Wellington Fishing, Kapiti Fishing, Central Fishing » Shark

Minor Shark warning at Raumati South

korin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:45:14 +0000

Though we all know there are plenty of sharks out in Kapiti and i would hate to see people move away from the beach however my brother went out surfing at Raumati South at the Esplande and a good size Shark finned beside him. Obviously he went straight in however this was only at waist deep water and although it was hard to determine the size of the shark (he only saw the fin ) it was obviously a good size. Most likely the shark is chasing the large amount of bait fish in the water and so I can’t imagine human would be on the menu, but worth keeping an eye out. At this time of the year it’s not uncommon to get more Shark activity with the increase in fish numbers closer to shore and warmer temperatures.

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!!!

Quick update

korin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:42:23 +0000

We went out fishing a week or so back and managed to get 1 Snapper, 4 Kahawai, 1 Baracudda, 1 Gurnard, a few smaller Sharks and a couple of undersized blue cod – unfortunately I forgot the camera. It’s been a bit tough over the last week or so to get out due to the average weather – if its not raining it’s either to windy or we have had other commitments. It’s interesting that we are catching under size Blue Cod just north of Kapiti Boat Club and also about 1km south of the boat club. Often we are finding the baits on our smaller rods are getting eaten clean around these areas, which would suggest to me that there are quite a few smaller cod around. Until we go out again I can’t tell you the status of the Snapper, however with the recent weather and cooler temperatures it’s quite possible that the spawning Snapper have moved on – however I would think there should still be a good population of resident Snapper around. Well it’s the beginning of yet another month and this year seems to be flying past and with winter just around the corner it will be interesting to see what the cooler waters bring in.

Snapper are still here!

korin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:34:17 +0000

My brother with the 7kg Snapper caught as the sun was setting. As you can see behind him is the Kapiti Boat Club. This was released

We went out today and caught 4 Snapper, sized between 4kg – 7kg, drifting between Kapiti Boat Club and Raumati Beach, at a depth somewhere between 20 – 30m. We also caught another 2 pan size Snapper. We released 3 of the 4 large Snapper due to the fact they were just to large for us to keep, also they were older Snapper ideal for breeding stock. I caught two of the four large Snapper using the Snapper rig with a Large piece of Squid. My brother caught his two large Snappers on the Snapper rig using fresh Mackerel.

We went out at about 10am and there was only a slight southerly breeze. It was cold, but atleast there was a perfect blue sky. High tide was around 10am so there was no current and we headed to a depth of about 25m just in front of Kapiti Boat Club. It seemed like a lot of Kahawai activity had just happened and it didn’t take us long to get into action. It was a huge take and my brothers line started to strip out much like the time I caught the large shark… So naturally we were on edge and we started to talk about what might happen if this is a large shark and it surfaces next to our small zodiac. So I grabbed a small Manuka stick we had in the boat and also my camera in the hope to capture the previous experience where the shark leaped out of the water. It was around this time that my smaller rod got into a fish, but rather than bringing it in I decided to just leave it on the drag and focus on this larger fight. We peered into the water nervously awaiting what it was (you know the feeling, staring into the blue depth awaiting what mysterious creature comes up from below), then it suddenly appeared. No it wasn’t a shark it was in fact a 6+kg Snapper. This was huge and larger than our previous 12lb Snapper. It was obviously an older Snapper as it was getting a small hump on its head. We talked about keeping, however this was only brief as it was obvious that this was a prime breeding fish. We released this Snapper and I brought in my smaller line. I had a small pan size Snapper on my line which we kept. I must admit ever since hooking the 12ft Shark in our little boat I am on edge when we get something large on our lines… It’s really stupid and a bad way to think as it does ruin the experience a bit, however i’m sure that as we get more and more use to the sea we will get more comfortable with it. It was nice to see this old Snapper return and it was a good decision as we would catch a lot more during the day.

