The All Time Epic Adventure! Eight hours of Kingi, Snapper and Marlin Mayhem!
Photo gallery for Mike and Hayley Bonnici - Wednesday 3 March 2010
Hayley and Mike visted us twice in 2009, and decided to come back and see what Tairua looked like in summer time. They arrived 2am Wednesday morning, so it was a pretty late start for us, we had a late breakfast and talked about a game plan for the day. Mike said something along the lines of not caring to much as long as he had sore arms tonight, I joked "Sweet, what about we get you a marlin on your Stella"....
First up was getting the guys on to a good dose of kingfish. Didn't take long before Mike was pulled to the rail on a big kingi hell bent on taking him to the bottom. His Three Kings Jigging Master rod and Stella 8000 getting a good workover here.....
Tag in a nice fat 14kg kingi and a quick pic before it heads back into the drink
Hayley was hooked up next on the JM400 and Stella 20000 while Mike looks on
Another primo king round the 15kg mark, tag in and about to be released
Hayley sending the king back
Mike hooked up on his Three Kings rod again
And a bigger king round the 19kg mark
After half a dozen kingis they went off the bite a little, and I said to the guys it was coming up to bite time for marlin, so lets put some lures out on the jig rods, give it and hour or two and see what comes of it.
We planed out to the hotspot on the shelf, set a lure on each rigger, long rigger was attached to Hayley's Three Kings JM rod and Jigging Master reel, the short rigger was attached to a JM400 and Stella 20000SW. We started zigzagging an area around the shelf where we knew the marlin were and it didn't take long before the long rigger popped and line started peeling off, we thought it might have been a big albie, then it dropped off, we wound the lure back in and spotted a bit shape tailing it, the line was banded back on the rigger and stright away we were on again. "It's a marlin" yelled Hayley as a striped marlin danced up the side of the boat, we gunned the boat to planing speed and took up the belly in the line and we had a nice stripey peeling off line out to the side of the boat.....awesome!!!!
After plenty of dancing around and line peeling manouveres and planing down on the fish, we had a stripey swimming along underneath us.......
He put up a good show on the leader...
Then it was photo time, we made the call to tag the fish
Mike with the stripey boatside
The Magic lure in his gob and Decoy Hook firmly embedded
We dragged the stripey on for a quick photo with the jigging gear
Then it was quickly back into the drink for a release and he swum away.
Righto guys, time to slay some snapper. We gunned it into the Aldies and over some snapper sign. Every cast got hammered, Mike holding a nice 8pd snapper here while Hayley sticks it to an another one.....we popped Mike's fish back into the drink to catch another time
Hayley with a nice ten pounder that was destined for the dinner table
Time to go slay some more kings, a couple of quick drifts on the way home....OONNNNN!!
Mike had stripped down a $10 4ft Gladiator bait rod before coming to New Zealand and rebuilt it as a short jig rod for when his arms got tired....it slayed the kings like a real one....
A double for Hayley and Mike
Mike gets one at the end of the day on his $10 rod!!!!!
Back at the ramp bang on eight hours and a day that none of us will forget! Then home for a bit of smoked marlin washed down with some cold beers, snapper and kingi sashimi for dinner......and reliving the tales of an epic day on the ocean.
To book a fishing charter or fishing trip on Epic Adventures in Tairua, the Coromandel, New Zealand with us click here
To go back to the Epic Adventures fishing reports on our home page click here |
