An EPIC session

What’s not to love about living in a city with such an amazing fishery at its doorstep? Cock and I hastily arranged a fishing trip after work yesterday, destination same as Sunday where he’d also been fishing literally a km away from me. We chucked the boat in at Narrowneck , only shipping a small amount of water (wind was due east – straight onshore) and bashed our way out to Rangi, then Motuihe. When we got into the lee of Motuihe I asked Cock if he wanted to have a go on fly rod for a kingi and he replied “yeah why not?”. We puttered along while I got down to rigging… only to find that the last bust off fish from Sunday’s excursion had cut my fly line and not the leader! I’d merrily just wound in and set off home not realising the carnage. So I set about tying a nail-less nail knot but it had trouble gripping and cut into and through the fly line (Teeny t-300).. finally I got it attached, gave it a few tugs and it seemed ok…. We approached the structure and Jase got casting. First couple of drifts we lost some flies as we hooked the structure, all ok as it meant the fly was in the right place. The next hit was a goodie but I think I detected a trout strike? Cock? Really????

The next one though, oh lord he smacked that fly home and again and again.

To my everlasting shame, I was the one who lost that fish for him. My leader arrangement failed… epic fail… so this time I tied a stopper in the end of the line and nail knotted the leader snug against it, gave it a huge wrench and it survived. From there, Cock was unstoppable. The fish just got more and more worked up.

There were loads on the sounder, including some BIG models. Fished chased the fly. At one stage the fly was hassled as it rested in the water while Jase tidied up a knot in the running line. Next thing, 3 casts, 3 hits, 3 fish landed. It was truly epic and just got better and better. Just to put some perspective on this, the usual performance is to hit a fish or 2 early, then they switch off and fade away. Not this evening though. Fish followed other hooked fish up. The more they struggled, the more excited the pack got. We lost flies. Some fish made it back to shelter. Some didn’t. I was having the time of my life just being there, Jase was amping. Imagine your first kingi on fly session being like that, was certainly a red letter occasion.

He mastered the ugly shooting head (no trick casting here, strictly chuck & duck!) and really hammered those strip strikes, it was a joy to watch. We switched pozzies after he foul hooked one particular fish and I had to go right for’ard to net it. (The more pressure he exerted, the more the tail lifted and head went down – a real tussle). The fish were still firing and I had an exciting moment where with a fish charging I had the line tangled around my foot – luckily I freed it and we netted the fish.





Oops!

Next one dealt to me so we called it a day and went after snapper.

Given Sunday’s excellent fishing I expected similar but we had a funny wind across tide drift and initially with the drogue deployed were standing still.. with no drogue we were going across the current. Anyhow I only caught a little peewhacker. Jase got a couple of fatties aboard and released a few more. The trip home in the darkening evening was sweet as the following sea suited The Booger perfectly. Retrieving her was totally drama free. Home by 10.30 and stowed away.

EPIC