Viking Invitational & Coromandel Gold Rush 2014

By Lee on December 8, 2014 • ( 1 )

Competition time! 3 days of solid fishing in the Coromandel, YEA BOY! Car full of rods, a couple of boxes of soft baits, jigs, Kaburas and enough fluorocarbon to cast my way to Coromandel… it’s on!

Day one was the Viking Invitational. Due to the strong westerly winds the competition was relocated to Tuateawa, on the eastern side of Coromandel. What a beautiful spot, nice rocky little beach and nice flat conditions for launching, definitely better that the 20 knts forecasted for the western side.

When myself and Arnie arrived, most of the contenders were already on the beach ready to go, but with a bit of sneakiness we managed to get our kayaks right to the front ready for the shotgun start. Well there was no man with a shotgun but Grant Montague told us whenever you are ready, GO!

Well the preparation was all there but the fish were not. I managed two small blue cod in the first couple of hours and got to witness one lucky guy getting smoked by a Kingfish on his soft bait rod. After trying everything in my arsenal in different depths, I started to make my way back to the beach. Some good sign popped up in about 6 metres of water, funnily enough, that was only about 100 metres away from where we launched from. A couple of casts of the soft bait and I was hooked up to a screamer… but not for long, the fish must have just been holding the soft bait in its mouth before letting it go. Man they have strong jaws!

Grant and the Viking team definitely do a great job with organizing this event, they host a BBQ with a few beverages afterwards. It’s a great chance to catch up with the team and pick their brains. Great event.

The next event of that weekend was the Orton Events Coromandel Gold Rush. Excitement again! Another two days of fishing on the cards!

We were hoping to get out on the western side of Coromandel but one look at the choppy sea… well the real story is we just didn’t man up! We decided to head back over to the shelter of the eastern side. Again the fishing was very slow, however we did manage a few Johnnies.

And a couple of Gurnard… unfortunately not included in the competition.

The first couple of days we had prepared some mean sandwiches to take out with us on the water, on the last day, well, we had to deal with dry old muesli bars, better than nothing I guess. Another windy day, but from what I’ve heard just another typical competition day. This was it, today was the day, crunch time! we had to catch some snapper today, at the least just to get a little dignity back. In hindsight, to do this we should have braved it out over to the western side, instead we decided to try Stony Bay.

If you haven’t been to Stony Bay before, I highly recommend checking this place out. It is stunning! I managed to have an epic fail before even getting near the water, my kayak fell off the trolley sideward while walking down a hill, bent my rods over the rocks, and I forgot to close the lid on my centre console so all my gear came flying out, my fish finder battery got ripped out of the terminals and bent my battery. Not a good start to the day it would seem. I got on the water and powered up my fish finder… nothing, I did the usual couple of swift punches but… nothing, after totally giving up on having a fish finder for the day, I paddled on, 50 metres later it just popped on, MINT! It worked for the whole day. Time for an upgrade I think.

We talked to a guy prior to launching and he had said that there is no fish in the bay at the moment, not really what I wanted to hear but we were committed to this spot now. Literally 200m from where we had launched from I found some good sign in 11 metres of water, first cast of the day SNAPPER AT LAST! Regain some dignity.

I really did think this is it, it’s gonna be Snappers on after this, but it was short lived. I paddled out to the 50 metre mark and managed another one there but again the fishing was slow.

I wasn’t complaining with scenery like this though.

If you have been following my other trip reports, you would have noticed I like to explore caves, well, I found another mean as cave.

Even though the fishing was slow, we had such an epic weekend. Good times with a good bunch of people. I’m looking forward to entering more of the Orton Events Series next year.