We were offered a ride by boat round to the saddle in Beatrice Bay, so we jumped at the opportunity. It was supposed to be a day trip. Pete and Gemmis fished a really good ledge while Craig and I set off to fish elsewhere. During the day we caught a few snapper, nothing to great, so we decided to head back to meet up with the other guys. The weather started to turn and the water got a good chop on it, but not to worry as the boat would be here soon. Well the boat didn’t arrive as the weather was too rough. We had to stay the night at the saddle as it was about a 8 hour walk through dense scrub. That night the weather was so bad we gathered drift wood and stacked up against the cliff face to try and get some shelter from the wind and rain, the only problem was there was only enough room for 2 people. But we did have a cask of wine which helped us through. Earlier in the evening we had managed to get a fire going on the beach, so we cooked up some fish and tried to keep warm. At about 10pm we decided to get some sleep, not easy to do when the wind and rain is driving into your face. Around 1-2am we woke up to what we thought was a mad man running around our camp going berserk, only to find out it was Gemmis. “All my #@&# gear is gone”. What the hell is going on we all thought? It wasn’t until he calmed down that we found out what he was going on about. You see when we lit the fire we used the drift wood off a very small beach (approx 10 meters buy 3 meters). We all sat our packs and fishing gear up against the bank. Unbeknown to us, there was a log under the sand (under our fire) which burnt approx 5-6 meters underground until it reached the bank where Gemmis had his pack and fishing gear sitting. Approx $5000 worth of fishing gear had gone up in smoke in one night and as you can imagine he was not a happy camper. After every one calmed down dawn broke and the weather was still crap and still no boat at this stage. The rain had stopped and the sun was out. We had no water left but found a trickle in a rock, so we took turns with a coke bottle lid collecting the water. What a mission! After a while we decided to draw straws to see who was going to walk out to get help as we were starting to get desperate. Pete and I were the lucky ones so we started walking, or bush bashing our way through (one of the hardest things I’ve had to do). We managed to go approx 100-150 meters in an hour when we saw a boat coming around the headland. Great what do we do, keep climbing up or head back to the guys? So we started to head back. As we were climbing our way back down the boat picked up Craig and Gemmis and started to leave. We were yelling like mad but they didn’t hear us (or so we thought). Turns out they were just mucking around. We decided to climb on top off the braken bush and go for it straight down the hill to the water’s edge. Pretty hairy thing to do as it’s really steep. We got back to camp and told the farmer what had happened to Gemmis’ fishing gear. He was kind enough to arrange transport for him to go home. Nothing left to do except get on the piss big time. The following day Gemmis left so Pete, Craig and myself carried on with the fishing trip.
We headed over the hill to fish the other side of the saddle about a 4 hour walk. Not a problem so we loaded the gear and off we went. We got to where we were going to fish when Peter sprained his ankle. We were in the middle of nowhere, oh great here we go again. So while Pete laid down in the shade, Craig and I fished as it wasn’t our problem, or so we thought. Well at the end of the day Craig and I drew straws again to see who was going to get help, as Pete wasn’t able to walk out. Craig lost and started walking, funny thing is about 1 hour later a trawler come around the corner and there was Craig on the boat with a beer in hand. In the next bay around was a house and the owners Gift and Sally were only too happy to help so we went back to their place. And what a place it was. Completely hand built, Gift had milled all his own timber. They bred rabbits, worms and harvested mussels. What a life. Later we jumped on the trailer behind the tractor and off we went back to camp. We headed home after that as we didn’t want to risk what could happen next.
Alister Gemmell was a good man who left us too early in life. He was swept off the rocks in Sydney and treaded water for 1.5 hours because the rescue boat went to the wrong bay. Poor guy, he was a mate

Tight lines
sherppa

Quick Facts:

• Date: 30/10/210
• Fish Species: Kingfish
• Length: 94cm
• Weight: 10 – 15kg
• Moon phase: Full
• Tide: About an hour before full tide
• Location: Off Paraparaumu beach, 30m of water

