A flyrod kingi virgin deflowered

During the week TT texted me that we should go for a fish Saturday.... the weather on Friday afternoon had me thinking because it was shocking. Saturday dawned chilly, moving frontal system has sucked some cooler air from the south and we had a sub 20 degree day for the first time in a while. Southerlies don't normally float my fishing boat, so I checked in with TT because the weather was supposed to be worsening.... his reply was ..."hell yeah lookn mint". It was calming down, but somewhere out to the south was a bunch of weather just waiting to pounce. Met up at TT's and met our third musketeer, Lucas, a mate of TT's. We had the boat in by 3 and headed out to the channel markers for a fly rod session on the kings before looking for snapper on soft baits. I rigged up a couple of rods, the 10 for Lucas and the 8 for me. I wasn't sure about Lucas's fly fishing pedigree and didn't want a broken rod so gave him a few tips about how to cast, strike and not raise the tip and point load my rod. First marker  I fired the fly in to the buoy, 2 maybe three strips and it was on. The rat gave a good account of itself on the 8, and with TT motoring us off the buoy steadily we led him out into clear water where he played a straight up and down game and was in the net after a good fight. I hit a fish at each the first 3 buoys we rocked up to, the final being my best of the day.



Grunting into it



Don't want to jinx myself but for once I landed 100% which is unlikley to happen again, normally the buggers seek out structure like the buoy chains and ping off, so that was neat. Lucas meanwhile struggled away - getting the hang of hiffing a chunk of T-14 (tungsten impregnated line) is not easy. We pulled up to another buoy, I got tail nipped and then tangled my running line when suddenly he was taken. He played the fish like a pro, not high sticking, handling it gently and not freaking the fish out. Now the rain had started.

A happy man

The fish led Lucas around the boat until finally it was in the net... by now the rain had started. The kingis were really on the chew, and TT had the next fish on.. and the next. And the next. His luck was out, pinging off 2 larger fish and landing perhaps the second smallest kingi I've ever seen.

We left to head down to Motuihe Channel to look for a snapper, and boy did we look. We each boated reasonable fish on plastics but it wasn't a hot bite... and by now the wind was not quite howling but we were getting wet and cold out there. We stopped and fished in a few spots before deciding to soak some pillies on local reefs. The tides were huge, so when we anchored at our final destination the current flow was something else again. Little did we know that within 12 hours much of low lying Auckland would be in flood. Er struggled for a few more small snaps before heading back to Okahu to pull the boat. I couldn't believe the time, and at about 9.30 we were in KFC looking and feeling like cold drowned rats.

Saltie fly at its best, 5 landed, 2 lost (broken) and a few missed takes. Snapper fishing at almost its hardest. A mixed bag.