My brother with the first large snapper caught within 5mins of us fishing off Kapiti Boat Club

The first Snapper being released

It wasn’t too long after this that I also got a huge take. Straight away we knew that this must be another large Snapper. We were quite amazed with this type of action as our previous outing we thought the Snapper might have already left the Kapiti waters. Also we haven’t ever caught this many large Snapper. Sure enough after a good fight I got another large Snapper which would have gone 5kgs. This Snapper again had the showings of a hump on its head so I decided this should be released. We took a quick photo before I released it. Stoked with this action we could have finished the day already satisfied however we were determined to keep fishing till the next tide change which was at 4pm.

me with our 2nd large Snapper, just before releasing it

We didn’t catch much more for awhile and as the current picked up we started to drift south towards Raumati Beach. I picked up another Pan size Snapper and my brother caught a few Kahawai during this time, also we caught a lot of Spiny Dog fish. These Sharks have poisonous spikes around there dorsal fins so they are a bit hard to handle and are annoying as they are hard to release with the re-curve hooks. We also caught a few carpet sharks which were all released.

We caught lots of these Spiny Dog fish

There was a lot of time where we would have no good action and the only things caught were small sharks. It was around 2pm when our rods started to get some good action. My brother and I both got Kahawai on our line which tangled our lines and got us jumping around the boat trying to keep them under control. He got his in however a bit of mucking around saw me loose mine at the edge of the boat. Almost straight away after putting his line down my brother caught a nice Mackerel, which he filleted for fresh bait. I had to re-rig my line and when I finally got it back into the water it wasn’t long before I got into another Kahawai. This time I didn’t muck around with it and lifted it into the boat. I killed it quickly then got my line back into the water quickly, hoping to get back into what must have been a school of Kahawai. It’s important to bleed Kahawai quickly so did that, however just as I had started to bleed it my line went into free spool and I was into another fish. This one felt much larger than the Kahawai I had just got so we thought it was probably a large Snapper. Sure enough after a great fight it was a good size Snapper. It wasn’t as big or old as the previous two we had caught and was a good eating size so we decided to keep this one. It was interesting as this Snapper had bitten through one of the two hooks I use on the Snapper rig and had braided the line just above the second hook. This is why it’s a good idea to use two hooks with one large piece of bait on your Snapper rig.

This is me with the 3rd larger Snapper - though it was the smallest out of the 4 it is a great eating size

We didn’t get any action around the low tide change and we weren’t sure why – until I pulled up a blind eel! As soon as this happened we were off back up the beach to the spot where we had caught the previous two large snapper. On the way up the beach we noticed a long line out deeper and saw close to it a black shape moving about on top of the water. We weren’t sure what it was until we got closer and saw it was a large Seal. I wonder if it had taken the fish off the long line or if it was just enjoying itself floating around on-top of the water in the sun. We took a quick photo then threw it some pilchard before heading back to the spot.

If you look close enough you can see the large seal on top of the water

We saw a lot of birds out deeper from our spot, floating on the water – it must have been a work up which had just finished. We headed out and I would estimate the depth to have been 35m. By this time it was about 5pm, the sun was getting low, wind had died and it was starting to get quite cold. So this was going to be just a quick drop of our lines. We didn’t bother with an anchor as there was no current and both my rigs on my line were cut off so I was busy tying some up. My brother had a fresh fillet of Mackerel he had caught earlier on and almost as soon as he had dropped his line he had a huge take. This was much larger than the previous ones and I will admit, again we thought it might have been a shark. So we discussed what we would do if it was and even got to the point where we started our motor incase we had to get out quickly. I think our biggest fear is not that the shark will bite us, but that it might bite into a pontoon which will sink the boat. But yet again it wasn’t a shark it was a 7kg Snapper! The sun was in a great position for me to get the photo with Kapiti in the background!

Closer shot of the 7kg Snapper just before it was released

My brother releasing the 7kg Snapper

We released this Snapper and headed in to the Boat Club. Feeling yet again very amazed with the quality of fishing we had. I must admit I think every time I go out I get surprised as you just never know what you might catch. I think perhaps there are less smaller Snapper around at the moment, but there are plenty of larger ones. Another surprise came about when we were bringing the boat in and the waves were actually of a decent size. It was very dodgy as the waves broke on the bar and we just got the boat in before a good set came through… though one wave did catch up with us and turned out boat – luckily it didn’t flip us… so we were glad to be on the beach without a swamped boat and very happy with a very successful day of fishing under our belt.

