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Hey Raiders. The two best things about marrying a kiwi are kingfish and snapper!!! I am currently on the annual trip to NZ to visit the in laws and also do a spot of fishing. On Saturday a few mates and i were lucky enough to have a charter booked in out of Mangawhai with Tony Orton. Aim was to chase kings at the spectacular Mokohinau islands 52 km offshore. This trip had been long in the making with 4 attempts cancelled due to weather. Conditons were great and the boat in immaculate conditoon. First stop livies. A few spots and we had about 30 jack makerel in the boat.....then the cruise out wide where we saw sun fish, thresher sharks and a rumoured marlin. First drop with the livies and whack, off goes the telica with a decent fish. 12kg. Nice start. Fishing a bit slow through the high tide but with the water running again and a new location it can only be described as pandemonium. Tony put us right on the spot over and over again as we brought up king after king from between 65m and 140m on livies and jigs (300g). We lost count but about 30 fish all from about 10 to 18 kg. At one point we had all five lines railed......ridiculous. We even got a beautiful snapper on a livey at 70m!!!! Kept two kingies for the table and to give out to the neighbours...... sashimi, steaks and smoked. Delicious. Sore arms, massive smiles and a day we will never forget. A couple of photos below. Back to Sydney tomorrow. Duncan Ps. If anyone is chasing kings soon around Sydney I am desperate snd boatless right now. ..... Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Great report. I could catch rats all day long. So much fun! Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Great stuff mate. Just sold the boat and currently looking at kayaks. Hope to be on the water again soon. Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Serious fish. Love it. Well done. Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Brilliant mate. I have had a few rat sessions like that in enzed, typically jigging. So much fun even when catching the smaller models. Damn i love jigging for kings! Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Well it has been a helluva long time between posts for me......two kids have stalled my fishing career somewhat. Boat got sold etc etc.... Proud milestone today though. My eldest boy Felix (almost 4) got his first fish and a decent keeper flatty to boot. He caught two in a quick 30 min session at Rose Bay. Dad got zip! Both using squidgies. Hopefully this is the start of a long lasting interest in fishing. Then perhaps the missus will approve boat 2. [emoji12] Great day. Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Cheers mate. NZ certainly has amazing fishing. Apparently the marlin this year have been ridiculous. Hoping for some harbour luck this Easter!

Hey raiders. Been a long while since a posting. Two kids under 3 make finding time for fishing difficult at best. However, thankfully i married a kiwi so regular trips over the ditch usually result in a spate of fishing. Anyhow, just got back from 3 weeks on the north island. Early luck was not with us with a planned charter to the Mokahinau Islands canned twice due to weather. Managed a couple of good inshore snapper sessions but really i have been wanting to catch decent king. We always find lots of rats which are crazy fun when jigging but haven't had much luck with bigger models. Second last day and my bro in law and i headed out from the Auckland north shore in the tinny. Got some slimeys early and had one under a balloon whilst we picked up some nice pannies straylining. Good start to the day but no love on the livey.... Once the pillies were done headed to a nearby bay known to hold bait. Cast a few plastics around with little success. Sounder thick with bait we sent the sabiki over and bang more perfect sized slimies. Livey time! Sent two livies out back on the "big gear" and slow trolled. Within 30 secs zzzzzzzzzżzzzzzzzz and we were on. After about 8 minutes brought in my PB king at 91cm and 10kg. Hooting and hollering all around. Yiew! Finally........ Unfortunately there were no more takes that day but i haven't stopped smiling since. Sashimi, pan fried and smoked. All delicious. Catching a good fish on your own boat after trying for so long is so rewarding. Bro in law and i both stoked. Looking at harbour or pittwater for an Easter king chase. If anyone has a recommendation let me know. Couple of pics attached. Tight lines. Duncan

Great haul mate. Awesome fishing.

Nice work mate.

hmmm, no shortage of replies. I would love to come out one day. I will send a personal message. I am a very keen fisho but have not done a lot offshore. Keen to share any costs and have all the gear i need. If one of the other 30 replies fall through let me know. Cheers Duncs

very jealous....nice work.

