Shane & I felt like little kids about to get a new bike for Christmas. That is the only way to describe the excitement for us, finally hitting the road on our way to the start of the 2013/2014 Orton Events Kayak Fishing series in the Coromandel.
Shane was packed and ready almost a week before we were planning on heading up while I like to leave things like that till the last minute. It was a reasonably late night getting everything organized and packed away but I managed to hit the hay around 12pm and had a very restless night as all I could think about was the weekend ahead. The alarm went off nice and early, I got dressed, kissed my girl goodbye and then I hit the road to go and pick up Shane.
A 9.5 hour drive got us to Waitete Bay, where our base was to be for the weekend along with the Viking NZ Blokes. What we were welcomed with was some of the most amazing weather we had seen at any of the previous comps. The sun was out, there was very little wind and the water was glass. This ended up staying like this the entire weekend. We unloaded our gear to be told that this was where we were launching for the Viking Invitational in the morning, literally across the road, so we were able to set the PF400’s up the night before and basically just use the C-Tugs to wheel them over ready for the shotgun start amongst 60 other keen anglers.
- Squid
After a quick briefing from Grant everyone paddled out from the beach. Our plan for this warm up comp was to stay close in and try save our energy for the main comp of the weekend. We went off to the right and anchored up around 100metres from shore. Dropped some berley and started introducing ourselves to the population of undersized snapper. Shane managed to pick up a couple of keepers while I seemed to struggle for most of the day. The highlight for me was nabbing my first ever squid. I had pulled up a straylined pilchard and seen it followed by two brown shapes in the water. As I let the pillie sink again I watched as they shot back and latched onto it. A quick rig up of a squid jig and I had it on instantly. Unfortunately there were no prizes for squid in the competition. After around 6hrs on the water we headed back in for a clean up and to measure Shane’s catch at Anglers Lodge.
A few beers and chats to some familiar faces Shane was happy to get a placing in the money and got awarded for his efforts. After this we went to the safety briefing/registration for the Gold Rush comp. After listening to what was planned over the next few days and a few more beers we headed off home to bed.
Saturday morning and the same incredible conditions as the previous day and we were off to Papa Aroha camp ground to set up and get ready for the shotgun start at 7am. What a sight to see so many kayaks paddling off from the same beach in every direction. Shane and I shot straight out to the large island in front of us. We fished any sign we came across to no avail and this was how the day continued until the early afternoon. I went for some tiki touring around the islands and anchored up every so often to drop some baits. Plenty of small snapper and trevally were pulled up but nothing I could put in the bin. A blue maomao even made an appearance on a ledger rig which added another fish to my list. My last stop was parked up at mussel farm where nobody else seemed to be having any luck. I was just about to pack up when my bait runner went off and I managed to get a Snap worthy of weighing. Off we went to weigh in and get out of the sun as I was already burnt to a crisp.
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Back at home as the sun was setting and we looked at the conditions we just couldn’t stay off the water and we paddled off the beach at home for a quick fish before dinner. With an incredible amount of sign on the finder we thought we were going to find some more worthy fish but nope, all baby ones so back in we went, ate a fantastic fish curry thanks to Pointloader and that was it for the day. We stocked up our bait supplies at the local Top Catch and headed home.
Sunday morning was started at 4am. We headed over to Sandy Bay where we fished last year. Funnily enough this year the drive was spent doing the exact same thing as the previous and we listened to the All Blacks game on the radio, cutting in and out as we wound through the tight, twisty gravel roads of the Coromandel. We headed out with our massive amounts of bait and burley, this was the day to go all out. We shot round to the north and stayed reasonably close to the shoreline. The plan was to anchor, burley, chum and entice the big boys to come out and play. Well, that never exactly eventuated and we had similar fishing to the last couple of days. I managed to get a nice kahawai & Shane an ok trev along with a few other fish for weigh in. After we made our way through probably the 20-25kgs of bait/burley we headed home for a wash up then into weigh in at the Admirals Arms.
There was a good turn out at prize giving and from the talk round the place it seemed like most struggled to find the fish. We were lucky enough to get 3 placing between us. Shane had 3rd trev and I had 5th trev and 4th kahawai so we both head on to the Taranaki Classic with some points against our names.
Orty put on another mean feed for us and we stuck round for some socializing, beers and the NRL final. After a well deserved sleep we were back on the road and on our way home to Wellington.
We would like to give a big thanks to everyone who made the weekend what it was. We wouldn’t have been able to make it along if it wasn’t for Viking Kayaks, Jigstar Rods, Zest Jigs & Railblaza.
We look forward to seeing all the other trip reports from the weekend.
Well done on the placings.
Guys top effort great TR once again its good to meet up at these events for some friendly banter and beers looking forward to wear our roads cross again 
tr and pics 
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