Where are all the Snapper?

korin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:17:40 +0000

Caught alot of these small carpet sharks

Well we went out today and caught about 4 Kahawai and lots of Carpet Sharks, a string ray and aBlind Eel but no Snapper??? Well we went out just off Kapiti Boat Club and started fishing about 200m north of the Club. We caught a Kahawai there and I also caught an undersized Blue cod… a bit random I thought considering we were over a sandy bottom. There must have been quite a bit of Blue Cod there, as our lines kept getting stripped of bait.

The Tide was pushing us towards the Marine Reserve in the north direction and since we were drift fishing using our claw anchor we decided to head further south, so we didn’t drift into the reserve. We noticed a few buoys out in the water, which were obviously long lines. We drove past them, by about 200 m south and decided to drift back towards the Kapiti Boat club. It seemed like the great fishing we had experienced with the Snapper had dried up. We caught Kahawai however there was no sign of Snapper – perhaps it might have been just a bad day. As we drifted past these long lines, it was obvious that they had been sitting there for awhile – about 2 hours had gone by and noone had gone to check up on them. There was quite abit of Kahawai activity around the long lines and we started to get some tugs on our lines as we drifted past. We hooked up on Carpet Sharks, we caught about 3 and released them all. To top it off we also hooked up on a Barracuda and as we pulled it up we saw another 2 -3 more swimming around it. I wonder if there were quite a few dead or dying fish on the long lines which would have attracted all the shark and Barracuda activity. We decided that these were not the fish we wanted so we headed back to the spot north of the Boat Club where I caught the under size Blue Cod – in the hope there was more in this spot. By the time we had gotten there the tide was on change and the current had virtually stopped. We also noticed there were a few more long lines out along the beach, so we stayed clear of these. We caught another Carpet Shark there and also a couple more Kahawai, however there was no sign of any other type of fish. Lots of Kahwai action happened all around us, but there was not Snapper. It was a perfect cloudless day and very still water – a good day for a lazy lay back fish, however it was a bit frustrating not catching any Snapper. To end the day we caught a Blind Eel – which might have accounted for the lack of action.

I know the Snapper do migrate to warmer waters as our coast cools down so I wonder if they have started to do this already? It was a bit of a downer day compared with our last fishing trip, where we caught a lot of Snapper, however I guess that’s fishing for you. At Least we can catch Kahawai… maybe we need to look at our techniques again and vary our fishing if, in fact, the Snapper have migrated. I don’t know when they do leave our waters, so I can’t really say they have gone as our next fishing trip we could catch a lot and today might be just a poor fishing day.

Raumati Beach – 7 Snappers – 3 Kahawai – 2 Gurnard – 2 Mackerel – 1m Shark

korin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:20:12 +0000

Kahawai and Gurnard caught on one line

We decided to give drift fishing ago on Saturday. So we went out about 9:30am, with ideal fishing time guessed at about 12:50pm. However we later found out that low tide was infact about 2pm. We thought that we should try our own homemade drift anchor which consisted of a few Pam’s shopping bags sitting out the back. Sure enough this really didn’t work, so we decided to give our small claw anchor ago. We also attached the burly pot to it which was a bonus. This proved to be really good, basically allowing us to drift enough so that our lines stayed pretty much below the boat. We had launched the boat from Kapiti Boat Club however decided to drift right down to Raumati Beach and give this a go. We caught our first Snapper at about 20m depth of water, about half way down the beach between Paraparaumu and Raumati Beach. Shortly after this we started to regularly catch Snapper for about 20mins. We found that an hour would pass then we would get some more action, then it would die. So it definitely seems that you catch fish in periods of about 10 – 20min at a time. We were using two different rigs to test out the drift fishing. I was using the standard dropper rig while my brother was using the Snapper rig. I did notice that when there was more drift that I was hooking up more than him. I was using 8lb line with my rig tied with 20lb line. It wasn’t till the current started to drop that the Snapper rig started to get a lot of action. Infact so much action that I only caught a Kahawai when the drift died. My brother on the other hand caught 5 Snapper and 3 Gurnard. I tried his bait, which was Mackerel – of course I was not to sure about this bait as it did catch me that large shark the other day. My brother seemed to be bringing in constant fish whereas I was struggling to get bites. When I changed baits I did start to get some good nibbles however I couldn’t seem to hook up on whatever was down there. Later we found out that it must have been Gurnard as my brother did manage to hook one with a good strike.

