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New Zealand Adventure — Joe Riley

FISH FROM THE LONG WHITE CLOUD

Our cousins across the ditch in New Zealand impress Joe Riley with variety and size of fish.

Joe Riley shares his trip.

I’m a regular visitor to New Zealand, usually rivers or lakes chasing trout, always with a fly rod. In March this year I took another trip, this time not just the fly rod, but spinning gear in the 4000 and 6000 size range ready for snapper and kingfish in Parengarenga Harbour .

Te Hapua is the closest town to Parengarenga Harbour, which is close to the Northern tip of the North Island. A large harbour which has in parts, pure white sand spits and in others mangrove fringes. A large harbour with strong tidal movements through a large barway.

I travelled on my own across the ditch and was picked up by an old mate, Steve Brown. Steve and I have been fishing together regularly after becoming good friends after meeting at the World Fly Fishing Championships. From Auckland airport, a 6 hour drive north to get to a farm stay aptly named Mangrove Batch. The old farm house converted to an Air BNB has it’s own channel through the mangroves out into the harbour, At high tide the boat was slipped into the water ready for the fishing to begin.

We had several objectives for the trip. Catch a tailing snapper polaroided in the shallows. Catch kingfish both on stick bait lures and hopefully on the fly rod. These were the main plans and other than that just catch plenty of snapper, kawahai or black back salmon as we know them and what ever else came our way.

The first morning we worked around the edges of some mangroves, sighting snapper, mullet, and tons of luderick, schools and schools of them. We were trying to sneak up on a snapper with the boat but they seemed to see us before we got much of a chance to have a cast at them.

Having given up on the snapper for now, we went exploring some of the many bays looking for more shallows. There were kawahai everywhere occasionally small bust ups but mostly charging around as the boat travelled over them in the numerous channels and over sand flats.

We got to the Southern most channel and worked our way towards then end. The channel cut around a point and as we slowly moved past it I saw two big kingfish

come up in the water and turn back down again. Next thing there was an explosion of water on the shore, the kingfish were smashing kawahai (same as Australian salmon) - pushing them into the shallows. Throwing the stick-bait, no response first cast, then second cast a beast of a kingfish smashed the lure as it jerked across the surface. The kingfish hooked well but in 6 meters of water, the fight was simply a tug of war. Locked up drag trying to keep his head out of the weed, rod doubled over. After a relatively short but very hard tussle the kingfish came to the boat, it was netted, at least part of it was and most of it hung out of the net as it was brought on board. Objective one, complete a 40lb kingfish caught on a surface lure.

Early morning seemed the best time for seeing kingfish working. I always assumed they were more of a deep water target, however most mornings they would be charging at mullet and kawahai as they hedged against the mangroves on the incoming tide, mullet looking for food and shelter and kawahai preying on smaller bait. You could spot bait being hit by the slashes in the surface, every now and then a much bigger splash would show a kingfish. If it was super calm the kingfish could be spotted from their bow wave as they cruised just under the surface, even in the deeper water, exciting visual fishing.

We tripped over the barway a couple of days and found kingfish on a nearby point. Casting flies or stick baits and hooking 4lb to 6lb kawahai only to have them chased by a big kingfish. They came to the stick baits but not the fly. Out on the open water there were smaller snapper everywhere. Jigging with small hard jigs and burleying using fresh kawahai for bait modest sized snapper were caught thick and fast.

We kept working on the snapper in the shallows, seeing the snapper and being able to present a fly to them was without spooking them proving to be a bit of a challenge. The tidal flats were so big that you only got the top half of the tide with sufficient water over the flats so you could see the fish. We kept persisting but opportunities were limited. One afternoon we went up an arm in the North Western end of the harbour. The water was a bit coloured here from the big silt flats. On the run out tide, we set a burley pot and began to bait fish. I’ve caught the odd snapper before, but this was an eye opener to say the least. For about 2

Sight fished snapper on fly - big tick for that one. hours either Steve or I were hooked up to big snapper, one after the other. Snapper to 10lb, bigger ones busted off, it just was constant action. The sheer mass of snapper in the harbour must be immeasurable. A simple running sinker to a 4/0 circle hook with a big chunk of fresh kawahai as bait was all it took. Occasionally you would pick up another kawahai and replenish the bait supply or hook a big ray and break him off because you are never going to land him. One thing that limited the time on the water was to avoid getting back to base at low tide. A couple of times we stayed out too long and the channel to the batch lost all it’s water. It’s no fun wading back through mangrove mud so set the clock for avoiding low tide. At night you could go out with a torch and pick up garfish for bait, millions of them are in the bay and you can simply dip net them as they come to the torch light against the boat. They were the other excellent bait for the snapper. With only a couple of days to go we headed out trying to find the elusive snapper in the mangroves, we had gone through and along some beautiful water seeing plenty of kawahai, mullet and luderick, but still hadn’t managed to get a good shot. I was on the casting deck and we edged into a channel between two strands of mangroves, a channel no more than 5 metres wide in about a metre of water. Just as we entered a big pink/red tail appeared through the surface, unmistakable, a snapper. I cast a clouser long and beside the snapper. It knew something

was going on but clearly hadn’t seen the fly. Time to cast again as we were starting to drift closer and the full snapper was now in view. The clouser hit the water and began to sink, a small strip and the reaction was instant the snapper charged at the clouser and swallowed it like it had been looking for it all week. The hook was set but now with mangroves both sides of the channel it was again hold on and hope for the best. A couple of runs towards the mangroves halted just in time, muscled to the surface and netted a magnificent snapper, sight fished in shallow water was brought on board. An awesome, heart in mouth fishing experience I will never forget.

Most evenings as we headed back to base there was a school of kawahai that would periodically smash bait near the surface. If you hadn’t had enough wade polaroiding them, cast to them busting up during the day or throwing lures at them you could cast a popper fly or clouser at them just to finish off the day with a few more fish. Parengaranga harbour is one of those special places, far enough out of the way that it hasn’t been depleted of it’s fish stocks. There are some professional fishermen working the harbour and oysters being commercially grown but it is largely a wild and seemingly untouched fishery.

You can fish from the shore in Parengaranga but access to many places is limited. Some areas are owned by the local Maori councils and fees can be charged to gain access to areas. A boat is the best way to get around, it doesn’t have to be a big boat though as the harbour is largely sheltered. We had a week at Parengarenga and barely scratched the surface, to go back is high on my list of future fishing adventures. If snapper and kingfish are your thing, this is one place that should be on your must do list. Joe Riley On the bucket list, ticked, but remaining on there for a while yet for the author.

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