Well, I have to say that if you own a boat and didn’t get on the water this weekend, you are either crazy or have a very dominant other half. Spectacular conditions for autumn fishing. I was lucky enough to head out on my stepbros boat from Pittwater, four of us in total. We headed out around 2pm returning just on dark around 630pm. First stop was the usual livey spot at the end of Pittwater. Sure enough millions of yellowtail eager to jump on a bait jig once driven into a frenzy by white bread (high fibre of course). Grabbed about 15 of these and into the bucket they went (no livey tank on this boat as it is more for cruising than fishing). We then headed straight out to west reef about 3 nautical miles from the end of Pittwater. This was our first trip to this area and we were keen to look for snapper. Once on the reef and about an 11m mark we dropped in a couple of livies and also a couple of paternosters with chunks of fresh yellowtail. Not long before we were on with a few reef species such as Sergeant Baker and rock/reef cod, but no snapper..... We drifted off the reef and into water about 30 m deep. Straight away one of the lines took off and it felt weighty. Not a lot of fight and a few minutes later we brought in a baby hammerhead shark. He went back to fight another day. A few minutes later we had another hit and good weight but not much fight. Thought it was another shark but to my ABSOLUTE joy it was a beautiful fat flatty (65 cm and 1.75 kilos!!!). I don’t really keep PBs for fish but this is defo the biggest lizard I have ever landed so I (and the boat) were very stoked. Continued the drift and within 20 minutes landed a 45 and 55cm specimen. The fishing tamed a little after this with multiple undersized flatties and one undersize snapper. No worries though, it was all smiles. On the trip we also saw a turtle, penguins, dolphins and a cracking ocean sunset. Doesn’t really get much better than that. Thanks to Captain Nik, Gareth and Kim for the fantastic day. I hope everyone else who was on the water appreciated it just as much as we did. Cracker of a day......................................... duncs

nice work mate, just how many black snakes were there????

very jealous. Sounds cracking. WELL DONE MATE.

Had a good weekend on the water hitting up the Hawkesbury on Saturday targeting crab/flatties and the harbour on Sunday targeting squid/kingies. Hit the water right on light on Saturday and had pots soaking by 7am. Scored crab in all 10 pots on the first soak and then got four more keepers and a few throwbacks on the next two soaks. o. The crab were feistier than normal too and did some damage to the witches hats. All range of sizes as you can see from the photo. As the tide receded the crab definitely seemed to retire to the deeper channels. In the crabbing downtime we flicked plastics and some mackerel baits for flatties but no luck. Still having trouble getting regular flatties in the Hawkesbury. I know that may sound lame to some of the pros, but hey at least we are trying. Had some inquiries from tailor but no flatties. Sunday, I was battling a pretty stomach bug and was not well at all. I had promised a mate we would go out so against all my good sense off we went (me throwing up all the way...). Launched at Cammeray around 645 and trolled over to Balmoral picking up a nice tailor (good crab bait) for our efforts. Then headed to the north and started flicking these new yamashita jigs I picked up. AWESOME. 4 squid in ten minutes, one about a foot long. By this time the gentle rocking of the still boat was making me worse so we headed over north head to downrig the squid. Only managed 15 minutes of fishing (with me continually burleying unvoluntarily) before I told my mate fishing was over, I had to get home. Oh well, no kingies and we were pleased with the squidding. QUESTION – we do not have a livey tank on our boat but poddies and yakkas stay alive reasonably well in a bucket if you change the water to aerate it pretty regularly. The squid however did not last 10 minutes. Any ideas of how to do this without a dedicated livey tank? Pretty good weekend, would have liked a couple of flatties and a kingie but we will be out there again soon. Cheers, Duncs PS – if anyone say two guys struggling with a front wheel drive on a very very slippery low tide Brooklyn boat ramp around 130 on Sat avo that was us. Thanks to those who assisted.........no thanks to those on the jetty who stood around and chuckled

Holy crap. Sounds like the kind of session I dream of.

