New Zealand Nationals 2011 on Epic Adventures

The New Zealand Fishing Nationals take place in the last week of February every year with boats competing right around New Zealand over all IGFA line classes and all IGFA species.  In previous years we've done everything from solely chasing kingis for the team kingi prize (1st in 2009), to chasing marlin (last year we got the top Blue Marlin on 15kg).  It is a great chance to go hard out on the fishing for a week, and for us it has become a chance to mix it up chasing a range of species on mono for the week, from kingfish to marlin, snapper and tuna.  This year we aimed to take out the top Tairua boat, which is calculated on total of points for top fish in each species, a line class kingfish and line class marlin, not to mention getting a few marlin on the new Senator.

Our crew consisted of Ants who fishes it with us every year, Mick who is a regular who know lives in Australia and travelled over for the week, and Marcus and George both light tackle junkies.

The first morning we headed wide of the Aldermens where we got our Blue Marlin last year, there wasn't a lot going on but there was a hot morning bite up at the Hook 20 miles away, so we hatched a plan to be there the next day and went to check out the pins for some kingfish for the rest of the afternoon.

Mick was loving the challenge of keeping the kings out of the reef on 10kg mono

Ants with a nice 19.8kg kingfish caught on 10kg mono

George doing battle with a very nice kingfish on 8kg mono

By George - a great kingi on 8kg - enough to win George 1st place in the 8kg line class for the week!!!

Mick slays it to a nice one

Tagged and released.  We tagged a few others and got some monumental dustings on 3kg and headed home to rest up for the marlin action the next day

And what a morning it proved to be the next day. Not long after putting the lures Ants shouted out "Marlin!" we had one up on the lumo Grand Slammer on the port rigger, we dropped the lure back and we were on, it turned out to be short lived with the fish dropping off.

We put a few donuts around the general area and had two more marlin up on the Broadbill Translucent squid on the starboard rigger, neither hooked up.  Half an hour later though a marlin came in and smashed the same Broadbill lure and Marcus was on, hooked up on 15kg.  A great fight and we had the fish to the boat pretty quick when it pulled on the double.

We rest the lures and this time an explosive take on the shotgun on 15kg and an angry marlin too to the skies with the Bonze Apache in Evil in his mouth!!!  "Epic Hooked UP!"  Mic's legs were shaking as he buckled up on his first marlin!! 

Coached expertly by Ants he soon got into the rythm,

It was an awesome fish that jumped, greyhounded and poked his bill out of the water at every opportunity.

Half an hour later Ants had the leader

Marcus readies for the tag shot

On the board!

Hook is removed

A very stoked Mick releases his first marlin!!

The SST colour changes on the trackline of the Furuno Navnet helped us through the week track down the most likely spots which were holding bait and marlin

A few beers were shouted at the Cyprus Tree back in Tairua to celebrate Mick's first marlin! Not to mention the first on the new Senator!

The next few days we got dealt some crap weather, lost Ants who rushed back to to his family in Christchurch after the earthquake, and generally found it tough to find the marlin again despite doing some miles.  Over those miles we learnt a lot about some of George's hiden talents aka George FM and Cafe George. We were keen to pick off as many species on light line as we could so the skippy lures were put out on light stuff and George nailed a nice 3.8kg model on 3kg.

This huge bait ball in the middle of nowhere looked a likely spot, Mick run a deep swimmer through it.....

And a feisty mako shark was tagged

We returned to the pins and got some more dustings on 3kg, Mick had an Epic battle with another one on 10kg

I got to feel just how light the 3kg mono was pulling a 3kg trev out of 60m and George nailed a nice 4kg snap on 3kg line as well, all added to the points tally.

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As did some scrappy kahawai at Castle Island

We were down to three of us on board for the last day and there was a vibe going down that I just knew this was going to be a cracker of a day.  We hadn't got far when Mick yelled out, "haaammmaaaaa" he couldn't quite get a word out but we looked around to see a stripey attacking the Bonze Apache on the short rigger.  Boom, it snaffled it and we were on!!!! 

George and I cleared the gear with line dissapearing at a rate of knots, then the shotgun rigger which was left out got hit as well  DOUBLE!!!  That was short lived and we were all clear, so I startedgunning back on Micks fish only to have to quickly chop out of gear as another stripey shot in to look at the prop and I nearly ran it over!  Talk about marlin city today!

Anyway Mick dealt to the fish in style and when it came to the boat it was a dead weight and tail wrapped so we put the fish aboard and we had some smoked marlin !!!

A very stoked Mick with his second Marlin for the week!

Righto George its your turn we said - " A Blue would do nicely for our club points" which worked on tally of best scoring fish of each species.  No sooner did we have the lures set than George yelled out "hmmmaaaaaa" a very blue looking bite was caught out of the corner of our eyes on the short rigger - Yes the Bonze Apache in Evil once again.....this fish was a different kettle of fish altogether popping up on all angles from the boat in a frenzy of white water doing sommersaults - BLUE!!!

George was all over the fish winding hard out and we soon had it fairly short and half an hour in the leader came to the rod, we let the fish swim by the boat for a while til we got a good look, it it was a stripey we were going to tag it, a blue we were going to take ashore, we were pretty sure it was a blue but I told Mick to get a tag shot in at the first opportunity, I got it on the leader pulled it closer and we had a tag shot in the shoulder.  I lifted it closer, grabbed the bill, the fish fought then rolled to its side, BLUE!  put the gaff in!!! We had a couple of gaffs in, the fish was lifted over side of the boat and the gaff unfortunately caught into my leg with the full weight of the blue coming down on it, not nice.........we took a moment to get the leg taped up before we relected on an awesome morning, George was stoked!!!

A double of marlin in the new boat - what a morning!

George with his Blue on 24kg - 110kg

Mick with his stripey

What a week - what a day!

It was just awesome to see Mick and George who were right into it all week come away with a double on the last day.  With a great range of points scoring fish over the week we ended up with over 1500 points being the highest scoring Tairua boat and George got first in NZ for his kingfish in the 8kg line class!!  Well done fellas!