Gone fishin’

My third time fishing with ex-colleague Clifford, some other HealthLink staff, and Clifford’s preferred charter captain Nik.

The first time, we had rough weather and a particularly hard-riding boat. The second time was better. But this time, even though it was Friday the 13th, was best of all.

We set out from Gulf Harbour, 45 minutes north of Auckland, and motored north from there for less than an hour before dropping our lines. We caught a couple of small fish but decided to try another spot anyway. As we were getting ready to move, we saw the signs of a workup off in the distance … mainly a crowd of birds, including some gannets doing their amazing plunge dives.

As we got closer we could see it was a big one… a whole ball of little fish near the surface, being preyed on by birds from above, dolphins near the surface, and — we hoped — snapper from below.

Sure enough, we no sooner dropped our lines than the snapper started biting.

And there were some big ones this time. I ended up with two of the biggest, 67 and 68 cm, approximately 13-14 pounds.

We caught our limit of seven fish each in under an hour. Which was great… but also a bit anti-climactic. I mean, you pay for an all-day charter, and then you’re done by 9:00 am? We drove around for a bit, half-heartedly trawling for kingfish, but apparently it’s not the right time of year. No nibbles, so we shrugged, took the win, and headed in.

I learned my lesson the first time… don’t fillet these guys yourself. I went to my local fish shop, where they had told me last time that they would do it. But they said no, too busy. So I drove into town and got the nice chaps at Kai Ika to take care of me. Well worth it. I ended up with about 12 pounds of fish, at a cost roughly twice retail.

They say a bad day fishing beats a good day working, “they” in this case probably meaning people who I don’t normally hang around with. But in the afterglow of a trip like this, I definitely get what they mean.