I recently met up with the NZ importer of the Buff products and got talking to him about how I used my Buff, and whilst the Visor Buff worked apparently one of the newer High UV Angler Buffs would suit my use better, so here is my new Buff: (of course I had to pick a fishy one)

And again it’s proved it’s worth, not sure if there is but it feels like there is a difference between the two materials used between my old Visor Buff and this new High UV Angler Buff, the new one feels thicker and seems to wick more moisture away from me better but may be I’m imagining that…

Dropping the visor does seem to make it easier to wear, I did ask if I could just cut the visor off my old Buff and the answer was yes and it won’t unravel (apparently – I haven’t done it).

Buffs aren’t cheap but it’s one of those products I’ve paid my money for and got it or more back from, I like it early in the morning for keeping the cool air off me as I paddle out to the spot and in the day for keeping the sun off. I recently on my last Barrier trip purposely didn’t wear any sunscreen and just used the Buff for keeping the sun off my face and neck and I’m glad (very glad) to say it was a success, well nearly… I did get burnt on the sides of my head, the little bit of skin in the area between my cap, sunnies, and the Buff so yes you do still need some sunscreen but at lest one bottle should now last me all summer instead of the multiple bottles I normally use during the course of a summers fishing!

Discuss this review and Buffs in the forum > Click Here

The site wouldn’t be what it is without you the visitors, the forum is full of people helping people, we now have a great kayak fishing community, kayakers helping kayakers!

Some quotes from people who have been helped by the website and community:

“a primo site full of useful info and a ton of laughs”

“This Forum has helped me more than I could ever imagined”

“This forum has given me a quiet place where I can relax and fill in the time where work should be”

“My time here has been realitively short, but have enjoyed spending way too much of my working day on here, and have met some really great people.”

“I just joined the forum a couple of days ago and i want to say THANK YOU to all the members here because just reading through all the topics has given me a better understanding of fishing and kayaks”

“Thanks also to the regular contributers who provide the site some real pearls of wisdom. Its awesome to see so many people out there who have got the yak-fishing bug now, with enthusiasm fuelled by this site I dare say!”

“Yep, top site! Well done!”

So it seems we have hit the spot, the forum was first online back in September 27th 2008, so we are nearly a year old, will we celebrate the anniversary..? Watch this space…

Cheers, Mental

So the trip had been in the making for sooooooo long and we had a small window in the weather for Friday May 29th, the "who’s available?" call goes out, Hairy Little Dwarf, New2Yaking, and Mental step up to the mark…

Here’s my version of the events of The Toots Kingi Bash…

Thursday May 28th
So get home from work, pack the car full of all that gear I’ve been preparing all week, live bait rigs, poppers, jigs, rapala, various giant plastic baits, all my Kingi bases were covered! And on top of all that I threw in a few soft bait bits and pieces to throw around while the live baits bobbing around under a balloon…

New2Yaking turns up at my place, we load his gear into my car and off we go, 200m down the road – oops forgot the gaff, turn around and pick it up will need that for those big kingis!

A two and a half hour trip to the Tutukaka Hoilday Park sees us in our cabin teaching New2Yaking how I set up my soft bait gear.

Friday May 29th, 5:30am
Alarm goes off, get up, grab a quick tin of beans for breakfast, get all geared up, and we head down to Pacific Bay to meet HLD, all kayaks rigged and ready to go

The bay was nice and flat in the harbour but as we reached the heads the story changed, the entrance ws more like a washing machine, with a good 2m swell coming in and bouncing off every rock we were getting a battering.

Personally I’ve fished in worse conditions but not N2Y and he made the call to stay in the harbour, good on him I say, our sport can be daunting and dangerous at times, when it doesn’t feel right for you that’s exactly when you should pull the pin, good call mate.

HLD an I carried on to our pre-chosen spot in North Gable, about a 3 km paddle from the harbour entrance. Sun came up on the way there.

At North Gable and the swell didn’t get any better really, when we got there fishing for kings was pretty much off the menu as our target pin was now awash with white foam making it impossible and unsafe to fish so we decided to paddle slowly back to the harbour prospecting all the way.