The weather forecast was looking pretty good for the weekend so come Friday i was pretty excited at the prospect of getting out Saturday morning for a fish. I woke to my alarm at 6:00am this morning and looked out the window, blue sky and still, it was on. A quick coffee and then onto getting all the gear ready to chuck in the van. A bit more pissing round as Korin sorted himself out and we were on our way down to Paraparaumu Beach. We arrived at the beach to a flat sea and blue sky, you don’t get much better than this. We pumped up the boat chucked everything in super quick and pushed her off. I cranked the 15hp to full and we raced straight out from the boat club. After about a minute or two we stopped to check the depth, about 30m, good enough we decided so out came the burley and over it went with the anchor. I put my running snapper rig baited with a pilchard on with a 3 ounce sinker to start, but, didnt hold out much hope of getting to the bottom as the current looked pretty strong. Sure enough dropped it in and it drifted quickly out the back with the current. I let out quite a bit of line but quickly came to the conclusion that it was never gonna get down with just 3 ounces on. I reeled back in and felt a couple of small tugs on the way up, nothing stuck but i soon saw what was responsible, a mob of 3 or 4 small kahawai stripped the last of my pilchard off as i got it to the boat. This was a good sign i thought as at least we knew there was fish around.

I didn’t want to switch to a monster sinker so decided to give my home job downrigger a blast. This consists of an old Alvey reel ($30 off trademe)  attached to a snapped rod. I have used a dive weight on a rope in the past but this was too heavy for the reel so i attached a 16 ounce sinker. Attached to the sinker is a small piece of irrigation pipe with a clothes peg on the end to hold my mainline. My first drop resulted in a tangle so i pulled it up and tried again. I let out about 6 or 8ft of line then clip the peg to my mainline, then i flip the bail arm on my rod, put it out of gear and lower down the weight which pulls down my line into the strike zone. About 20 odd metres down i noticed my rod starting to bend over a bit more than usual, i thought it was the downrigger weight but decided to check it just in case. It felt like there was weight on but i couldnt feel the tell tale tugging of a fish on so i put the rod back in the holder and flicked it out of gear ready to continue dropping it down. Straight away the rod bent over again, then line started to getting stripped out. I quickly pulled the rod out of the holder and let it run for a bit, this had to be a fish. I flicked it in to gear and the rod loaded up and bent over. The reel started to scream as more line got pulled out. It wasn’t a steam train run like my 7kg snapper but it felt heavy. After the short run i started to ease it up slowly as i only had a 15 pound main line. I had no idea what it was as it felt heavy but wasn’t  shaking its head or taking off. It kinda just sat down there, Korin said ‘might be a kingfish’. ’Nah its not movin round enough might be a bloody stingray’ i said. I kept the pressure on trying to bring it up and managed to get some line back but every time I got it up a bit it would just swim back down pulling out the line i had just got back. This continued for about 20 min before i started to get a bit frustrated. By now i was convinced it was a ray as it was just staying down and was hardly moving. I was getting a bit impatient so said to Korin that i was gonna try and be a bit more aggressive to try and get whatever it was up so i could get a look at it. I remembered reading something about a technique for getting fish up that had gone to ground  in the foul. The theory is to put the pressure on then lower the rod a small amount to get a few turns on the reel then keep repeating. I tightened the drag a bit then gave it a try. It seemed like it was working as i was getting quite a bit of line back, but, then down it went again slowly pulling out my line. I persevered and started the process again. This time it started to come up a bit quicker, it felt like something big rolling round on the end of my line as it came up. Memories of the conger eel i caught at Pukerua Bay a few weeks earlier came back to me and i wasn’t holding out much hope for anything good. We got our first sign of colour as it came up, silver and torpedo shaped, wasn’t a ray. We thought it was a good sized shark, then it rolled on the surface and Korin caught a glimpse of its yellow tail. ‘Kingfish’ shouted Korin. Then came the hoots and the adrenilin started pumping. Thoughts now went to how the hell we were gona get it in the boat as it looked to be about a metre long and we had no gaff. It had rolled onto its back on the surface about 10m from the boat and i started to ease it slowly toward the boat. I turned the drag right off as i knew it could just turn over and take off which is what i thought would happen any second. I was surprised to get the fish along side the boat with out incident. Now to get it into the boat. I went to grab it by the gills, got it, pulled up and nearly over into the boat but it slipped out of my hand and back into the water. I quickly went for another grab this time getting it by the tail and pulling it into the boat. Wow this was the biggest fish i had ever landed. A quick photo and i decided i would let it go so i lifted it over into the water to try and revive it. There was no blood coming from its gills but it wasn’t looking very lively as i supported in the water. I thought i would give it some time as from our trout fishing experience we knew that it can sometimes take up to 10 minutes to revive a fish. I held it supported in the water with its head facing into the current for about 15 minutes but it wasn’t showing any sign of perking up so we decided to keep it. 

