Teen shuts out old salts with biggest snapper
A 13-year-old with enough fishing wisdom to rival old salts three times his age has taken out one of the most coveted prizes at the weekend’s Taranaki Kayak Fishing Classic.
Among 130 kayakers who took part in the two-day competition, it was Finn Riddick who caught the biggest snapper when he pulled in an 11.365kg monster on Sunday morning.
The year 10 student at New Plymouth’s Francis Douglas Memorial College had not entered the competition before, and at first he thought he had caught a shark.
“It felt like a shark. Didn’t put up much fight at all,” he said of the 25-pound fish.
“It almost looked like a kingi, but then it sort of floated the last couple metres and I thought, ‘Heck – it’s a big snapper.’”
In keeping with the conventions of the fishing community, Finn would not specify where he caught the snapper other than to say it was off the south Taranaki coast in 12 metres of water. But he did let on that he’d used an “old piece of squid” to lure the fish into biting his No 4 hook.
As well as being the biggest snapper in the competition, it is also the biggest fish Finn has caught in a sport he first tried as an 8-year-old.
“I love the freedom and independence of it,” he said.
“And I can’t drive a boat yet.”
As well as bragging rights over his mostly middle-aged fellow competitors, Finn took home a new rod and reel and a bunch of tackle, which he will soon deploy on his Viking Pro-fish Reload kayak.
Taranaki Kayak Fishing Club president Weston Newman, who also briefly made the leaderboard for the first time with a 1.2kg trevally, said Finn was an incredible young man.
“He is 13, but you would think he had the wisdom of someone who has been fishing for 50 years,” he said.
Newman said the event continued to attract a huge number of entrants, with the best fishing coming on Sunday along the south Taranaki coast.
Aside from one kayak damaged at White Cliffs and a few embarrassing “turtles” when kayakers flipped as they came into shore, the competition went off without a hitch.
He said the organisers were grateful to their sponsors and to Butlers Reef in Ōakura for hosting the weigh-in at the venue’s garden bar.
“Sure, there’s a few scales on the grass, but they’ll all get mown up,” Newman said.
“We really couldn’t do it anywhere else.”