Cool story: Sitting at home caught a ‘monster’ off deck
Five minutes into what he thought was a normal day fishing off the deck of his coastal Taranaki home, Brent Davies landed the catch of his life – a monster 14.5-kilogram snapper.
Davies regularly fishes from the deck, which sits on the coast near Okato, using a drone to whip his hook, line and sinker about 500 metres out to sea.
However, Tuesday’s catch was 10 times bigger than anything he’s landed before.
He has never been interested in using his prime fishing spot as a way to catch big fish, only ever intending to catch dinner.
‘‘Normally if I’m going to catch a big fish, I’ll go out to sea and burley up and really have a crack at it,’’ he said.
It’s such an unexpected catch from his deck that he has no intention eating it. Davies has instead stored the 32-pound monster in his freezer in the hopes of having it stuffed by a local taxidermist.
‘‘I always thought if I got a 30 pounder, I would stuff it. It’s a pretty cool story to have it up on the wall literally five metres from where it was caught.’’
Davies said he could feel how big the fish was before he reeled it in, but still had to get it back on the deck before he could claim it as his own.
‘‘I could see it was quite big from the deck but I thought it was like six or eight kilos tops.
‘‘I had to wind it to the edge of the water and then run down and get it.’’
Taking him about one minute to get to the water, Davies was pleasantly surprised when he saw just how large it was.
‘‘I immediately said ‘s... that’s bigger than I thought it was going to be’.’’
Davies immediately took it to the local boat club to have an official weigh-in. It was 14.54kg.
‘‘Now, after 30 years of trying, I have a mount to put on the wall and a fish that’s worthy of it.’’
Though Davies’ catch wouldn’t fit into a record category, its weight matched the Cape Egmont Boat Club surfcasting record of 14.5kg, rear commodore Phillip Barrett said.
However, it was a little way off the boating record of 14.9kg for a snapper.
‘‘It’s bloody unusual to catch a fish like that,’’ Barrett said.
After sending a Snapchat to family and friends showing off his new catch, Davies thought that was the end of bragging rights but his son had other ideas, posting the story to Facebook.
The post on the Taranaki Community Fishing Page went viral, though Davies did receive some backlash for keeping the fish.
‘‘If you think about it practically, three or four 10-pound fish have a better potential of breeding than an old moocher at the end of his life,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s the fisherman’s choice on what they do.’’
‘‘I could see it was quite big from the deck but I thought it was like six or eight kilos tops.’’
Brent Davies