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My 1st posting as FO member
Date : 19/11/2009 to 21/11/2009
Place : Whakatane, NZ
Location : White Island & Whale Island
Member : Frank Lin, Freddie Lai, Kelvin Lai, Tony Kee & I
Charter : Capt. Lionel from Memory Makers
WARNING : LENGTHY REPORT DRINK MORE KOPI TO MAKE YOU AWAKE TO READ IT.
This trip was planned about 8 months ago when one buddy asked me : “ Tiong, you sure Kingfish fight 3X harder than Samson ?”, I replied : “Let’s find out together if you really keen to know” so here we come to Kiwi Land after 8 months of long waiting to find the answer.
Day 1 was the most eventful of the trip. We left the marina at 7am and bumped our way straight to White Island, we had sunny sky even the temperature was only 16 degree Celsius however the sea & wind condition were not at our side. Wind was blowing at 15 knots, white cap every where with swell up to 2M and the water temperature was only 15 degree Celsius. We had no bite for the first 1.5 hours even though 5 of us working real hard with all kinds of jigs range from 280gm to 520gm at the depth of 100M. The echo sounder shown big school of fishes at the water column between 40M to 70M but they just refused to bite while the only reason what we can presumed was the water temperature was too cold.
Every thing changed 180 degree when approaching noon time. Freddie was standing besides me and suddenly he got the 1st bite of the day which was also the hell of the day for him as he couldn’t lift up his rod at all, the whole rod was just pointing downward with his upper body just outside the boat holding tight to his rod. The deck hand ran quickly to assists him for pulling up his rod on fighting position while I was laughing away at him as finally he got the taste of the prowess of NZ Kingfish of which I keep telling him to work-up his muscles before the trip but he doubted about my advice thought it was just a joke.To our surprised it was only 20kg in weight but it fought really real hard. Thereafter, it was all hell loose almost everyone got hook-up of the Kingfish every 3 drops of jig.
Kelvin was the only one still scored zero while the rest already landed 2 or 3 Kingfish ranging from 15kg to 28kg. After taking photo for my 2nd fish, I invited Kelvin to jig besides me than not long Kelvin finally got a hook-up but the pulling power was so strong with the swell came in at the same time which caused him almost fall overboard with one of his leg and half of his body fall outside the boat.My immediate reaction was to grabbed hold his wind breaker than the deck hand came to the rescue one more time by grabbing Kelvin’s both legs back to the deck of the boat to ensure his safety.
After we all have fair shared of the Kingfish, the Captain decided to change another spot which holding Kingfish for more than 30kg in size but that is the spot also ambushed by Bronze Whaler Sharks. Freddie & Tony were both hook-up on the big Kingfish but both of them just took too long to subdue its and eventually let the sharks have them for lunch at boat side.One of the Bronze Whaler Shark as long as our fishing boat measured at 8M.
The Captain let us had another go as the wind was picking up blowing very hard at 20 knots going into 25 knots as forecasted by the coast guide. This time another incident happened again when we heard Tony yelling in shock because he just lost his whole jigging set – JM400 + OJ4000P, to the big Kingfish that whacked his jig so hard till Tony lost grip to his set.This unexpected incident wrapped up our day as we have to rush back to shore for shelter.
Day 2 was the worst of the trip. The plan for this day was targeting Hapuka & Blue Nose at the spot about 12 nm west of the White Island with the depth of 200M. We started off the day with pleasure as we met a boiling school of bait fishes chasing after by big school of Kawai while on the way to the spot and the Capt down the engine passed Freddie his decent popping set who volunteered to give it a shot and immediately rewarded with a 2kg size Kawai. After a few more cast with no bite as the bait fishes school being spooked and they dived deep with no sight of them so we left the place. The temperature for this day was way too cold and the sea condition was also rougher than Day 1, to jig at such a deep depth plus rougher sea was indeed not easy as everybody not able to stand firm on their feet, some members were KO by the sea condition later in the morning and we managed to land a few fishes not more than 2kg in size however no Hapuka & Blue Nose for us. We ended the trip just passed noon time due to the wind already up to 25 knots and ride back to shore was really pain in the ass.
Day 3 was our last day but the weather condition still not favor to us as the coast guide reported blowing 20 knots wind in the morning and going into 25 knots in the afternoon.The Captain decided to bring us for in-shore fishing near Whale Island so as to avoid rough sea condition. The 1st spot we fished was about 500M behind the Whale Island at the depth of 70M, this spot was a “lou jia lou jia” spot for a rat Kingfish ranging from 8kg to 12kg in size.
Unfortunately, our excitement was cut short by a big school of Barracouta
(very silvery in colour not like those dark brown colour found in Spratly) even we just parked our jig at the bottom also taken by them without fail. They fought real hard with their 1st run as powerful as the rat Kingfish except no stamina to stay long at the bottom. After some jigs and hooks lost to these toothy creeps the Captain decided to change spot as they were too nuisance to him.
The rest of the morning became very quiet with no bite or occasionally some small Kingfish less than 3kg gave us some short excitement to cheer about. Again the Captain had to call off the day before noon time because strong wind started to pick up and white caps can be seen every where with big swell coming in. SAYORANA to the Kingfish/Hapuka/Blue Nose till we meet again.
Overall Catch Summary:-
Kingfish = 25 range from 8kg to 30kg
Barracouta = 12 range from 3kg to 5kg
Belt fish = 3kg x 1
Pink Miao Miao = 1kg x 1
Turkish = 2kg x 1
Kawai = 2kg x 1
Jewfish = 1.5kg x 1
Enjoy the photos ………
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Originally Posted by TIONG 