The fish was  94cm long and somewhere in the 10 – 15 kg range. There was no chance of fitting it in our little fish bin so i wrapped it in a wet towel and decided to head in. Only had the lines in the water for 15 minutes but we weren’t complaining.

Ps: I was quite surprised at how the fish fought. No smokin runs or racin round the boat. My theory is that as there was no sinker banging against its head and the hooks were relatively small it wasnt to concerned about being hooked. We get that sometimes with big brown trout. They sorta just swim slowly away.

Tight lines and shall see you all at the next weigh in.

Sherppa

Basically you use it to spike the fish in the brain, killing it instantly. I have seen through our own hit and miss attempts really mess this up and miss the brain, only having to repeat the task over and over again until you see the fish suddenly stop moving. I am a huge fan of Killing a fish as quite as possible, in fact if I intend on keeping the fish I will kill it before any high fives or photos – this is just a mark of respect I have for fish. Due to vague write ups and “general” descriptions on how to kill a Snapper affectively, I have decided to do my own research and dissect a Snapper Head. To show exactly where the brain is located and what the size is. It wasn’t till I opened up the head that I relised just how off I was and also it gave me a very good precise area for the brain – dispelling a lot of what others had said.

Let’s get into it.

Below are photos I took of a Snapper I chopped open to show where its brain really is. I don’t apologies for the graphic nature of these photos as I know gutting and killing a fish is not a clean process and if you are only use to finished clean fillets – killing and eating your own fish is not for you. Please also note this fish is well dead before I attempted to chop it up and was killed very quickly, it did not suffer. This is a Smaller Pan size Snapper and the reason I chose this is that it is often the size people catch and keep (best eating in my opinion and they aren’t breeding stock).

Snapper before dissection

This is the Cross Section of Snapper Head showing the where the brain is located

This Shows the iki going straight through the brain as located from the cross section done

This shows the exact spot to iki a Snapper to hit the Brain. I used the cross section of the head and pushed the iki spike directly through, there was no angle on the iki spike.

This is the hole made after taking the iki spike out, it shows very clear where to insert your iki to hit the Snapper

So from these pictures you should get a good idea of where the brain is located and how to hit the brain when you are faced with a Snapper. There is no need to put any angle on the iki spike as this may lead to you missing the brain and not killing the Snapper. If you don’t hit the brain there is a good chance the Snapper will take 20 – 30 mins to suffocate to death. This has issues other than the basic disrespect you have for what you eat. Leaving a fish to die this way causes the meat to degrade in a huge way. A build up of lactic acid and other chemicals the fish’s body releases in an effort to combat the effects of suffocation result in bad tasting fish, come meal time. This is the same for any fish. The best practice is to kill the fish as soon as you have decided you will keep it.

The best way to know if you have hit the brain is that the fish will stop moving straight away and may start to have tiny spasms. You will also see that its gills aren’t moving anymore, if there is still gill movement or it is still flapping then the Snapper is still alive and you need to spike it again till it stops. Sometimes after killing a Snapper they may still flap the odd time, this is just nerve activity.

Here’s some details:
When: Sun 24 Jan 2010 at 06:00 AM – 04:00 PM
Location: Raumati Beach, Raumati. To get there take Raumati Road from the SH1, head all the way to the Raumati Village Shops and get to the beach from the Swimming Pool access.

Quick Details:

Prizes galore including kids’ prizes and $1,000 CASH for heaviest Kahawai.

Entry is on the day at the competition base and weigh station at Marine Gardens, Raumati Beach.

Registration from 6am. Fishing between 7am and 3pm The Prize Giving is at the Waterfront Bar & Kitchen from 4pm. Entry: Adults $20 per rod, Juniors $10 per rod. (Juniors defined as 14 years or younger on the day).

For more information contact Mike on 021 187 6618.

Handle Kahawai with care!

We went fishing on Saturday at Paraparaumu and although there was a nice southerly blowing through we still managed to get out. Launching the Zodiac from the beach can cause some issues even with the smaller wave – we don’t have a front cover on our boat to keep the water from splashing over the top. The tricky part is not the first set of waves but generally the ones which break on the sand bar, out a short distance. We find the motor can hit the ground making it very hard to get the nose up to prevent a wave from crashing over. Anyway we got through that without major issue and starting fishing at around 25m. It was fairly choppy out on the water however we were certain the wind would drop during the change to northwesterly. We were trying to target the incoming tide and although low tide was predicted around 11am’ish the current didn’t drop and change till about 2pm.

