (in our
house at least) fish
fingers and the kids
devoured them in
about 10 minutes
flat, the big kids
only getting some
if you could fight
hard enough for
them.
Day three
saw us on
the water
bright and
early again
h e a d i n g
for some
b r o k e n
islands just
north of
the bay
about an
hour and
a half of
p a d d l e
a w a y .
We found some
good ground but to no avail we caught a
whole bunch of nothing. I tried every trick in the book including
fishing some standing waves forming over a concealed reef but still
nothing. Heading home about 3.5 km’s offshore luck at last. I landed a
couple of good ones including a 10 pounder. However there is sometimes
a price as half way through the fight the fish took about 4 metres of my
precious 6 pound braid with it, but like they say just stick with it and you
have a chance. About 7 minutes later I had the fish onboard and we at
least had a feed for the night.
Apart for one day of bad weather the
rest of the time was much the same with
the boaties not liking us kayak fisho’s at all.
All week the boaties were heading back
in with minimal fish and whinging about
how slow the fishing was. Kayakers on the other hand were cleaning up
with most of the guys catching personal bests and beating all previous
records held within the clan. All in all the trip was a great success and I
will be going back there again, many times.
30 ISSUE FIFTY Four • 2 0 1 0 www.kayaknz.co.nz