It was predicted that it would be an average day for fishing however what we found was that there were plenty of Snapper. Infact previous to this day we had only caught 3 Snapper in a fishing day. They weren’t huge Snapper just the nice good eaters. We hadn’t tried any drift fishing before however I think the claw anchor works really well and from today’s experience it shows it’s a good technique to use when the current gets up. I think the claw anchor works so well that in theory you shouldn’t have to ever drop the sand anchor as the claw anchor seems to move perfectly with the currents and when the current dies it grips in the sand enough to keep you still.

You can catch some good fish just by letting yourself drift, especially the times when fishing from a fixed anchor is just to challenging with strong currents. One other thing we noticed was there was a fish down there that was nibbling all the time but wouldn’t easily hook up. It was taking our bait, which was Mackerel. A good strike pulled up a Gurnard. So if you are finding on the sand that something is nibbling but not taking then its probably a Gurnard. Also we noticed that out from where the river enters the sea at Raumati Beach Pools the sand below seems to catch your sinker or perhaps there is weed down there. It seemed like there was a clay bottom sticking the sinkers, however because this was just out from the river it might have just been foul. But we did have great success with Snapper at about the 20m depth just off the Raumati Beach Swimming Pools. As a small surprise just as we were pulling in our lines for the day my brother caught a 1m long Shark. It had a good set of teeth on it, but we released it as we had already had plenty to eat. A great days fishing with perfect conditions!!

10ft – 12 ft Great White caught off Kapiti Boat Club – Snapped line

korin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:17:06 +0000

Went fishing this morning at 8:00am to catch the low tide change at 8:30am. We caught 3 Snapper, 5 Kahawai and 2 Mackerel. We also caught a good 10 – 12ft Great White Shark. This was at a depth of about 20m and about 100m south of the Kapiti Boat Club. I don’t know how rare or common this is however I thought I should make this quick post, it would be good to hear if anybody has sighted this Shark or has caught anything like this before. I know it of its size and type as it took my half fillet of Mackerel then jumped about 8 ft out of the water – after stripping my line about 30m from the boat. Obviously it cut my line but I wouldn’t want this near our 8ft boat – What can am I saying I caught this directly under our boat!!.

Snapper (12lb), Trevally, King Fish, Kahawai, Gurnard, Barracuda, Shark all at Paraparaumu Beach!!

korin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:03:37 +0000

Some Days you just know that you have got the tide right the day right and the spot right. Other days you know its just bad fishing. Well yesterday was the best day fishing I have had so far (as the title of the post suggests) and all this just in front of the Paraparaumu Boat Club. There was no need to travel to Kapiti Island or fish right on the reserve or even sit in deep water within the channel. The best fishing was had 20 – 30m of water and anywhere along the beach. The essential factor for the day was picking the tide change – when the current dropped and action began.

We took an hour off at work so we could get the boat out by 5pm and headed to Paraparaumu Boat Club. The previous day we had some large takes and a lot of action just as that tide was changing however I think we were just a bit to late and therefore we only got one Snapper. Today seemed different, it felt like we had got the timing correct and although it was quite choppy and rough on the water (well for a small boat it was) it looked good. We had heard that fishing just before a storm proves amazing fishing and also the Maori Fishing Calendar was predicting good fishing. There wasn’t a lot of cars on the beach which surprised me as everything was pointing to this day been good – as well as the fact it was Friday, perhaps most of the fishing is done in the weekend.