I had seen a wreck marked on the marine chart in North Gable the day before to poped that in my GPS and headed out to it, found it on the sounder and could see plenty of sign, so dropped a 7 inch softie down and bang I could see the fish come 5m+ up off the bottom to hit my bait, locked it up and got a very healthy bend in the rod, lots of string pulled and 10 minutes later up pops a 14lb (estimate) Snapper, poped it in the yak, paddled over to HLD for a quick photo and back it goes to fight another day.

By the time the photo was taken and the drift I was now way off the wreck to decided to go hunting else where. Couldn’t find anything for about a hour, and the roll of the sea was taking it’s toll on my tin of beans, they were then deployed as burley, no they didn’t work, no fish to be seen anywhere…

Went looking around the rocks found nothing, drifted into a spot where HLD had been ten minutes earlier and pulled up a nice 12lb (estimate) Snapper, thought about weather or not keeping it for a feed for just long enough for the Snapper to make a bid for freedom off my lap, so that decision as made…

Gave up on the wash fishing and headed to the center of Middle Gable where I found a very nice looking patch of foul in the middle of one very large bay of nothing, on the sounder the foul looked to be holding what looked like a single large fish (or 2/3 small ones huddling together).

So down she goes, this time it’s just a 5 inch Lime Tiger, just what was on there from my wash fishing, again positioned myself so I can see the bait going down on sounder, and again there it is, the fish is coming up to meet the bait, ok, flick the bail arm, the rod bends double, and line screams from the reel, holy, what is this? I had just tightened up the drag on the last couple of fish so this has to be bigger, or fitter

15/20 mins later at the end of what was a run, get line back, run, get line back, battle up comes a very nice looking Snapper, jump on the VHF, "HLD, Need another photo please", at this point the fish is still in the water on the end of my gaff, the fish is exhausted so no escape for this one HLD comes over and I pull it up, "Nice fish, very nice fish", I said "what you reckon, 20lb?", he said more like "21lb". Cool ok, I’ve got my first 20lb from the kayak! Then comes the part where you find out just how easy it is to slide a big fish into the well… yea right!

We then call it a day and paddle back to the harbour to see how N2Y is getting on, my stomach makes doubly sure on the way back that there are no more beans left in there… Swell is stil hanging around outside the entrance.

So we then paddle back into the harbour to find that the swell stlil isn’t there and N2Y has caught a couple of throw back Snapper and a John Dory (which he also threw back, didn’t know the size limit…) Had a nice paddle back in to a very flat Pacific Bay.

Couple of photos on the beach:

Seems I need a bigger chilly bin…

No one had scales so off the the Marina and to the club office to get it weighed

Official weight… 11.48kg or 25.3lb WOOT! Not only did I break my 20lb Snapper personal best I also did my 25lb one at the same time! Ok off to the pub for a pint!

Photo taken back at home.

Just like to say thanks to HLD and N2Y, had a great time with good company, thanks guys!

Cheers, Mental

By the time we launched the sun was on it’s way up

So off we paddled, Sandy Cheeks left and New2yaking on the right

A bit further round the corner.

Ok here we go across the channel.

We got to Tiri and all had a fish around the northern end of Tiri and caught pretty much nothing, I had a couple of just legal Snapper and a Cod, and nothing in the bin for any of us.

We decide to head back about 11:00 after a quick stop of the island to stretch the legs.

Half way across the channel we come across some big Kahawai chasing bait and rolling on the top, so we stopped and threw some sofbaits around, Sandy Cheeks had the time of his life, he’s not been fishing for long and I think this was probably his first Kahawai encounter. I hear “hey hey I got one on! Oh no lost it”, less than a minute later “I got another one, it’s towing me, help” I did laugh then I paddled over just as he nets it, a nice Kahawai, his first and it made his day.

I got one too and SC got another then they moved on through the channel so we called it a day and paddled bay to Army Bay.

Interestingly all three of us said that it was a long paddle and at the comfortable limit for most of us, personally I’ve paddled further but probably not the Tiri to Army Bay distance without stopping for a few fishes on the way back.

The GPS reported it was 6.6km from Army Bay to Tiri and that I’d paddled a total of 18.4km for the day.

