Balls Deep Adventure Team - Chasing New Zealand Kingfish with Epic Adventures!

It's always good having a crew fishing with you for a few days as you know along the lines there is going to be some real carnage on the kingfish front !  This week we had a keen bunch of fellas into their fishing, hunting and 4WDing, over from Australia - Ross, Steve, Wazza, and Vinnie, who form the 'Balls Deep' Adventure Crew (apparently the name has something to do with how deep you have to wade when you're out surfcasting....at least thats what they tell me).

The fellas were well decked out in their team uniform ready to do battle.

We were literally just beyond balls deep when the first kingfish struck a slow trolled livie along the coast and it was all on, Steve was in for a bit of a shock at the power of the first blinding run by the kingfish and there were a few shouts from the skipper to stick it to him and keep him out of the reef! It was good to be on the board straight away and the boys were fizzing.   Quick pic and just like all the photos you see below these kings were set free....

There was a stack of bait getting mauled by everything - gannets, dolphins, kingfish, 4 Ozzie fishermen, seals, and we made the most of it while it lasted, loading up on the last baits before everything devoured the and Ross stuck it to his first solid NZ kingfish before they went in search of another patch of bait.

Dolphin about to snatch the last yakka before the school is completely gone!!

Out at the Aldies Wazza sticks it to one on the Stella on a livebait

Awesome Kingi for the big fella!

As if the arms weren't jelly enough 30 second later he was in to another one, this one went a bit pair shaped though and caught Wazza off guard with very sore arms!!!

Vinnie was in next, kingfish smashing a livie high in the water column and nearly getting all the way to the reef, but Vinnie does well to keep him away from the bottom!!

Another solid kingfish and all the fellas are on the board!!!

Wazza sticks it to another kingfish on a livie rig

And another beast hits the decks - from here on in the jigs dominated the action

Vinnie hooked up on the PE5 and JM3kings200 and a 200gm Blue spike jig

First jig caught kingfish for the trip and that was to open the floodgates

Steve on the board with the jig - a Green and Gold Curved slider

Vinnie with one on the Pink spike

Vinnie going hard again on the JM350 and PE7

Ross on the board with a sweet fish on the jig - this one on the Z40 and Jigstar350

Sashimi sized one about to go back

Wazza into one on the JM200 - the best performing rod on the trip for sure!

Ross with one on the pink spike

"Go Wazza"

Pink rocket

Blue rocket

Another one released

Vinnie with the PE5 dialled up on a big fish

And the JM200 deals to a hog over 20kg

Question was...who was it that got excited about that....??  A sign of an early season?

Ross into another on the JM200,

blue rocket again

and again...one last one before home time!!

GOOD FUN KINGI JIGGING WITH YA FELLAS!!!  SEE YA NEXT YEAR

The fellas got a nice line of snaps at the end of each day as well, unlike the kings these were kept for dinner each night, they usually got an iki and straight on salt ice without any pics, but this little recipe was worth sharin

The best meat in a snapper is in the head.  More often than not it gets wasted, but these went into the oven with some sea salt and lemon rind and baked for 15 minutes, the meat was kept for what comes next....into a homeade tomato sauce (port, brown sugar, peeled tomatoes, butter, cup of fish stock from the boiled frames).....

Fillets ready for some FogDog beer batter

And dinner.......potato mash, with FogDog beer batter, covered in fishhead tomato sauce, served with homemade tartare - nothing wasted!! Superb

Just another week in paradise

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