We got the boat out through the chop and were faced with a good 1 and half metre swell. The current was strong towing our lines south but we knew this would quickly drop of so we kept our 3 ounce sinkers on with the Snapper rigs – even though it wasn’t reaching the bottom. My brother had done a home job down rigger using a 16 ounce sinker but I don’t think it worked well at all…. it took about 30 – 40 min for our first fish which was a Kahawai and this was large – about 5- 6lb. We weren’t going to keep it and so it was played then let off when it got close to the boat. My brother was experimenting with some pilchard bait this time. Basically on his snapper rig he tied both hooks around the one whole fish. He also used a 50lb rig as yesterday a large fish had cut his line. I kept with the Snapper rig as well only on 20lb line and with a large strip of squid. I had a second lighter rod with 8lb line and two of the Black Magic KL 1-0 hooks (the fish self hook themselves usually in the corner of the mouth) on a standard 2 hook and sinker and the bottom rig. I did this to see if this rig would work on targeting other species of fish. After about an hour of waiting for this current to drop my brothers rod went right into Free Spool. He quickly gave it a pull and was into something large. Most likely what he got yesterday but cut his line – this time he was prepared with his 50lb line rig. It was weird as it felt like straight dead weight. Not like a snapper which tugs down and not like a Kahawai which moves your line sideways. I had thoughts that it could be a Shark or Stingray. Either way I thought it better not be to big nor have large teeth as we are in a small boat with air filled pontoons keeping us a float. Nervously I grabbed the net and starred into the water wondering what might surface from the deep. I saw a long thin shape which could be a Sting Ray or an eel? Getting it closer to the surface the large teeth and thin long body revealed a Barracuda. Are they good eating?? I thought. Well we didn’t want those teeth in the boat so with a turn of the hook remover the Barracuda was off back to the deep. At Least we now know what had previously chomped through his line yesterday, it wasn’t large Snapper it was obviously a Barracuda. We started wondering if they hang out in schools or scare other fish away? Not know much about this fish we decided to keep fishing here. Straight away on his Pilchard bait he got more nibbles – then Whack. He was into another monster. We both knew what this was and sure enough when it got to the boat it was obviously another Barracuda. We decided that was it, we need to move.

We released this one as well and moved south about 400m down the beach from the Paraparaumu Boat Club. We were in 27m of water as yesterday we found we got some good takes at this depth. Our burly pot was virtually empty and now the current was virtually all gone – perfect for fishing, unfortunately not much to attract them to the boat. We threw in a lot shellfish we had collected and also a pilchard. About an hour and half had past – we had got 1 Kahawai and 2 Barracuda all released. I think we felt that there was better fish to catch. It wasn’t long when the lighter tackle rod was into what seemed to be a nice Snapper. Well it fought like a Snapper – but this wasn’t on a Snapper rig so I wasn’t 100% convinced and it could be something else. It was a fun fight on the light rod even though it didn’t move much to the side like a Kahawai would. I found this fish didn’t give up like a small Snapper would, it dived back down a few times. Getting it closer to the boat my brother shouted “it’s a big Trevally”. I had to think for a moment to workout what fish the Trevally was…. getting it into the net he said that’s a huge Trevally, I hadn’t ever caught one of these before so I had nothing to tell whether it was a large one or not. He started laughing his head off, “what on earth is a Trevally doing out here” … he was sure they are only caught around rocks. This Trevally measured 45cm and was my fish Trevally caught and what a beautiful fish… very random… in fact this was just really the beginning of a very random few hours of fishing. This was a keeper so was Iki Spiked and put into the fish bin. We hadn’t had any luck on the two larger rods with Snapper rigs and Large bait on them just yet. I put the lighter rod down again and within about 10mins I had another fish on that line. Again it fought like a Snapper and not like the Trevally, so I was sure this one was a Snapper. But again I was wrong. Getting it to the boat it was a nice size Gurnard again well above legal and was the largest one we had caught thus far. We started questioning why this lighter rod was getting good fish numbers, but still gave our Snapper rigs faith that they would get into some action soon.

