Hey guys,
Just got back the other day from a trip to NZ with a bunch of mates. We fished out of Tairua, a little town about 1 1/2 hours south of Auckland, on the Coromandel peninsula.
We fished with Carl from Epic Adventures and another boat he had organised, as there were 9 of us all up. I would put him down as one of the most helpful, knowledgeable and friendly charter operators/guides I have every fished with. Nothing was too much drama, even on our non-fishing days he was helpful. He also makes a mean fish cake which he dropped around one night out of the blue.
Given the exchange rate and Carl's reasonable prices this was a very affordable trip. I will be back again probably early next year, when they get them on the surface
Anyway, on to the fishing. We planned to fish at least 4 days out of the 7 we were there...and as it turned out that is all we could do due to some big winds. A few of the days we could also only jig a few hours then had to move into the lee of some islands for protection and fish soft plastics for snapper.
Anyway, the first day between 2 boats we landed in excess of 100 kingies, with the biggest going 20kg and several in excess of 15kg. The 'rats' were averaging around 80-85cm, a good fish here in Sydney! We also got seriously smoked a couple of times before we wised up to just how hard these things hit and go, particularly 2 or 3 cranks off the bottom! One of the guys also had his t-curve 400 broken by a fish which was promptly made to pay for its indiscretion by being whacked on the head and iced down for sashimi.
Day 2 was mainly snapper, with one of 74cm being landed (a nice fat fish of nearly 15lbs) and several in the high 50's.
Day 3 and 4 we had off, and spent some time sight seeing the beautiful peninsula, and enjoying the hospitatlity of the local pub (a bit too much).
Day 5 we were back out amongst them, and in only 3 hours or so between the two boats we landed over 50 fish. The fish this day were consistently bigger (many in the 10-13kg bracket) with a few stonkers of 16-19kg. We then went and fished for snapper, I got a 62cm model which went hard on 3kg gear, and another fellow got a 72cm. One of the guys also got a smallish (10kg) Hapuka, which became dinner. Yummo.
Day 6 me and 3 others went and jigged with Carl and the other boat stayed in close as it was forecast to be ordinary and they weren't up for it. It was quite ordinary weather wise, but we landed about 20 fish in 2 hours, again most in the 10kg+ bracket with a few 16kg fish thrown in for good measure.
Here are links to a couple of vids we took, and some photos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KRA8dkavCI#noexternalembedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR4hiFY1oo4#noexternalembed&feature=related
