Derrick used this report in an issue of NZ Fisher a few issues back but I thought I would share it with you lot as well in a shameless attempt at winning a desperately needed pair of kick-a$$ Maui Jim's!

I was standing on a local ledge with Gary and Joe at some very un-gentlemanly hour back in July. With our beanies on and sipping coffee from the thermos on a perfectly still and crisp winters’ morning whilst trying to catch a snapper for breakfast Gary said he was dead keen to do a serious landbased kingie mission in the summer.

From memory, Joe’s response was instant and my rubber arm was already flailing about when the only 5knt gust of wind blew through and twisted it up behind my back J

A few weeks later, we studied the tides and picked a weekend at the end of February that looked the goods with nice morning lows just after the first quarter moon. It just so happened that this weekend was also Gary’s birthday which made the decision that much easier. Gary immigrated from the UK with his family about 4 years ago and is a dead keen landbased angler who, after a landing a few from the boat, has been obsessing over a king from the rocks for a wee while. To get one on his birthday would just be too much.

Along with another local mate, Greg, we decided on northern Coromandel as the destination. Being a peninsula, Coromandel is an excellent destination due to there always being a coast to fish no matter what the wind decides to do. This is particularly handy when you are planning a trip weeks in advance. There are tonnes of options when the weather is good and most are relatively easy walk-in spots too. However, on this occasion we were saved from the hard slog and bush bashing that normally accompanies these missions by good mate and forum member Blindspot who offered us the lone of his IRB while he was attending a wedding in Christchurch.

43 phone calls, 536 group emails and 91 swellmap hits later and the weekend had finally arrived. The weather gods had smiled on us and the forecast was perfect. As we loaded all the gear in the hot sun at 5pm on Thursday evening, I couldn’t help but feel this was going be a great trip.

Loading up

We got to our base for the weekend around midnight. Thankfully the ranger had left the key where he said it would be and we were able to settle into a couple of beers on the porch after a long drive.

As the waxing moon threw a blanket of dim light across the towering hills that formed the valley surrounding us, fishy tales and plans for the morning were discussed to the soothing sound of crickets in the still air. There is something very surreal about northern Coromandel that I can’t quite put my finger on. The anticipation of what tomorrow might bring was thick amongst the boys, but somehow we managed to get our heads down eventually.

A few hours later the first alarm went off and after a brief moment of disbelief, we were up and moving about. Perhaps it was the excitement of waking up somewhere new with a whole coastline of unlimited fishiness to explore that got the boys out of bed… or perhaps it was the heavy, thick fragrant air lacking in oxygen as a result of four men sleeping in a small room, that inspired us to be on our feet and moving about in a very short amount of time.

Whatever the reason, teamwork was the name of the game.  With one man making lunch, another cooking breakfast and the other two sorting bait/berley and loading the boat we were down at the water’s edge ready to launch the IRB at first light.

This was the first time the other lads had done a landbased mission using an IRB for transport and so (in true early morning fashion) I gave some very vague details on how this beach launch was supposed to go.

We dropped the boat in the water and I went to park the ute and trailor well up above the high tide mark. By the time I got back the others had managed to get the bow facing into the crashing swell but the engine wasn’t running. The boat was half full of water and the back of the transom was very close to the water line. Breakers were smashing over the bow and things were looking a wee bit hairy!

After a heap of priming, choke and revs  in waist deep water with the boat getting smashed by swell the engine finally fired up. With the transom about to disappear under the waterline I was taking no chances. I whacked her into gear and hit the gas, launching the boat forward. With one hand on the throttle, the other on the side rope and my body and legs flailing out the back like some kind of perverse giant-sized squid vicious teaser, we  cleared the breakers and I pulled myself on board!

“All good” I think were my exact words as I smiled at the others as casually I could before dropping the scuppers. Quietly though I was thanking fate I wasn’t ringing Ben and telling him I had sunk his boat!

Pretty soon the scuppers had done their job and with the water completely drained from the hull we were planing our way to spot-X. Upon arrival however, it quickly became obvious that we weren’t going to be landing on the ledge I had hoped to fish. The swell was wrapping around the coast and pumping into the small bay that we usually use to unload. With three introductees on board and my own confidence somewhat in tatters after the diabolical launch, the call was very quickly made to try another ledge further down the coast that had produced decent fish for me in the past.