Sure enough not to long after my brother got nibbles and then a heavy weight. It wasn’t like the Barracuda, it was just straight dead weight – It had to be a shark. We brought it up to the boat and sure enough it was a Dog Fish. Funny thing was it was just holding onto the Pilchard and not actually hooked so it just let go when we got it up. It was a good size as well – over 1m. My brother threatened that if we caught it again he would keep it as they are good eating. Sure enough he felt it on his line again, this time he waited then did a large strike – it was hooked. We netted it and brought it into the boat. To be honest I have never seen such an evil looking face in my life. They are beautifully coloured however. He took the hook out but before we could think of how to kill it my lighter tackle line got into a Kahawai. This was large as well. It made this little rod bend right in half so I had to put on the drag. With this action my brother baited his line and then got it down. With the Kahawai fighting away I looked at the Dog Fish and told my brother we should let this one go, it’s way to much meat and I think we will catch more. He decided to “throw” it back into the water to make sure it didn’t go back down and scare away the other fish. Just after he did this my heavier tackle line bent over and my brother jumped to get it out of the holder. Whatever it was it almost pulled him over board. Struggling to hold the rod and workout the drag he fell from oneside of the boat to the other. It was very large and it didn’t just go up and down it went to the side to side aswell. Seeing that I had a Kahawai on (which I would say I had been playing for about 10mins now – with this lighter rod I could not just bring it in) he concluded this would have to be a large Kahawai. The. My brothers line however was still below us, so I had a thought that this might be a large Snapper. I didn’t say anything as I had my hands full. He started the lift and wind action with his rod to bring the large fish up. After a short while he suddenly yelled out – “its a huge Snapper, get the Net!!” I put the drag on the light rod and grabbed the net. The first attempt I missed this huge fish, then on the second attempt I duged in deep and scooped it up. Even though half its body was hanging out of the net I still managed to drop it into the boat. “WOW … “holly $#$” were a couple of words mentioned. It was the largest Snapper I had ever seen. Not really having much time to marvel at this I still had the Kahawai to bring in. This was about a 15 – 20mins fight so far. We had conversation over whether to kill this beast or let it go. After looking at it we decided that it was a large Snapper but probably not the old breeding stock fish which we had pledged we would release. My brother Iki spiked it and I got the Kahawai in and released (it was again a very large one but we were only after 2lb Kahawai not the breeding stock). We got the weight in at 12lb for the Snapper, again this is kinda strange to be catching this size fish in this location in Kapiti. But then again i’m not an expert at sea fishing so perhaps it’s not uncommon to get 12lb Snapper. I was amazed to see such a large fish and knew that we had plenty of freezer space and mouths to feed to easily eat a fish of this size, so we weren’t worried about keeping this one as it was something we could easily eat.

We continued to fish and started to feel quite proud of ourselves. We did a quick summary of the last 2 hours and laughed about how random it had been. 2 Kahawai – the 2 Barracuda, the Trevally Gurnard, the Shark and now this huge Snapper. What more randomness could happen? Well apparently there was still more to come.

We started getting more and more nibbles – by this time there was no current at all and the chop had virtually died. It was about 7:15pm and we only had shellfish as burly, so knowing this day was coming to an end we threw them all in the water around us. Sure enough the nibbles turned into another fish on my lighter rod. “Dammit” I said…. it’s another large Kahawai. Knowing I was going to be into another 15min fight I got comfortable and poured a coffee while the drag went nuts. I gotta say now, Kahawai I respect a huge amount. They are beautiful eating and have amazing fighting power. I played this very much like a would a trout on a fly line – the small reel on this light rod also wound backwards so I could let go of the handle and it let out line. During this time my brother got a nice pan size Snapper – it was dwarfed by the large Snapper but still great eating. Sure enough a few minutes later he got yet again another Panny. All this while I was having another huge battle with this large Kahawai. Finally after a 15min fight I got it and released it, without taking it out of the water (thanks to the great hook removing tool). I have to explain the reason I am telling you about these long fights with Kahawai, the next fish I got on this rod was the biggest surprise of the day. Maybe it was irony or perhaps it was just preemption, but as I was releasing this last Kahawai I said to my brother this was a large Kahawai and he said to just check to see it doesn’t have a yellow tail as King Fish are large and have yellow tails. It was obvious to me that this was a Kahawai. But now I had in my head that a yellow tail means King Fish. Also something earlier in the day – one of my friends from college mentioned to me that his mate had caught a 22lb King Fish earlier in the week at Pukerua Bay. Maybe it was the alignment of the planets or just plain irony all this talk aboutKing Fish.

