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Adventures in New Zealand...


Houseplant
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An update thread on what I've been getting up to in New Zealand 🇳🇿

Winter is here. It is cold in the mornings, but usually warms up as the sun comes up. Yesterday was a fishing trip. In Northland where I live, the fishing is very good and fish make up most of my family's protein intake. The remainder is meat from animals I shoot, usually goats and pigs, but occasionally deer and small game. Target species was snapper, a large predatory fish that will readily take artificial lures. Snapper are very good to eat! A jetski is my preferred vessel at the moment. It might seem strange, but a jetski has some advantages over a boat and jetski fishing has quite a large following in this part of the world. 

I launched at 0630, travelled 20km and was fishing by 0700. I dropped a metal jig down in to 50 metres of water and was rewarded by a decent snapper of around 10lb straight away. I repeated this process a further two times with the same result. In open water where there are no snags, I use very light gear, so it takes about 10 minutes to land a fish of this size. After a quiet spell, I landed a 3lb snapper which are great for cooking whole. With over 30lb of good eating fish on ice, there was no need to carry on fishing, so I packed up and went home.

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Thanks for the comment labstaff. Most of that journey was through a natural harbour, so not that far offshore on this occasion, maybe 5km. Having said that, I regularly fish 20km offshore and even further in the summer months when chasing game fish. 80km rounds trips are the norm, including my local harbour run. 100km would not be exceptional. Fishing skis are big, stable and fast. Mine is equipped with two radios, GPS, flares and PLB.

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We are now in the height of the Summer but if you would have been here this last week you would have thought we were back in the Winter as it have been cold and very wet , although today is a lot better and hopefully we are over the worse of the weather .

THANKS for sharing your photo of your fishing trip and for the report , very interesting how they do it overseas .

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Dolphins are common, they bow ride the ski sometimes which is pretty cool. I see whales occasionally and have had a pod of four orca rush right up to the ski in attack mode! Luckily they were smart enough to realise I wasn't food. There are a lot of sharks, it's just part of life. They can be a pain because they will take hooked fish. I've seen 3 metre plus mako jump clear of the water. We have great whites as well, but they are generally well behaved. Sharks are viewed as a risk to manage, rather than something that causes panic. People swim, surf, dive and even spearfish without too much concern.  

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Great photo, would luv to try something like this, and i get that sharks would be more curios than dangerous its just i think i would feel a little vulnerable on a jet ski. Like most things i'm sure your confidence grows the more you do it and the reward far out-ways the risk. more reports like this would be great:yahoo:

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Yes, excellent fishing.

i agree a jet bike is an ideal platform for fish. I have had three and probably caught more fish from those than anything else. I sold my fishing boat after the first year, because I could get to places on the jet bike where I just couldn’t take a boat. I use to motor out to the white water across the sand bar at the end of the estuary throw out a short anchor, step off and spin for bass in the surf. Fabulous fishing. As my old dad use to say “you don’t need to have fancy gear, you just need to be where the fish are.” 👍

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Thanks for the interest Old farrier. Hopefully, I'll get to post some more hunting-related stuff in due course which may be of more interest to PigeonWatch members.  

As for jetski fishing, I'll start by saying that jetski fishermen are a different species from the idiots that hoon around, tearing up swimming beaches, scaring boaters and wildlife alike. Those guys give us a bad name. As a demographic, we tend to be middle-aged and serious about fishing. Most "downgraded" from a boat, or as in my case, "upgraded" from a kayak. 

My jetski is a Yamaha Waverunner FX HO. It is 3.4 metres long and the engine is a 180HP four stroke. It stable, fast and reliable. Kawasaki and Sea-Doo make similar models. Sea-Doo recently produced the first dedicated fishing ski which has got people talking. Jetski fishing is big in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and some parts of the USA.  

As a personal choice, I only use lures from the ski, mainly soft plastics and metal jigs. Bait fishing is just too messy within the confines of a ski (or kayak) for my liking. Fortunately, we have an abundance of big fish that are happy to jump on plastic and metal lures!  

I wrote a short article on the subject for a lifestyle magazine, so thought I'd post it as a general overview.

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Edited by Houseplant
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On 15/06/2019 at 08:24, Houseplant said:

Dolphins are common, they bow ride the ski sometimes which is pretty cool. I see whales occasionally and have had a pod of four orca rush right up to the ski in attack mode! Luckily they were smart enough to realise I wasn't food. There are a lot of sharks, it's just part of life. They can be a pain because they will take hooked fish. I've seen 3 metre plus mako jump clear of the water. We have great whites as well, but they are generally well behaved. Sharks are viewed as a risk to manage, rather than something that causes panic. People swim, surf, dive and even spearfish without too much concern.  

 

 

 

Good. 

Some great photos there. Such a shame it's a jet ski and not a yak ;) Can't win 'em all, I guess.

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Today was another fishing trip. On my friend's boat this time. He has a 6.5 metre aluminium boat which is purpose designed and well kitted out for fishing.

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The plan was to catch live baits in the harbour before heading out to deepwater. Unfortunately, we couldn't catch anything small enough! Every time the bait went in the water, it was taken by kahawai of 1 - 2 lb. At this size, they make great baits for kingfish, but we weren't targeting those today, so released them. Kahawai are a sporting fish in their own right and not bad to eat if prepared correctly. In Australia, they are called "salmon". They are no relation, but fight just as hard and created havoc on our light bait-catching rods.

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After a little while, we gave up trying to beat the kahawai and went off to do some jigging. One of the lures that is commonly used in New Zealand is a Japanese-style slow jig called an inchiku. They are easy to fish, you drop them down to the sea bed and slowly wind back up. Admittedly they are weird-looking, but they work very well!

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The first fish aboard was yet another kahawai, but this time a 5lb version. It went like a steam train!

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It turned out that kahawai were hard to avoid today. We caught and released half a dozen, before moving on to catch something different. Next up was an old favourite, snapper. We caught quite a few, but nothing huge.

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We also caught some decent trevally. The are good fighters and make excellent sashimi. 

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Other fish that came aboard included pink maomao, an exotic looking species, and terakihi, a smaller species famed for it's eating qualities. 

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On the way home, we saw two enormous orca and seals in the harbour. 

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I gave a mate a goat leg and a venison shoulder and he prepared this platter. It was amazing! Even Mrs Houseplant (who can be alarmingly vegetarian at times) went full carnivore! It pays to know a pit master 😀

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