A path less travelled
A four-day live-aboard charter in late May, fishing around the northern tip of the North Island, brought home to me just how good fishing can be in areas that receive little fishing pressure.
Our brief to Captain Rick Pollock on Pursuit was to fish for inshore species such as snapper, trevally and kingfish, rather than pursuing late-season marlin.
We left Mangonui Harbour early, planning to fish for kingfish on our way north and then finish the day at Spirits Bay, tucked out of the wind fishing for snapper.
A couple of hours into steaming up the coast, a late-season striped marlin ambushed a lure trolled on 15kg tackle. It took just under an hour for Peter Elliott to bring his very first marlin to the boat. Estimated at 90kg it was tagged, photographed and released – a great start to the trip.
In a mixture of weather over the next three days, we fished many locations across the very top of the North Island and down the west coast as far as Scott Point. We caught many fish species, but catching snapper was the main focus, whether casting soft baits close inshore against the cliffs, behind the surf line along magnificent Far North beaches, or fishing bait and lures over reefs in deeper water.
The fishing was pretty good, with some of the bigger snapper pulling the scales down to around 8kg. With Pursuit’s size and draft, we couldn’t usually follow a hooked fish inshore so some of the bigger ones broke us off in the shallow foul.
Rounding Cape Reinga was spectacular, Pursuit hugging the shoreline between the lighthouse and Columbia Bank where the currents meet at the northernmost tip of New Zealand. It was an exhilarating passage through massive standing waves.
Once through the gap we left the wild water behind for the relative calm and sunshine of Te Werahi Bay and continued on towards Cape Maria van Diemen, another spectacular location with amazing over-falls between Motuopao Island and the cape. From there we turned the corner and motored down the west coast.
In the course of our travels, we stopped to fish reefs in Tom Bowling Bay and Spirits Bay, catching plenty of fat snapper, big blue cod, trevally and lots of kingfish on jigs, bait, plastics and live bait. As a bonus, while fishing for snapper in 40m of water, we also caught a couple of nice hapuku, the bigger one around 20kg – quite a handful on stray-line gear.
On the west coast, we spent one evening and part of the following morning anchored close to shore in 18m of water stray-lining baits into a berley trail. This produced a string of decent snapper, enough big tope to test our tackle and our patience, and some great trevally. I broke out my fly rod and caught 2-3kg trevally one after another until my arms ached.
The last day of the trip included an epic morning behind the surf line along Twilight Beach. In such clear water snapper were visible in the slanting, early morning light, rising off the bottom to inhale our soft plastic baits. It was brilliant soft bait fishing
In such clear water snapper were visible in the slanting, early morning light, rising off the bottom to inhale our soft plastic baits.
culminating in a couple of 7-8kg snapper from no more than five metres of water.
On our way home, we spent time slow-trolling live kahawai for kingfish and throwing topwater lures for a couple of bites, but no hook-ups. Soft plastics worked though, hooking kingfish that were simply too big for the gear, along with plenty of snapper.
Our steam back to Mangonui was uninterrupted by marlin strikes, but to be honest we were all pretty well fished-out anyway. It had been a wonderful few days enjoying great fishing in a superbly remote and beautiful part of New Zealand.