Typically we came back to the beach to hear that two other kayakers had been 500m off the beach and came back with two kayaks full of fish…

Cheers, Mental

> Read more comments and replies in the forum

See here for a full Trip Report

Cheers, Mental

March 13, 2009
Friday 9:00am

Pack the car for the drive north ’cause I was too lazy too do it the night before
Packing my strayline setup I notice my braid is all twisted, probably from trolling a popper when last out, so I back the drag right off and start to strip off a few meters of line, couple of pulls into it I go from a two piece rod to a three piece rod…
(If anyone has a spare top to a Tica 82GP Pro-Weave let me know, emailed Kilwell on Friday but heard nothing yet…)

So finish packing and nip into The Bait Station and pick up a cheapie rod for the weekend

Get up to Whatuwhiwhi about 4:00pm after stopping in Whangarei for a bit of lunch and some other bits and pieces.

Got the tent set up, cracked open a beer or two and settled back for an easy evening (learnt that taking it easy the night before is a good idea after my Beach and Boat morning after experience) no fishing for me on Friday.

Saturday 5:45am
Alarm goes off, get up, get in the car and drive to Matai Bay, launch off the beach at about 6:15am

While paddling out the water directly in front of me gets broken by a dorsal fin heading straight towards me… followed by another and another, ah dolphins… Phew!

Kept on paddling out to the far south end of Whangatupere Bay, Skippies were jumping around all over the place chasing bait, paddling conditions were perfect…

Fished the flat rock face for a while picking up a few small (for up there, big for Auckland) pannies but no monsters so I then headed north and into the bay itself and fished in and around the rocks where I hooked into something nice…

This fish went against what everyone has told me so far, if a fish is caught against the rocks, it’ll run out and away, yea right! This fish ran right along the rock face until it found a cut and in it went then a bit further right behind another rock! All I can feel is the line rubbing on the rocks, feeling this meant I had to juggle between putting pressure on the fish to get it out but not too much to over load the now damaged line, after about ten minutes I managed to coax it out from behind the rock and I thought at this point I had tired the fish out… NO, this fish then heads DEEP directly under the kayak, I’m sitting in about 12 meters of water and my guess is it went right down to the bottom, so ensued another ten minutes of pulling from both of us until I won and at last had the fish on the surface, yay!

Now how to get this in the kayak… I don’t carry a net only a gaff, and well to be honest up to this point I’ve never used it So it was a new experience for both me and the fish

After all that, here it is

A nice 12lber, this is my biggest Snapper on the kayak so far, so I was very happy

I carried of fishing along the rocks slowly heading back towards Matai Bay, picking up a few smaller Snapper and this thing, what is it? Feisty little thing and very slimy…

Picked up another nice snapper, 8lb, and decided to head back in to weigh my fish, hit the beach with several tourists there and my fish, and me were very quickly celebrities with many photos being taken of the fish, me and my yak

Fish in the bin

Headed back to the camp for a feed, beer, and to clean the fish. Got a txt from HLD and met him down and the beach for a brief introduction (I’ll be back for another fish, a beer, and a yarn soon!).

March 13, 2009
Saturday 4:30pm

Headed out off Whatuwhiwhi for a fish but by now the wind had picked up to a good 15 knots so made for a very slow paddle north along the coast, picked up heaps of pannies on the sand but nothing around the rocks, I had a feed already so back they all went.

Sunset over Whatuwhiwhi

The wind picked up and the rain came down of Saturday night, getting up Sunday morning the rain had subsided but the wind had hung around so the day was pretty much a write off.

Most started to head home, I decided to do the same BUT… hmmm I have a flat tyre, simple fit the spare, yea right! I have a spare it’s round, tyre is inflated, the wheel has five holes in it BUT IT’S NOT OFF A SUBARU LEGACY!!!

Thankfully the local mechanic was working on a Sunday and offered to fix the puncture, even if it did take five hours, so I spent the day hanging around the camp catching a bit of sun burn

BUT after all that it was FANTASTIC and I WILL be back again, hopefully in less than a years time, I’d like to see what the winter Snapper look like up there..?

Photo of the weekend, sunrise while heading out of Matai Bay

Cheers, Mental