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Blue water fishing (NZ)


Houseplant
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As summer ends, so does our game fishing season. Months of easterly winds have not been kind to the east coast, but with a good forecast on the "other side", we set off from the west coast in the northern part of New Zealand.

Early start.

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Trolling rods were soon out, main target was marlin, but ever hopeful for yellowfin tuna!
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We caught some skipjack tuna (or skippies). A much loved fish... as bait! No one eats them which is odd because they are the species you'll most likely find in a can of tuna. I kept a couple for the table.

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We saw some big fins which is always exciting as it either means we have found our target species or another large predator which may be feeding on the same bait source. Turned out to be a couple of big sea lions. A cool encounter.

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Sea got dreamily flat by mid-morning, but no marlin strikes.

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We found ourselves in some ridiculously deep water and decided to do some "deep drop" fishing, basically dropping big skippy baits in to the depths with the use of an electric reel. Lucky we had one kilometre of line on the reel!

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Bites straight away, but the excitement waned when we realised we had landed on shark city! 

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After a dozen small sharks, we had enough and moved in to a shallower spot. The red line on the sounder represents a huge number of big fish.

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We loaded up on the first drop. Bend on the rod doesn't look very much, but it's a 36kg class rod!

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Excitement builds as our catch nears the surface...

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Bluenose! A highly prized eating fish with firm, flaky fillets, not unlike Atlantic cod. 

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Bluenose kept coming, we even caught two at a time.

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With five big fish on ice, we decided to call it a day and head home. We trolled back to shore over several hours, but the marlin didn't want to play.

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Safely back at the boat ramp. 12 hours fishing, 16 hour round trip and lots of fish filleting to do afterwards!

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Edited by Houseplant
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