Finally a chance today to sit down and write a blog. Haven’t been out on the Tongariro now for a few weeks – had a wee issue with not being able to get down there without my license until 3 days ago when I finally got it back. Will be back down Taupo in the next couple of weeks – can’t fish this weekend as duck shooting opening weekend.

Have been fishing, fishing and fishing – though not much fly fishing in the past few weeks. My friends Kevin, Sam, and Aaron came up north a couple of weeks ago for a couple of days fishing with me which resulted in some great fishing. For the first two days we had great success on the Yellowtail Kingfish in the Bay Of Islands and then had a great day livebait fishing off the Mangonui Wharf after a great night out in Mangonui with my Uncle Mike and Auntie Madge.

A few days later Aaron invited us down to Waihou Bay to go out in his charter vessel “Rampage” – a fantastic 12m Senator. What a Trip!! We left Waihou bay in the evening and were around at Hicks Bay catching livebait an hour later. After Sam filled the live bait tank we hit the hay and woke to a fantastic morning and after a quick breakfast we departed for Ranfurly.

The trip was short – I think it was around half an hour from Hicks Bay before we dropped lines in the water. While Aaron was sorting out the gear for Sam and myself, Kevin dropped a jig down and within 30 seconds was hooked up to his first Hapuka. Sam and I soon followed with dead baits and within 10 seconds of hitting the bottom we were both hooked up and cranking our fish to the surface. The fishing was insane with Hapuka in the 10 – 15kg range coming up every drop. I once had a period of nearly 20 seconds after hitting the bottom without hooking up and feared that Aaron had missed the spot! Needless to say we soon shifted as the massive fish bin on Aarons deck was getting full fast and we were getting close to our limit of hapuka!

We decided to jig for a few Kingies. We went to a Kingi spot of Aarons and hooked up every drop but with nothing over 20 pounds coming in we moved again. As we were motoring Aaron spotted a school of kingfish attacking baitfish on the surface so we stopped near them and tried to jig. Unfortunatly there were too many small rat kings and we couldn’t get a jig down more than 20 meters without hooking the smaller kingfish so we left again for another kingfish spot. This time the fishing was a little slower and within 15 minutes I had managed to only get two brief hookups which I lost a Kevin had managed 2 fish around around 15kg so we moved to target King Tarakihi.

At the King Tarakihi the fishing was a little hard – for the Tarakihi that is as unfortunately we kept catching Hapuka. Eventually Sam managed to catch our first King Tarakihi and after that fish we moved to try Trumpeter. We trolled lures over to the Trumpeter spot – hoping for a yellowfin tuna – while Kevin and Sam slept. When we arrived, Aaron and I dropped down and soon had a bite. Aarons line bent over double shortly followed by mine. Mine broke but Aaron managed to land a 45kg Bass! This got Sam and Kevin out of bed and after a few a couple more puka Sam landed a Trumpeter. We left for the next spot to try for bluenose.

On reaching the bluenose spot we dropped two lines down to over 300 metres and within seconds started to get bites. We kept the lines down and then started to wind. They were very very heavy and even at 300 meters you could feel the head shakes. Aaron says in that spot the bluenose are normally around 20kg and judging by the weight on the line I would say we had a couple of these on each rod. After an eternity of winding and nearing the surface Kevins line went solid and then started to peel out in an unstoppable manner – shortly followed by mine. Needless to say probably sharks. We each lost everything. We kept fishing but the wind was swirling around making it difficult to get a good drift over the spot but we eventually did manage a couple of bluenose just after dark.

A memorable bit for me was watching a blue shark swimming around the boat under the deck-lights in the evening as we were fishing for bluenose. At one stage under light the blue shark cruised slowly over to an albatross not far away from the boat and just under the surface. The was a splash and the Albatross was out of there – not sure if it lost a leg or not.

We cooked a meal of fresh bluenose while we slowly cruised back to Cape Runaway. We woke to a slightly windier morning and started jigging. It wasn’t long before we had landed a few more kingies and then headed the short distance back to Waihau Bay to clean up and celebrate a great couple of days fishing.

For anyone wanting to do the same trip then call Aaron on 0272827810. Aaron used to co-skipper the charter boat “Oracle” for 5 years and before that “Cascade”.