The new X spot seems to be OK

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Friday
Finish packing my bags, end up with one rucksack and one back pack full of gear and clothes and one home made rod tube for a couple of rods, Mrs Mental gives me a ride out to the airport, check my bag in and get told it’s another $15 for the rods to ride on the plane too…

Suppose I should just explain here that yes I’m FLYING to a kayak fishing comp… No I’m not loaded, I just struck it lucky with the guys at Viking Kayaks, someone posted about the comp back in January and I said I’d like to go but didn’t know if I could be bothered driving all that way etc and it was a shame I couldn’t fly there and have a kayak there waiting for me to jump in and use for the weekend, well I got a message the next day saying if I got myself there then there would be a kayak waiting for me to use all weekend! So booked the campsite and used my Air Points (I fly a lot with my day job) to book the flights!

Where is the Taranaki swell?

Off the plane and find the shuttle there waiting to take me to the campground. Get to the campsite and check in, get told I’m in site 18 next to the gate, that’s ok but where is cabin 3 where my buddy for the weekend is staying, I get shown that’s it’s just down the other end of the camp, that’s fine. So I wander over the road, and start to pitch my tent, just get it out the bag and the camp owner pulls up and says “I’m moving you to next to your buddy”, fantastic!

Ok, tent up, still no sign of my buddy, he was supposed to be there before me! ah well, wander around the camp/beach meeting a few people, talking to the Viking guys, trying to find out where people are fishing for the weekend, yea like they are gonna tell me that

Friday swell…

Anyway buddy turns up, Sean, I get the kayak off the Viking guys, and start to fill it/rig it for the weekend.

My ride for the weekend

Then we head off to the briefing. Briefing went ok but seemed a little disorganised, was probably expecting something more along the lines of the Beach and Boat briefing but it still seemed sufficient. A couple of beers and a feed at the bar and back to camp for some sleep before the Saturday onslaught

Friday sunset

Saturday
Rise nice and early and get the kayaks down to the beach, yep we pretty much just fished off the Oakura Campground beach all weekend, the issue with not doing you home work before you get there, probably should have tied up with a local too, next time…

Loaded and ready to go

Saturday sunrise

Headed out off the beach and paddled south for a bit, about two bays down and had a troll around, Sean picked up quite a few nice Kahawai which turned out to be just under 2kg each, and I picked one up too, just over 2kg. Action was pretty slow so we had a paddle around looking for fish, I didn’t have a sounder on my loan kayak so was sticking pretty close to Sean who had his sounder

Sean with his first fish of the day

We picked up all sorts of bits and pieces, blue cod, wrasse, rock cod etc – Another point worth thinking about when planning a trip/comp that is not in your back yard… Find out what the average size is for the area so you know when you have something big… The first blue cod I picked up was obviously a legal blue cod but had no idea if it was big or small for the area, as it didn’t look huge back it went, it then turned out to be mu biggest blue cod I caught all weekend… No worries though it wasn’t bigger than the winners

So after catching some 20 plus fish we decided to call it a day and paddle back into the camp, now to tackle the surf… Yes I know that was like the flattest that Taranaki ever gets but still more than I’m used to in Auckland… So a little surf and a new kayak (without a rudder) what to do, ah well just give it a go, what’s the worst that can happen… Yep you guessed it, I rolled it, in what turned out to be all of 1 foot of water!

Yep I rolled in this…

So off to the weigh in, we stand in line with everyone else with our Kahawai, weigh in didn’t seem to start on time for some reason but we got there in the end, as mentioned above not massive Kahawai but I beat my buddy

My little 2kg Kahawai

Sunday
Again head off the beach at the camp, along with several others today… Wind and swell have picked up quite a but but still not the normal Taranaki conditions I’m told

The “swell”

I spotted a cray boat pulling and setting pots about 1 km off the beach, I assumed he wouldn’t have these on the sand so there must be some sort of feature out there, so i head out to him, just to see him pulling empty pot after empty pot…

Not just me catching nothing…

Fish for about 4/5 hours and pick up fish after fish after fish but still no Snapper and still nothing big, ok well the Barracuda were pretty big! Actually they were my first ‘cuda from the kayak, would be nice if they were my last too…

Such a nice fish… NOT

So nothing to weigh in on the second day for me, Sean picked up a bunch more Kahawai but nothing bigger than the first day so they went straight into the auction box to raise some money for the local surf life savers

The competition winners were then presented with their prizes and a great comp came to an end, overall a very well run event, has a few areas for improvement but what comp doesn’t and with all the local support the comp gets it can only get bigger and better each year!

Thanks to got out to the following people for making this a great weekend!
Mission Kayaks – Turns out that the trip down had caused Sean’s transducer to pop off his hull, the Mission guys gave Sean a tube of silicon to stick it back down, worked a treat guys!
Comp organisers – A well organised and well run comp, I’m sure I’ll be back
Viking Kayaks – Well without these guys I simply wouldn’t have been there – THANK YOU
Sean (and family) – I was looked after all weekend by you guys, I never expected to be fed and watered all weekend, thanks

Cheers, Mental

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Checked weather forecast on Friday evening and there was certainly no problems there, light winds and no swell for Saturday and Sunday

DAY 1:

Up at 4:00am on Saturday, loaded up and headed off to chosen fishing location, just north of Tangahoe River but south of Awakino River ). Met fishing buddies at beach and after getting organised waited in anticipation at the waters edge for enough light to see the waves. 10 minutes felt like an hour!

