Taking a knife to a gun fight

Yesterday I got taught a bit of a lesson about catching kingis with a 'trout' rod. Actually I can see no real reason for fishing #8's for trout, bonefish yes, so why call 8 weight a trout rod anyway? Maybe if you were casting tongariro bombs all day.... but anyway after a decent sunny day where we managed to get to the beach, wash a quarter of the house and mow the lawn, I decided to go fishing. Wind was from the North and steady 15kts. TT had sms'd that Crusoe was holding good kings so I decided on a snapper mission to Sergeant Channel. Chucked in fly rod - of course. Boats were all over the Crusoe marker, so not much chance of a kingi there, so I set up for a jig.

The pink inkichu was on fire again and the fishing was insane, a fish on every drop. I caught a dozen before I stopped counting and just kept on catching, a solid bite on the incoming in 35 - 50 feet.

The combination of wind and tide was such that the drift was pretty fast, so I cast the jig well ahead of the boat, jigging the lure towards me and then dropping it back. As often as not, the fish took as the lure was being wound up off the bottom. Sometimes it was taken on the drop, the spool spinning faster than the weight of the lure. I pulled the pin when I broke the lure off ... bye bye $30 owwwwwwwwwwwww

I nipped over to the now vacant Crusoe marker, and first cast with the fly rod hooked up a rat which I led away easily enough. Man this fish didn't want a bar of me and repeatedly ran line off.

Then it was time to move, so bashed down Sergeants, behind Motuihe and across to Rangi. Glad I was in waders and jacket because I got hammered as wave spray after wave spray smashed me.



Decided to have a cast at Rough Rock on the way back to Torpedo Bay.... mistake #1, approaching marker from directly upwind/upcurrent... mistake #2, using 8 weight..... I got smashed by a fish, all I saw was a yellow tail and then I saw backing flying through the guides and finally when I thought I had some control it just charged - by now I was a good 40m downstream of the buoy and it lit the afterburners and despite me dialing the drag right up, well I was lucky that it broke the leader 2cm from the line. Flylines are expensive....

Home by 9.45. Magic.