Over a year ago I finally joined the North Shore Kayak Fishing Club (NSKFC) to get the chance to meet up with like-minded people and to share tips and stories. Apart from the monthly club meetings the club also organises several fishing trips near and far. In July I could finally join the club on their annual trip to Rawhiti in the Bay of Islands.
Arrival was planned for Friday to spend two nights in close proximity to ideal launching spot with easy access to the pristine fishing grounds the Bay of Islands has on offer. Paul and I thought we’d take an annual leave day on the Friday so we could get an extra days fishing in, why waste valuable fishing time? We left freezing Auckland at 4am to head up to the warmth of winter less north… or so we thought. I think there was more ice on the ground up there than there was in Auckland. South Islanders must think we are real soft bastards, moaning about the cold up here. Oh well, nothing can stop the real fishing fanatic.
We arrived in Rawhiti around 8am, unloaded the yaks and started gearing up to go fishing. We got on the water around 9am and paddled out of the harbour heading right towards Cape Brett. The wind wasn’t too bad at this stage, but the southerly was predicted to rise up to 25 knots later on in the day.
We came across some good sign on the way out and decided to have a couple of casts with the soft bait. I was instantly hooked up to a screamer; unfortunately, it was short lived as I was unable to get a good strike on the fish.
The wind started to pick up after an hour or so. It wasn’t rough but it did make it very hard to get a good casting angle in the shallows so we headed out to a 30 metre pinnacle and chucked the drift anchors out. There was some solid sign over the area I was drifting and almost every cast produced a fish. Nothing massive, but the fish were all good eating size. We decided not to keep any fish on the first day… Thinking the fishing would be this hot all weekend and headed back to camp to meet up with the others from the club that have arrived over the course of the day.
After an enjoyable evening with the other guys and a reasonably early night, we got on the water about 6am. The conditions were absolutely perfect, just a slight sea breeze. Apart from the beautiful scenery, not much was happening on the fishing front until around 12pm. I found a pretty solid patch of fish just off the eastern side of Urupukapuka Island. Finally I had my first couple of fish of the day!
I only landed one more fish on the Saturday but I had a great time exploring the coast as you’ll see on the video. That’s the beauty of being on a kayak. If the fishing is not great there are still plenty of other things to explore. It’s easy to simply enjoy the beautiful outdoors that we have here in NZ.
On Sunday, the last day of our trip, well, I got skunked… I only landed a couple of pigfish and had some revenge on a leather jacket that I’d managed to hook in the eye. That is payback for the countless soft bait you and your likes have devoured. Paul ended up with some pretty nice fish that he’d landed over a deep pin. He also caught a respectable size snapper on a hard body lure. Nicely done mate!
All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to the Bay of Islands with the NSKFC, great place to stay and what a stunning place to paddle around.
Was good catching up with all the fellas from the NSKFC. These guys are great company and it will certainly be one of many more trips to come for me with these guys.
Until next time… Tight lines! Check out the video from the trip. Enjoy!
Categories: Trip Reports
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