Big Angry Fish!

I had arranged with Nik to take dad on a trip for his 70th birthday. Nik had promised 'some changes' in his life, but hadn't really elaborated. Given that The Gulf is currently firing with fish in the 30 - 40m depth range, and big work ups of anchovies, kahawai, gannets, whales and sharks, Nik made the call that Coromandel would be our destination. Sweet, its been ages since I went there. Got away from work on Friday arvo, delayed for 35 minutes at Kopu Bridge... arrived Coro at 4 on the dot. Well, the sight that greeted me... no sign of Saltflyer, but instead this rig stood out.

Fully sponsored, Nik & Milan are now filming a TV series which will appear next year in prime time. 4 years of planning and hard work have culminated in them being able to do this - hats off lads. With the skills these guys have it will be top notch action. Didn't have time to unpack, we needed to launch the "Blue Cockroach" quickly as the tide was receding. We got out at Te Kouma, on an outgoing tide in the face of a stinky SW breeze. The plan was to find some snaps for our dinner.

We were doing something a bit different to how I'd fished before, using "Pirate" jigs on medium braid (7kg). I threw back my first snap; that almost came back to bite us as we struggled to hit a fish after that. Finally under a setting sun I snuck another aboard to keep Nik's snap company - dinner achieved! We pulled the boat out at the Long Bay Motorcamp where we were staying - easy as. That was Friday - fresh snapper for dinner washed down with Heineken. Nice.

Technoviking is my hero

Saturday dawned a bit calmer, the wind coming from NW. We got out about 8, and headed North to look for workups. We headed North.... and further and further... finally after a couple of hours we saw the first gannets working. What followed was more or less consistent fishing and for the next few hours we were hooked into good solid snaps.

Arrrggghh me hearties, them Pirate Jigs are deadly

Feelin the love

Dad with a good fish

We fished on and made pigs of ourselves... been a while since I killed a limit of snapper to be honest. We got to 27 spiked and iced fish and then got the biggest work up of the day...

From where this guy emerged...



That was the last fish of a great day, and he went back to do his bit for the snapper polpulation. It was 2.30 and we were fished out, so decided to head back in, pack up and get on the road home. This type of jigging really opened my eyes - years ago I got hooked up when the metal jigging craze first took off. That craze gradually tapered off and of the past 8 or so years soft plastics have been the rage. The pirate type jig is an elegant extension of the old reapers, lethals etc, and reminded me how efficient a style of fishing it is. No smelly bait, no chewed up soft plastics, easy to control, snapper love them.... but I walked into a shop today and was horrified at the price of the Shimano ones....

Thanks Nik for a great trip, and happy 70th dad.

Watch out for.....

April 2012