We did a lot of fishing without much luck at all (just some small sharks) and the hours seemed to just pass. The good thing was that for about 1 hour the wind did drop and it was really nice. But obviously as it did switch to Northwesterly the wind picked up and the sea got choppy again. It was around this time we decided to head in shallower, we saw some good bird activity up and down the beach. We anchored at about 13m of water and the fish finder showed a lot of activity – probably mainly bait fish, however where there are bait fish there are generally larger fish chasing them. In a very short time we started to get takes and wasn’t long before one held. It was a nice size Kahawai. A short time after that we got another Kahawai and as soon as I dropped my line in the water again, I caught a Gurnard. My brother caught a couple of smaller Kahawai, but just this small amount of activity really made the day. I guess the lesson learnt here is to not always rely on one depth to provide you with all your fish. We saw that there was a lot of bird activity in the shallower water and although we didn’t catch Snapper we still did catch Kahawai which I really rate as an eating fish. I guess in the future, if one spot isn’t producing fishing then we should move on… there are times however when a bit of patience is a good thing and sticking to one spot can bring results… this was just not one of those times

Though we have had many sightings of sharks such as the famious great whites a year back (i’m sure i caught one on my line earlier this year) I don’t think we have had a shark attack here at Kapiti – which must mean there’s plenty of fish around!!!

We weren’t expecting much activity till the current dropped and sure enough when it did drop I hooked into a nice eating size Snapper. I caught it on my smaller rod which had a standard dropper rig, using small hooks and small strips of squid bait. Around this same time my brother caught a nice small size Kahawai, by accident, after leaving his hook just over the side of the boat. We didn’t catch anything when the current dropped completely however we did see lots of fish sign at around 12m and this looked like some sort of fish school, however when we did put our lines to this depth we never caught any fish nor did we get any bites. There were some very large trees in the water floating around so I wonder if maybe this was just larger sticks floating around at this depth.

Kapiti Snapper

Once the current started to head north, from the incoming tide, we got more activity. I caught another Snapper the same size as the last one and also I caught another Kahawai. The Snapper this time was caught on my larger rod, which was equip with a Snapper Rig with a large squid tentacle on it.

We didn’t get any action for another hour or so and our lines started to lift higher in the water due to the increase in current. My brother was dealing with one of his lines when suddenly his larger rod bent over quite dramatically. This line wasn’t hugely deep and so he saw that he had caught a Thresher Shark winding his line up a little. He could tell it was due to its large thresher tail. We had to pull in all our lines quickly and also take an ore off our small 8ft Zodiac Boat to prevent the shark from biting into a pontoon or its tail hitting us. Because my brother had 80lb line on he could fight it a little, however we weren’t too happy about bringing this shark too close to the boat so we didn’t try to land it. It wasn’t long before the shark wrapped itself around the anchor and it snapped the line. Unfortunately the camera didn’t take the photo early enough and therefore I couldn’t get a photo of the shark.

to slow to capture the shark

This wasn’t a huge shark, it probably would have gone 3 – 5 ft however its tail was quite a sight as it hit the water. We kept fishing here for a while however nothing more was caught and also there were quite a few boats starting to join this spot so we tried a little shallower at the 20m mark. We didn’t catch anything at this depth however there was again quite a bit of sign on the fish finder.

fish sign

Doing some more tests we went to a depth of 50m in the channel. However there was no sign at all on the fish finder at this depth and after about 30mins we gave up and went to a depth of 30m. At about this time the wind changed from calm southerly to a strengthening north westerly which chopped up the water. It didn’t take us long to catch a really large Kahawai (which we released) and straight after a nice size Gurnard (the first for this summer season). We decided to head in as the wind picked up and what was a nice day turned into a choppy mess (though the fish were still biting, we had enough fish for dinner).

So it was a good day fishing, some interesting things we found was that a good fishing depth was the 25m – 30m mark. We found that at 20m we didn’t catch anything though there was still quite a bit of sign around. At 25m we saw lots of fish sign at about 12m however we aren’t sure what this was, perhaps it was a shark? Or maybe just wood in the water? Either way it was a fun day and glad to catch a good range of fish…