This ledge was easily accessible and so began the offload. The boys picked up the gist of the bungee system in no time and before we knew it, Greg and I were tying off the empty boat while Joe and Gary were setting up on the ledge.

Sorted

“Are the bungs in?”

The brief moment of relief that the problem had been identified and was easily rectifiable was quickly swamped by the mortifying realisation that I was going to have to live with this error for not only the rest of this trip, but until such a time that each of the others had committed an individual act of muppetry of equal proportions.

Once on the ledge, we got set up and then went about trying to catch livies. This proved extremely difficult at first and didn’t improve much over the day. We pumped a solid berley trail and cubed continually. We fished spinners, un-weighted pillie cubes, baits under floats, retrieved baits, softbaits – you name it, we worked it. Unfortunately though the kahawai just didn’t seem to be around and the two or three we did secure and deploy as livebaits ended up belly up within 10 minutes.

We took turns at regular intervals throwing a popper about and despite four sets of keen eyes on the wash, we didn’t see a kingie cruising all day.

In the mid-afternoon around high tide, the thought of a chilli-bin packed with beer and salt-ice got the better of us and we decided to pull the pin. As any fisherman will tell you, conceding defeat for the day is never easy but knowing that you have two more days up your sleeve certainly softens the blow. Getting back to camp a little earlier than expected also allowed us plenty of time to get organised for the next days’ assault!

In the morning we were on the beach launching again by daylight. Having had a chance to properly organise ourselves yesterday afternoon, we were much better prepared today. We had virtually halved our gear, the boat was packed properly and of course, with the question being raised many times, the bungs were in!

Greg decided to park the wagon up the beach this morning while I got the engine idling. There was far less swell today which made this job easier and as soon as Greg got back down the beach we were off.

We went straight for the ledge we had had to dismiss the day before and were met by the sight of a very small and manageable swell wrapping around into the bay. With everyone having had a bit of practice with the bungy system yesterday, we were all happy that this would be (and was) an easy disembarkment.

Once landed, we got a berley out straight away and let it go to work while we set up our kit. Without the drama of yesterday, we were on the ledge getting ready half an hour earlier than the day before and were greeted by a glorious sunrise.

The water along the ledge looked very fishy. It was clean, had good visibility with plenty of current and a nice swell smashing up against the rocks which was creating plenty of white water. It just oozed kingfish.

By the time the first bait hit the water the kahawai had sniffed out the berley and were ready for breakfast. Within 20 minutes and with three hours until the low, we had three livies out bobbing about under balloons - pretty much the polar opposite of yesterday’s start. 

With ourselves now well set-up, I decided to throw a popper about to keep myself busy while the other boys set about catching a feed of snapper for tonight’s meal.

After an hour or so and a couple of livie swap outs (a couple went belly up), the fishing slowed a little. Joe and Gary’s livies had followed the current and made their way around to the left of the ledge (a prime spot where I have seen many kingfish harass baits in the past) while mine had left it’s prime position on the edge of the wash to find itself right back in close to the ledge and getting bashed around in the surge below me.

I wound up the slack line on the livie rig before setting about trying to catch a new livebait. I have seen this many times where livebaits that are tired swim back to the ledge and then get caught up in the surge, unable to swim out against the swell that keeps bashing them back up against the rocks. Whilst my bait wasn’t at that stage yet, I figured it was probably better to get prepared now.

Whilst casually casting about an unweighted pillie, I looked down to see my balloon suddenly get dragged under the water without warning and pop off. The clicker on the TLD50 began to sing as I yelled out to the others and ran over to lift up the rod. By this stage the reel was silent and the fish had stopped running. My heart sank as I figured it had spat the bait. A few tense seconds later the spool started to spin again and I pushed the lever up to strike, waited for the weight and then struck the hook home.  The rod loaded up and line began to pour off the reel.

Greg ran over and put a gimbal on me while I tried to get the fish under control. By this stage, after its’ initial run, the fish had dug down deep right in front of me and was dragging my mainline across the rocks. Thankfully the kelp was cushioning the 24kg mono from parting but I was taking no chances and backed the drag back to about halfway. This allowed the fish to turn and run out to deeper water which gave me some breathing space before I pushed the drag back up and began the process of trying to wear it down further out.

