Fishing How To

Having never really tried fishing before, I've been very keen since my arrival in New Zealand to try my hand at fishing. However, it really was a Fishing how to?

We set off from Hamilton at 5am, yes a very early start so I was up at 4am! Ouch! My Father-in-Law has a lovely boat called Ankame and we hooked her up to the ute and drove West to a place called Raglan where we launched on what appeared to look like a perfect summers day.

However, once we'd launched, we soon released that the water was very choppy to say the least! I was holding on for dear life and was extremely grateful that the Lord gave me good knees to adsorb some of the bigger swells. After we'd traveled out roughly 20 odd nautical miles, to a depth of around 45 meters, we dropped anchor and set about our days fishing. 

My Father-In-Law commented that lately they've been catching their quoter pretty early on and have sometimes been back on dry land by noon! Therefore although I was a complete novice, I had a hint that they knew what they were doing and felt quietly confident that I'd come up trumps and at least catch a fish. In fact at that stage, I'd have been happy to catch a little one, because then I'd have at least saved face! 

My Brother-in-Law who also attended gifted me a rod! I was stoked with excitement by this time and couldn't wait to get stuck into whatever was thrown at me.

We baited up and dropped the line in. No sooner had I cast my very first cast, I'd got a bite! It was a Snapper! Sure, it wasn't going to win any prizes for size, but I was over the moon! I'd broken my duck (Cricket term) and felt sure I'd now be able to catch more. As the morning progressed, I became more and more confident with the different techniques that both of them taught me. I wouldn't fishing was a hard task to learn, however I would say that it's a hard sport to master! By now I was cutting off my own bait, trying to remember to cut flesh side up, towards the skin. Snapper also love Squid so I even tried some of that too.  You hold the bait in your left hand, assuming you're right handed, and push the hook through, twist, then come back through. So the bait's firmly on the hook. We were using two hooks on the fishing line. So once you'd baited both hooks, you just dangled the line into the Ocean, released the reel, remembering to keep your right thumb over the spool. So as not to get the line all tangled! Of course, I messed that up a couple of times, being a true to form rookie! However, it wasn't such a big deal, as I'd realised my error and caught it before it caused too much of an issue. 

After about an hours fishing, I surpassed all my own personal expectations and scored what I'd call a double hat-trick! Whereby I'd managed to pull out six fish, a mixture of Snapper and some rather beautiful looking fish called a Gurnet or Gurnard (pictured below), in only three casts!

A Gurnet or Gurnard Fish.

Things did go a little quite after that, so we decided to move a bit further out to a depth of 50 meters. In hope we'd catch a few more. My Brother-in-law wanted to have enough not only for normal eating, but also to try out his new smoker!

It was a good call, we anchored now with a small group of other boats. A mixture of small boats and some more larger charter boats. Although the Garmin technology Sonar didn't pick up any specific hits on a shoal of fish, we hit more and more with every single cast. I think all in all, I only lost a couple of the bites I had all day. By now my reeling in action was being timed to perfection and I was pulling up about halfway, then winding the reel on the downward motion and was feeling more and more confident of my own abilities. 

The highlight of the day has to be the sighting of a couple of Sharks! My Brother-in-Law sighted a Blue Shark before we moved to the new 50 meter depth, then about an hour after we'd arrived at the 50 meter mark, a Mako Shark started to hound the boat! It was dead exciting! Just knowing that we were the focus of his attention was amazing. He was clearly attracted to the tiny bits of fish bait we were using, that were being wiped off the deck. So then each time we had a bite, we'd have to frantically reel in because it he'd seen/smelt the fish we were landing, it would have been history! In all the excitement I managed to catch it on a 3 minute video (See below). 

After all that excitement, we decided we'd got enough catch (well within the 10 fish each, plus gurnet, as they don't count towards your quoter), So we headed back to Raglan Bay and took a lovely shot of the sun overlooking the bay.

We then headed back to my Brother-in-Laws house to count up the catch, gut and skin the fish and clean the boat, rods and tackle.

We literally filled up a whole chilly bin full of fish! 

My Father -in-Law with a lovely Snapper!

Some of the lovely Snapper!

The day's catch!

We rounded off the rather knackering day buy stopping off at the local fish and chip shop, where they provide a battering and frying service! What a perfect way to try the fish that I'd caught, literally a couple of hours earlier! I really can't wait for the Christmas holidays now as we're taking the boat to the beach house at Hahei, for many more fishing adventures!

All the family enjoying the day's catch! Straight from the newspaper (as it should be!)