My Big Snapper
Finally spot x has paid off yet again. The long weekend gives the perfect opportunity to plan a trip away in search of some moster fish. Sometimes the weather can be so bad in Auckland, but fine everywhere else. This weekend proved to be just like that. After a little uncertainty about if we should go to spot x or not Scotty and I got each other motivated and decided to go for it. We got all the usual stuff together. This time I made sure I had my air bed and sleeping bag. It can be a uncomfortable sleep when you don't have a bed and at least a blanket as I have experienced in the past. On these trips someone is bound to forget something. After leaving Auckland quite late and doing the usual stops for food and bits and bobs we finally hit the windy road to spot x where we take care of business. The weather was not nearly as bad as Auckland. After winding our way through the valleys and farm land we finally made it to our camping area.
No time for waiting around we jumped out and packed our bags full of all the vital equipment we would need for a late afternoon early evening fish. Plenty of burly, bait, big hooks and heavy trace. Scotty started well with a few hookups on snapper, good pannies. As the afternoon passed on we attracted a seal who came in close to the rocks playing around in our burly trail. He seemed to just float around in the calm water watch us for a while then cruise under the water for a look around. I patiently kept flicking a bait out as far as I could and before I knew it I had a hook up. This was a weird feeling fish. Something was weird as there was no splash of a Kahawhai jumping and running on the surface and there was no head shaking characteristic of a snapper. It seemed like the fish was very streamlined and using its body to fight. Sure enough as the line gathered in it became obvious it was a John Dory. My first Johnny off the rocks and a good one at that. From here the fishing just got better and better.
The Catch
We got our head lamps all set as the sun was setting fast. We had caught plenty of bait fish in the way of Kahawhai and Trevally that were coming into the burly trail. When the fishing hot's up there is nothing better than a big slab of Kahawhai or Trevally on a size seven hook. Once it was dark the fishing went from good to great. We started getting awesome hits on big baits. The first big fish to come in was a good 40 pound shoal shark. His mate must of been hanging around as he kept swimming through into our burly trail. Scotty and I estimated him at 80 pounds plus.
Lloyd with two good Snappers.
Before Scotty knew it he was onto a good fish. He yelled its a snap as he could feel it shaking its head. Standing on those rocks I never thought about what was going to happen next. I was just enjoying the exhilaration of having such a great nights fishing. I decided to chuck on a big bit of fresh trevally after trying a bonito head and a trevally head. To this day I can still feel my big snap have a gulp at that yummy bit of trevally skewered onto my hook. It felt like the other bites I had been getting and they were all good bites. I hit back hard and my reel started peeling out nylon. My rod was bent over and I knew it was big whatever it was. I was hoping it was not that shark that had been lurking around in the burly trail. My fish finally stopped peeling and I got some line in. He was in the deep water which was good. He had a few more runs and then I slowly got the line in which is where we caught a glimpse of the orange flash that you only see with a snapper. The snapper seemed docile until he was dragged up the rocks then started flapping around furiously. I must admit I was yelling in disbelief at what I had caught.
Lloyd and fellow beast master Scott with tthree pretty good looking snappers.
We estimated it to be between 18-22 pound. That was a night to remember. We cleaned up with one 20 pounder two around the 13 pound mark, one 10 pounder and a heap of good pannies. The next day the boys came up to test there luck. We had another good days fishing laying into some nice kahawhai and trevally. The snapper seemed to have gone of the bite which was a shame.
Blog text by Lloyd Thompson. Photographs by Scott M.