# New Zealand - Ultimate Kayak Fishing Adventure



## simonsrat (Feb 13, 2009)

If you read Blade then you may have noticed or even entered the competition to win The Ultimate Kayak Fishing Trip.Tim was the winner and he took his mate Wes along for the trip. I was lucky enough to tag along to document the trip for upcoming issues of Blade.

The trip involved 3 days of kayak fishing from a mother boat and another three days kayak fishing around the Coromandel coastline.

After meeting Tim and Wes at the Auckland airport we had a few introductory beers and waited for the guys from AFN to turn up. Then it was into the van for a 2 hour drive into Coromandel. First stop was The Cormandel Kayak Adventures store. This is where we met our guide for the week, Rob Fort. The centre piece of the store was a mould of a snapper that Rob had made himself. It was pretty impressive.










Rob let us know that the we would be leaving on the mother ship part of our trip in the morning as the weather forecast for the rest of the week was deteriorating weather with strong winds. We headed over to Peter Mackenzie's house, Lazy Daze. Pete would be the skipper of the boat for the trip. When we got to his place we could smell this roast cooking. It was a wild pig and was delicious. Pete does a bit of pigging and told us a few tales while we tucked in and had a few ales.

Pete's house backed onto the estuary which feeds into Kennedy Bay and this was the view that greeted us in the morning. You can book Pete's house if you want somewhere to stay on the Coromandel Peninsula.










We loaded up all our gear and headed to the jetty where we would leave for the mother ship.



















We headed out of the estuary into Kennedy Bay and that is where we saw our mother ship M.V. Te Wairoa.



















Everything was stored on board and then we motored out of Kennedy Bay off on the ultimate adventure ......

To be continued ....


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## suehobieadventure (Feb 17, 2009)

OK to be continued... where in AKFF or Blade ?? I actually bought the last Blade after letting my subscription lapse and was pleasantly surprised it has become a polished magazine and I will renew my subscription now.


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## simonsrat (Feb 13, 2009)

I will continue it here ... but a lot more detail in Blade. If anyone wants to know anything jump in and ask.

It could take me a while to finish it though ... 6 days of amazing fishing in a breathtaking location. Plus I have lots of video footage to play with.

cheers,

S


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## yakgear (Mar 3, 2012)

AFN Guys

me - Andrew

Patrick

and

Brad..



Rob Fort allowed me to put a few HowAus stickers on his yaks..









lazy daze at the golden moment









drying my shirt, wonder where everyone was ??


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## simonsrat (Feb 13, 2009)

The Ultimate Kayak Fishing Adventure begins ....






cheers,

S


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## simonsrat (Feb 13, 2009)

We left Kennedy Bay for some pinnacles on the Eastern side of Cuvier Island which hold kingfish. A couple of the boys had some skirted lures and they threw them out the back of the boat and it was not long before a few skipjack tuna hooked up. There was even a double hookup at one stage. We bleed them then stashed them into an ice slurry for sashimi later in the trip.










We hit a lot of locations that hold bait and kingfish on the eastern side of Cuvier Island and could not find them anywhere. Pete the skipper of the Te Wairoa contacted another boat that was further east than what we were on the radio. They were having no luck finding the kingfish so a decision was made to head to Cuvier Island and chase the snapper. Cuvier island is a nature reserve and you are not allowed to land on it but it is all good to fish around it and moor for the night.










I took a three piece 6-10kg travel rod with me loaded up with 20lb and fished Zman and Gulp on jigheads from 3/8 to 3/4 of an ounce. The technique involved casting ahead of the drifting kayak letting the lure sink. A double hop, retrieve the slack line and repeat. Lots of hits happened while the lure was sitting on the bottom. It was not long before i got my first snapper on a lure.










to be continued .....

S


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## simonsrat (Feb 13, 2009)

It was a pretty cool session catching numerous snapper and dropping and missing many more.

I decided to head back to the boat as I could see Pete the skipper was getting ready to relocate to the side of the island where we would more for the night. I didn't really feel like a paddle so this made sense to me.

It was a pretty breath taking boat trip around the corner of the island with the sun setting in the west over New Zealand and the moon rising over Cuvier Island.



















The boys came back with a couple of better fish for dinner tomorrow night.



















After everyone got on board and into some warm clothes stories were told of the ones that got away. Pat and me decided to catch some fish of the back of the boat and we had a steady stream of squire and trevors landed. I got a better fish and the fist kingie of the trip was landed, followed by another one.










Me and pat then started getting busted off on 20lb line so we started upping leader size. First to 30lb then 50lb and finally at 80lb we saw that I hooked a school shark. I did not get to land mine but soon after Pat had one at the back of the boat for a photo.










I noticed some squid in the lights at the rear of the boat so Tim ran off for a couple of squid jigs. We caught a few squid to add to tomorrow nights seafood feast and then it was off to bed to dream of what The Ultimate Kayak Adventure would bring us tomorrow.

as usual to be continued (at that is only day one so far ......)


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## Squidley (May 8, 2010)

I've been enjoying both accounts of this trip, looking forward to more


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## simonsrat (Feb 13, 2009)

Some of the fun we got up to on the Te Wairoa






cheers,

s


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## spottymac (Aug 29, 2005)

Awesome pics and Video of your trip to the Coromandel Peninsula
It is a lovely place, I was lucky enough to spent a week there and managed to go fishing from a boat a few times with lots of fish landed,


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