It felt like a decent fish and after a good tussle out wide with a number of long solid runs and plenty of give and take, I could feel him tiring. I began retrieving line at a good pace and after a while he was back at the ledge. He ran me up and down the weedline a few times and had me scrambling along the ledge trying to keep the mainline away from the sharp rocks.

Finally the wind-on emerged through the surface of the water. With 5m of 200lb wind-on and 3m of 100lb fluro trace being the only thing left to drag across the rocks, I knew I had this fish.  Greg was down at the water’s edge with the gaff and as the trace came within reach he yelled that there was another fish shadowing my one in.

Greg grabbed the trace and quickly sunk in the gaff. I was stoked – this was my first landbased kingie in a couple of years and whilst I knew it wasn’t the 25kg model I’ve been dreaming of, I knew it was far bigger than my previous PB of 15kg.

Greg hoisted the fish up the ledge and lay it down in front of me to much whooping and high fiving before we heard Gary yell out. In the commotion, the rest of us hadn’t noticed him wind in his livebait after seeing the other kingie and it had been smashed as well.

Before I had even had a chance to really take a good look at my fish, Gary was hooked up and it was all on again. It quickly became apparent that this was another good fish and that Gary wasn’t going to be able to muscle it in quickly. It had him running up and down the ledge with us in tow and forced him into a crouch on more than one occasion.

The end game was hard work and became a battle of attrition. The fish had burrowed down deep and swum through the kelp directly at our feet and Gary had to take his time inching it back. We later learnt that he was fishing a mono he had brought with him from the UK that was rated at only 38lb.

Slowly but surely though he started to get the last of the mainline back on the spool until I was able  grab the leader and lift the fish through the kelp for Greg to gaff.

To a chorus of expletives and  whooping Greg handed the gaff to Gary above us who hoisted it safely up onto the ledge. Gary looked a little stunned at first before suddenly exclaiming in full English accent “Wot a peach of a fish!”

This was clearly a larger fish than mine and the buzz on the rock  - with two solid kingies at our feet, one being my new PB and the other Gary’s first landbased kingie (and on his actual birthday), after all the weeks of planning and build-up and not to mention the drama of the day before – was a moment that I’ll remember for years to come.

Gary and me feeling stoked

The kahawai though seemed to have disappeared and unfortunately for the boys, didn’t reappear for the rest of the day. We fished on through to the middle of the afternoon but despite our best efforts could not secure a decent livebait. At one point, I even put out a large maomao but had to bring it back in when I realised the clutch was not engaging on my reel.

Back at the campground we quickly shot back to the cabin to drop off the boat and pick up some ice cold bevvies before taking the fish down to the filleting station at the water’s edge. On the way we stopped in at the rangers hut and picked up a set of scales.

We hung the scales from a pohutukawa and weighed mine first. It ended up going 18kg which was a new PB for me and 3kg closer to my goal of a 25kg landbased kingfish.

Next up we all watched in anticipation as Gary’s fish was hung up and pulled the dial round to 23kg! An excellent effort on 18kg line for anyone – let alone this being his first landbased king.  

That evening, kingfish was all over the menu. We gorged on fresh sashimi, followed by islands style raw fish and then a main of kingfish and snapper taco’s with a mean as mango salsa that Joe prepared.

The cabin had filled with people during the day . There were two sets of foreign trampers and a group of fisherman from the Waikato who all enjoyed the fruits of our labour that evening as the drinks and laughter flowed on into the night.

It was a fitting way to round off a great day.

By contrast, however, the next day was very uneventful. We landed on the same ledge but the bait never showed. We didn’t catch a kahawai all morning and the maomao we put out in desperation went un-noticed. We knocked it on the head around midday so we could get packed and hit the road back to Auckland at a reasonable hour.

While it was a disappointing way to end the trip, it did reiterate just how critical timing and organisation can be to success.  Had we missed the bait the day before, we may have gone home with our tails between our legs. Thankfully though, we found the right ledge at the right moment in time and turned three days of tough fishing into a lifelong memory.

On the drive home it was agreed that we’d make this an annual trip. Greg and Joe had some unfinished business, Gary was still buzzing from the result, and me… well I was still to witness these guys commit their acts of muppetry.