At 8am i had my ledgers on the bottom with bullet tuna for bait. I caught a kahawai which i despatched and cut up for some fresh bait. The frame i chopped apart into small morsels which sank into the slight current nicely. After a little wait the first fish bit, yes! target species Soon after another carrot joined the party , a much bigger 40cm model , perfect eating size ! With the current slowing down the Gurnard seemed to go off the bite and the plagues of Kahawai showed up which is not what i wanted. This is my usual problem when fishing for bottom species.
After 4 Kahawai i had another bite. This was a soft take and the fish let me wind it up 5 metres. Back down it went to the bottom, the a surging run away from the kayak, this is something good. The weight on the rod suggested a very decent fish. The fight continued back and forth in the water column. At this point i had a pretty good idea that it was a Snapper, i could feel the tail hitting the line and it was shaking its head, harder than i've ever had before.
After 10 minutes the fish popped up next to the kayak. Yep its a horse. A very easy net shot and i had it. An easy PB but i wasn't quite sure of the weight since i had never caught a Snapper this big. I measured it out to 82 cm Fork length and a 64 cm Girth. I only had it out of the water for about 1 minute total. So i thought it should be good to go for release. 10 minutes later she wasn't swimming as much as i tried.
I made the call and ikied her. Later on i pulled in another nice Gurnard between kahawai. The current had pretty much died at this point, so i moved onto a few different spots for not much result. Just plagues of Kahawai again. They are in feeding on whitebait schools right now. I finished up and got on the road, after a huge struggle getting the kayak up the soft gravel beach.
The final Total I ended up sending the Hawkes Bay Sport Fishing Club a message and got it weighed on the official scales.
It came out to 10.206kg / 22.5 lb Quite honestly im a bit shocked it went over 10kg.
Grandad and My Dad had heard about it already at this point and i'm sure the story would have been doing it's rounds throughout the family !
Later on when filleting i found my Kahawai chunks in the big Snappers stomach. Again and again i see this in the fish i catch. I will be throwing out more tasty chunks to attract these larger fish. Rather than a big berley trail which can attract unwanted species.
The cat was also very interested in filleting time as usual It's been years in the making for me to catch a fish like this.
I've enjoyed every bit of it. from trying to catch my first legal Snapper all the way back in 2013, it took me nearly 3 years to accomplish the goal. As i have gained more experience the quality of my fish have improved at a crazy rate. Doesn't feel any better than to land one like this off of a kayak , skippered by me and everything else also done by me.
Cheers to everyone who have shared tips with me over the years.
The only thing next is now what?
Maybe a Hapuka !

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