Fishing For Kingfish at Tairua, New Zealand on Epic Adventures
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The report is finally here after a long wait...
I first got the glimpse of the Yellow Tail Kingfish when I saw one of Mark Berg's Fishing Adventures shows. That episode i watched was fishing at New Zealand with Epic Adventures... We were craving for a fishing + rest relax holiday somewhere not too expensive i.e. Europe and not too near i.e. China... so NZ was an excellent choice. Only 800 SGD away by Jetstar budget airlines!
We rented an MPV and drove to Tairua while visiting many other locations including Hobbiton film site also known as the "Shire". They're building up a new site now for the new Hobbit movie...
Well, you saw the food pictures some blog posts back and now it's the fishing part!
We booked a 2 day fishing trip with Epic Adventures Carl but unfortunately the first day was cancelled due to bad weather! What a bummer for us to go during winter! 2nd day was fine and Carl put us up with Toby for another day so we still had two days! Great service!
The weather was extremely cold and we had to wear extra layers of clothing. I was not used to fishing in the cold and after jigging for baitfish, I was DOWN. I had my first sea sickness in my whole life... oh no... But after a few berleying for the fishes, it was fine.
Jigging was slow but Jamie still hit a good number on jigs. We are using 200 - 400g jigs. Our boat was the Sanity and it came equipped with Jigging Master rods, Stellas etc. so we were there for the kill! Kingfish weren't responding, snapper weren't responding but we still managed to enjoy ourselves over the 2 days. Jamie hit one close to 20kg and it gave him a tough time!
I have new found respect for the Kingfish after this trip. I was probably fighting with at least 12kg of drag with the fighting belt and when the fish took out line, it was hanging on till it stopped running. The reef is theirs! Awesome fish with awesome power!
Here's the pictures of the fishes we caught... great stuff...
Jigging for baitfish...
I got my first "ang moh" snapper!
Yes this was one of our baitfishes!! wtf!! Kahawai...
One of Jamie's biggest!


Jamie trying to tickle me

The fish finder... we jigged at where the fish were... so we had to use jigging PE line

Filleting a Kingfish... we brought back only one :)

Comments
All the best,
,,,Paddy,,,