About 15mins after letting that Kahawai go I got some nibbles on yet again the lighter rod with 8lb nylon and the small hooks. Whack – another Kahawai. Well that’s what I thought. In fact I was so tired from my previous 2 battles with the Kahawai I wasn’t to fussed if I just played this one half heartily. I was going to let it go anyway so doesn’t matter if it gets off. I took sips of my coffee and let the drag loose and started to show off a bit as this was such a successful trip – why not take this one without a care in the world. I let the Kahawai wind its way around the other lines which it tangled up with and with some laid back untangling with the other rods it was clear again. I got a bit cocky and started holding the fish rather than letting it run, just to test this light rod out and see if it could handle the flex. Sure enough like the strong fish Kahawai are I had to let the reel go at points just to take the strain of the rod. After about 10mins fluffying about with the fish – letting it run and testing different strains out, I got it to the surface. At quick glance I assumed it was a Kahawai. Then at second glance it had a yellow tail – I yelled out “it has a yellow tail” my brother totally surprised had a look – “it’s a bloody King Fish”… “how on earth did you get a King fish up on this rod?”. We netted it and measured it at 65cm. We took a quick photo then released it – as the legal size limit is 75cm.

The King Fish I caught on the light tackle rod using 8lb line. It measured 65cm so was released

Totally taken back we wondered how on earth we had caught a King Fish. We didn’t troll for them and let alone on such light tackle – not to mention we are just off Paraparaumu Beach. What a crazy way to end the day. As the sunset it formed a beautiful pink sky – there was no wind and no chop. Just mill pond. A beautiful ending to a great few hours fishing.

Conclusion:

We caught a total of 5 large Kahawai (all released), 1 large Dog fish (released), 1 Trevally (kept), 1 Gurnard (kept), 3 Snapper – a 12lb one and two Pannys (all kept), 2 Barracuda (all released) and a 65cm King Fish (released). Not bad for 3 hours fishing just off Paraparaumu Beach at the tide change. I would never have thought such variety nor number could ever be caught just out here at Kapiti. We haven’t even tried any other spots yet, just Paraparaumu Beach from about the links tower down south to about 400m. It’s my belief however that this fishing will occur all the way down the coast in water between 20m – 30m and best fishing is an hour of either side of tide change – mainly due to the fact you don’t need heavy sinkers. Our next spot we are going to try out will be down at Raumati Beach – which I suspect will produce some incredible fishing. The large Snapper we caught had Crabs inside its stomach so they must feed on Crabs and Shellfish as the Shellfish we throw into the water did attract the Snapper and other fish. The Pilchard does attract some different fish and Snapper do like that. But they also love the squid I had on my rods as well so I can’t conclude a lot from this trial. The Snapper rigs caught the targeted Snapper but on the light rod, the simple two hook then a sinker, caught a larger variety of fish. My heavier rod which had the Snapper Rig with one large strip of Squid only caught 1 Kahawai and the large 12lb Snapper, but nothing else. I think it’s therefore important to vary what is on your rods and the different rigs you have on. The lighter rod caught 2 Kahawai, 1 Trevally, 1 Gurnard and 1 King Fish. It also caught the only Snapper the previous day. It could be the light nylon on the line or it could be the smaller hooks that are the reasons this rod is producing the numbers it is. Remember I am using the Black Magic Red KL 1-0 hooks, these hooks are incredible in the fact they do self hook and also seem to always get the fish in the side of there mouth. This i great when you are attempting to release a fish, which we do a lot of. We now have a fridge filled with fresh fish and i’m excited that Kapiti has some of great sea fishing – I owuld never have thought we could have caught the volume we have just off the beach. I think that it might be grossly overlooked as a fishing destination but all I can say is that yesterday we caught enough fish for dinner for the whole of next week and with Snapper selling at the Supermarket for $30 a Kg then we just caught about $300 worth of fresh fish. This is only about the 8th time I have gone out sea-fishing. I have learnt so much and though it does seem a bit hit and miss to begin with I can now safely say I am hooked and there is so much fish out there to be caught. There is also so much information and if you read and follow what people have to say then apply this practice, you will be successful. Happy fishing all and best of Luck…