First time in a small boat off Paraparaumu

[GregS]

Well I've been living here for over a year now and it was only today that I went (salt water) fishing for the first time.
The plan was to take out a longline and a couple of rods, set up the longline, anchor up at the north end of it (outgoing tide goes south here) with a berley bomb sitting a couple of metres up from the anchor. Let the long line do its thing while I straylined.
Chunky Dunk (8ft long and 4'6" wide homebuilt plywood) was the boat with a 2hp suzuki.
Drove on to the beach no problem, lifted CD off the roof rack and loaded up.
Baited the longline with the salted mackerel recommended by the guy in Hunting and fishing Wanganui where I'd also bought the very cheap $70 longline.
Just as well I had bait elastic as it was falling apart as soon as it got on the hook
Pushed the boat out till the outboard wasn't dragging then rowed away. Suzi started first pop and I was off. Clamped the fish finder on the transom and switched on. Nothing. Bugger.
The battery can't be holding the charge I gave it yesterday. Never mind. I knew I'd get into about 30 metres of water 1k out and I wanted to set the longline at 20 metres so I guessed about 750 metres and very carefully started paying out the longline. Don't ever buy a cheap longline. This one was sitting in a small bucket with the hooks draped outside it and had as it's main line a sort of fabric line just asking to be snagged and this is exactly what happened. 7 hooks out and something snagged about half the remaining line. Reached for the knife and waved it goodbye.
Cranked up the suzi to full and heard ominous loud cracking noises from the transom. Dropped back to half speed and adjusted the angle so it pushed the boat forward rather than up. Figured I'd come back to the long line later and see what could be rescued.
Decided to anchor up and drop the berley down. I'd bought the anchor pack earlier in the day and naively thought it would unravel itself.
Another unholy mess to sort out but I did manage to get the anchor down at which point I realised the longline was being dragged away by the current at a fair rate of knots. OK plan C. Troll for kahawai.
Stuck a flasher rig on (small hooks designed for gurnard) with a silver jig on the end. Fired up the motor and chucked it out.
Hilarious. Almost before it hit the water I was into kahawai. Don't know how many I snagged but there were at least 4 times I had 4 fish on at once and lots more times when I was pulling in 3. Maybe 80 in total. Even got a couple of 3lbers for the smoker. So I thought. Wonder what's under the kahawai and rigged the other rod to take a live bait. Hooked a kahawai on with a decent sized sinker to persuade it do go down a bit and let it drift off. Even though I was only drifting I was still catching kahawai by reeling in as quick as I could on the first rod. Big hit on the other rod then it all went loose. The bail arm had come off and was sitting in the bottom of the boat. I clamped down on the braid. OUCH!!! After a few big thumps it went quiet and I reeled in what little was left of the kahawai.
It was getting close to low tide and half an hour before sunset when the action died off. So I drifted awhile with the rig bouncing along the bottom and actually picked up a gurnard. Too small though. Came back in at sunset having learned a few lessons and had heaps of fun.

[korin]

Sounds like one of those days where u mess up a bit but still get lots of action to make up for the misfortunes... But yeah there is plenty to learn when fishing from a small boat out here... The big currents are one of them... Orgnising what little space u have in a boat is another... Then theres catching the big snapper or kingi.. Or in my case a very large shark

[GregS]

Big currents were something new as I'm more of a lake fisher. And you are right about organising space on the boat. I already have some ideas for making sure I get less snags and tangles. Large sharks are something else tho.

[korin]

Yeah we customised our zodiac with a hatch at the front for the fuel tank and a rod holder out the back over the motor... We used tent poles wood and some pvc pipping.... Currents get like rivers out there especially when u anchor up... Dont under estimate the conditions - especially from the shore... We have gone out thinking the waves were small only to find a good size swell... Also the wind against the current causes small waves to break... The shark was just cause I used a fillet of mackeral.. For some reason I thought it would catch a snapper... Next thing I know my line just started heading out to sea... Then the large shark jumped out of the water and caused a massive splash.. Probbly a mako or possibly a great white... But they r always out there.. Most of the time we catch kahawai, gurnard, snapper, the odd trevally, lots of small sharks, the odd king fish