Hi Raiders, I am heading down to Melbourne on the easter long weekend and am looking for a good snapper charter/skipper. Prefereably small <8 people as I hate cattle boats.... If anyone has any recommendations please let me know. Cheers

Thanks heaps for the advice guys. Much appreciated, Duncs

hey raiders, After missing what would of been a cracking day fishing last Saturday (I thoroughly blame the weather man....what bloody rain??? and possibly a significant hangover) my mate (co boat owner) and I headed out on Narrabean Lake on Sunday morning. We arrived at around 645 and got a nice bucket of poddies to rig as livies. We hit the lake side (south) of the road bridge first, drifting with poddies rigged both weighted and unweighted. Did abotut 4-5 long drifts at what seemed like an ideal speed. Poddies were alive and swimming. No dice. Next we headed under the bridge and to the north where we did the same thing along the long shallow sand flats. No dice. Finally went deep into the southern end of the lake and did some final drifts. No dice. Can anyone offer any advice on our methods? Furthermore we lost the body of about 4 livies at certain points in the day with the head remaining on the hook and the body completely munched. There was no significant bites of note on the rods. Any ideas what this may have been? Crab? Tailor? This was our first first in the Lake so not devasted that we only took home one keeper bream but would love some advice. Thanks in advance. duncs

nice one mate. bonnies are fun to catch and make great sashimi.

Holy crap!!! That is some fishing report...........

Lads (and ladies), happy to report that on Sunday I reached my summer goal and finally hooked and landed my first kingie. WOOHOO. Having just read the reports about kingies greater than a metre I feel pretty humbled but you have to start somewhere, and my kingie career commenced on Sunday avo in the Harbour. Having had not much luck raising yakkas and no luck with the squid around middle harbour we headed out to north head and started dragging some halco bibbed lures. No luck on the first two passes and then my mate nailed a nice bonito. Pretty quiet after this time so we headed inside the harbour a little to get away from the northerly. We got the lures out again and as we cruised past the first marker my reel start peeling line at a crazy rate. Battled the kingie for about 5 minutes with a couple of very nice runs (up there with the best minutes of my life!!) and then got him to surface. Excellent net work from my mate Sprotty and the king was in the boat and I was hootin and hollering like a maniac. Measured 65cm on the nose so he was kept Overall not the most productive day fishing I have ever had but definitely one I am going to remember for a long long time. It was also good to know that my late grandfathers Ambassador 6500C reel and Sabre rod combo, handed to me about 25 years ago is still up to the task. Dinner last night consisted of kingfish sashimi followed by pan fried kingfish with a simple garlic/butter/wine sauce. Very tasty and we still have two more monster steaks in the fridge. Cheers lads, and well done to all the lads who were catching monster kings on the weekend. Very solid form!!! Laters Duncs PS - Gareth, when are we going fishing again??????????

mate, it nothing compared to the flatty and snapper slaughter you experienced the other day. That was nuts. We you using plastics?

Hey raiders, Recently i was lucky enough to travel to Saaamoa for work with a mate of mine. Prior to this trip my mate had been on a seriously good charter on the southern side of Upolu during a flat day on a surf trip. They got three dollies and a marlin in a few hours on the charter which makes for a pretty hot session. I was understandably jealous. We decided to head out on the northern side of Upolu on this trip (mainly because we were staying in Apia and the dock was about 50 m away!!). The boat was called the Indulgence and was captained by a very nice kiwi bloke who was from Mangawhai in NZ. We headed out and after about an hour hit the trolling grounds. Within an hour we hooked up something big and the reel was zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing like nobodies business. My mate, great mate that he is, let me chance my luck first as the other teasers and lines were brought in. The fish was well hooked and within seconds we saw the dollie bouncing all over the place. After a decent fight the fish was landed and was a lot bigger than expected. To be honest I was shocked. It was the first on board so it was put on ice, but before we knew it there was another on. Luke dealt with this second with ease (must have been his experience from his last trip.....) and we were two very satisfied fishos. On the way back in we landed one last fish (right in the harbour) which was given to the local boy who accompanied us on the boat. If you havent been to Saaaamoa I highly recommend it. Great people. Great fishing. And way cheaper than many of the Pacific Islands. Cheers Duncs PS - The luck must have had something to do with the charter guys because I caught pretty much a donut on the Hawkesbury last weekend..........