Finally got to launch and away we went. We all got out without any problems except for one of the guys who fell into a hole while wading out and got soaking wet

We paddled for about 30-40 minutes and then split up a bit. I found some likely looking ground and threw the anchor out. I also put down my ‘magic’ berley mix. I got my first rod (strayline) sorted and sent it to the bottom. After placing it in the rod holder I attempted to get my other rod (softbait) in the water however before I had a chance the strayline took off. I grabbed it and after a short battle landed my first fish for the day, a nice 9lb snapper. Not a bad start I though

Put the stray line down again and the process repeated, twice! So after 15 minutes I had three nice fish on board all around 9-10lb. I thought to myself this is madness, at the rate I am going I will be heading in very soon

This time I left the strayline out of the water and finally got my softbait down. After a short time the ‘Cajun Chicken’ began to work its magic and several nice snapper were landed, all of which went back. I continued to get some nice fish on the strayline and most of those went back as well, apart from two that had swallowed the hook.

After fishing for about two hours things hadn’t really slowed down and all of my pre packed snacks and drinks were still untouched . While contemplating pulling up my rods for a breather my ‘Cajun Chicken’ took off at a rate of knots, and didn’t stop . I quickly wound up my other rod and then got into whatever had grabbed my softbait. After a 15 minute battle my suspicions were confirmed and I saw a big red flash under my yak. My heart started racing and I had to tell myself to keep calm and let the fish play out . The big red didn’t like the look of my yak headed for the bottom a few more times before he finally came within gaff range. Although not exactly textbook, I got the gaff in first time and dragged him aboard. After dispatching him I quickly weighed him. A new PB of 16lb

I continued to fish for another hour or so and landed some more nice fish. I was happy with what I had so they all went back. I also lost some very nice fish

So I returned home exausted and hungry but with a new PB and possibly the best days fishing i have ever experianced

DAY 2:

Day two started similar to the first although the trip through the surf was poorly timed and I got very wet but did managed to stay in my yak, just

Fished a different location but the fish were certainly still around. Landed some nice fish up to 8lb and kept a few for the family (brownie points to be used for next years comp ).

After geting a few snapper for the bin I went out onto sand/mud in the hope of catching a big gurnard. I did get 4 gurnard but nothing big enough to win the comp

Paddled in exhausted but happy again and refelcted on what had been a fantastic few days on the water. The fishing was great but just being out on the water in those conditions was a real pleasure

The competition was very well run and a credit to all involved. Met some great people over a few quite beers after fishing and it seemed everyone enjoyed themselves which is what it’s all about.

Until next year…..

Yakman
Day One

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I arrived at Wondaboys place at 6.30am with the sound of the wind using the the high tension wires as a musical stringed instrument and the iron on the neighbours fence joined in as the percussion instrument.

The garage door went up and a not very bright eyed and bushy tailed Wondaboy appared. I was greeted with “you’re F___en mad”. We loaded the yaks and headed for, well you guys know where. “Yakets coming too” exclaimed Wondaboy, “he thinks you’re F___en mad too”

We arrived at “well you know where” to a mill pond sea and very little wind, readied the yaks, “Damn fish finders not working” and headed in a direction along the coast (secrecy is everything) to our spots.

I was fishing blind without my FF, so I paddled around in circles a couple of times, closed my eyes and threw the anchor over. It wasn’t long before snapper after snapper popped to the surface (all around the 320mm mark) with the odd bigger one going in the bin. Wondaboy paddled over with sweet FA in his bin, however he had spotted a couple of nice metre high pinnacles (somewhere in the sea) I later used my trained good eye and noticed he was lined up with the cow standing next to the thistle and judged the distance between 100 and 900 metres away.

I looked up from time to time and noticed that Yaket was hooked up most of the time.

Fish kept bitting and a variety of speices surfaced, kahawai, snapper, trevally (released about 15 small but legal ones) a tail wrapped sting ray and a nice brown spotted snapper (botanical name john dorry) caught on a mackeral Wondaboy paddled over as I packed up and he’d had a better time since shifting, including releasing a 15lbder.

All in all a great day had by all.

Wondaboys 15lbder released

Snapper – johndory – trevally – kahawai

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Hosted by the Oakura Surfcasting & Kayak Fishing Club in conjunction with highly supportive local and national sponsors, the previous two contests have been hugely successful, and now with the continued generous support of those sponsors it has grown to become New Zealand’s premier annual kayak fishing event.

Open to all kayak anglers, the contest offers a great selection of fishing locations within the over 200 kilometres of Taranaki coastline available between the official Contest boundaries. The abundant populations and variety of fish species available throughout this area are reflected by the eight Heaviest Fish and Runner-Up prizes the contest has on offer.

All contestants qualify to go in the draw for the Main Spot Prize of a Mission Catch 390 Fishing Kayak package. Additionally, those who purchase their tickets before the 1st March 2009 will also be eligible for the Early Bird Prize draw of a Mission Flow recreational kayak.

So don’t delay, send your entry form and payment into us before the 1st of March to be in the Early Bird Prize draw. Sort out those rods and reels, charge up the fish finder battery, and come join us for a weekend of full-on kayak fishing action along the Taranaki coast.

For more information see the website: http://www.kayakfishingclassic.co.nz/