NZ Snapper Session

**Chenz** · 11th May 2014, 06:03 PM

Had to go to NZ after Easter as my mother-in-law passed away. After the funeral we decided to go up, to my brother in law's place on the Kipera harbour and wet a line. He and his daughter and me and my son were up and on the water at dawn and out for the hour long run out the heads and up to the reef about 2 klms out.

The current there runs at a crazy speed and you can really only fish an hour each side of the tide change.

We got out and the wind was up and the sea was a chopped up mess. The first hour produced one small snapper so we decided to troll and catch some kahawai - or Australian Salmon as we call them here to use as fresh strip baits. An hour later we had four 2 kilo each filleted scaled and cut up into strips and back out to The Graveyard.

What followed was the best snapper fishing session either of us ever had. We caught our limit of 9 per person and left them biting, having thrown about twenty back. I got three on soft plastics as well but you need a big lump of lead jighead to get down to them even though it is only 35m deep. The biggest one went 20 pound in the old scale and the average was 5kg. Talk about pulling the arms out.

We smoked 14 of the biggest ones and filleted the rest. Pity I could not bring any home to Aus but had a great feed while we were there.

Anyhow here are a few pics.
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**Chops** · 11th May 2014, 06:45 PM

Top stuff,
I've never caught a snapper in all the time I've been fishing

**LandyAndy** · 11th May 2014, 07:09 PM

Awesome fishing trip.
May you remember the mother in law every time you catch a snapper.
ENJOY
Andrew

**back_in** · 16th May 2014, 10:34 PM

Well Chenz
I would stop bragging
since 31st of March 2014 the legal limit of Snapper is 7 per person with a lower limit per boat
the fisheries mob have your photo on record
hope you enjoy your jail time on your next trip to NZ
next time check the limits or we will see your mug on the N.Z. T.V. programes
cheers
Ian

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 17th May 2014, 06:35 AM

smoked is awesome

**Chenz** · 18th May 2014, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by back_in

Well Chenz
I would stop bragging
since 31st of March 2014 the legal limit of Snapper is 7 per person with a lower limit per boat
the fisheries mob have your photo on record
hope you enjoy your jail time on your next trip to NZ
next time check the limits or we will see your mug on the N.Z. T.V. programes
cheers
Ian

The guy fishing with us is the fishing inspector on the Kiepera Harbour and the limit on the west coast for that area is 10 per person. So before you send the inspectors around to see me check your figures and read the attached brochure from NZ Fisheries.

I have never exceeded a legal limit in my life and it takes uneducated and ill informed people like you to give people a bad name.

As a matter of fact he said we could have taken another fish each but we let over 40 fish go. The limit of 7 is on the east coast an area that I have fished many times and in that area we only keep 7.

My mug can go on the NZ TV anytime as long as yours in on with me apologising

**Chenz** · 27th January 2015, 04:47 PM

Originally Posted by Chenz

The guy fishing with us is the fishing inspector on the Kiepera Harbour and the limit on the west coast for that area is 10 per person. So before you send the inspectors around to see me check your figures and read the attached brochure from NZ Fisheries.

I have never exceeded a legal limit in my life and it takes uneducated and ill informed people like you to give people a bad name.

As a matter of fact he said we could have taken another fish each but we let over 40 fish go. The limit of 7 is on the east coast an area that I have fished many times and in that area we only keep 7.

My mug can go on the NZ TV anytime as long as yours in on with me apologising

Just letting Back-in know I am heading back to NZ in a couple of weeks to fish for snapper. I will be sure to keep a look out for numskulls with half a story and any TV cameras

I will post some photos if we get amongst them.

**loneranger** · 30th January 2015, 12:33 AM

Originally Posted by Chops

Top stuff,
I've never caught a snapper in all the time I've been fishing

I caught my first legal one in Oct 2013 in Shark Bay. On our last trip in Oct 2014 I caught 12. All from the kayak. I thought they were big with most of them running between about 58 - 64cm. The limit is 50 - 70cm there.

Chenz's are huge though.

**TerryO** · 1st February 2015, 09:12 AM

When I was an apprentice in the late 70's in NZ I guy I worked with invited me to go spend a weekend at his family batch fishing because their smoked fish stocks were getting low.

I have never forgotten it, we headed out in his 17' runabout to the Cavalli Islands which is just up past the Bay of Islands. we fished for an hour or two for snapper and only caught Moray eels. Then me mate said pull in your lines the school fish are coming, we all looked at him like how the hell do you know fish are coming. Anyway on the waters surface swimming towards us there was what looked like several acres of fish, which turned out mainly to be Trevally, Blue Mau Mau and bloody large herrings. They swam along with their eyes out of the water feeding on the surface. There was so many fish tightly packed it looked like you could have walked on them without getting wet, there was literally tens and tens of thousands of fish all together.

I had wondered previously why he had a small, about 3", stainless grappling hook on one of his lines but soon found out. He waited for the school to swim around the boat and they would come within about ten feet of the boat and then he surf cast his line and as soon as it hit the water pulled back and that snagged a Trevally. As soon as the hook hit the water there was a huge splash and every fish disappeared. Anyway this went on for about four hours and by the end of it he had 80% filled a plastic 44 gallon drum.

Wasn't much fun for us though as he drove the boat and cast the line and pulled in all the fish, still was fun to watch though, for a while anyway.

He reckoned that when he was young and his dad took him up there the fish would stretch to the horizon but in his opinion it had been nearly fished out by the late 70's. Anyway they all went in this huge freezer for his old man to smoke when he next went up there.

**Chenz** · 17th March 2015, 05:52 PM

Well NZ did not disappoint. We had a couple of great sessions on the Kaipara Harbour. The Graveyard is not a place for the feint hearted with conditions going from dead calm to can't stand up in the boat in an hour or two. The current there when the tide runs is phenomenal.

You can only fish an hour or so either side of the turn of the tide. We had to get out there at 4am to anchor up and then when it got light the lines got tight.

Best fish was close enough to 8kg with many more going 5 and 4kg. We left them biting both days after getting our limit.
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Also did some scalloping both walking the shallows on the big low tide and the next day with the dredge from the boat. A great feed of these was had by all with the 20 per person easily acheived.

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