Saturday I went fishing with a retired AgResearch Employee.
Bruce Binnie is probably in his late 60's and a severe type 1 diabetic. He's a decent bloke (I'm picking up the lingo) full of information, well traveled and just fun to be around. He hunted me up as soon as he heard that a new AgResearch employee liked to fish!
We went out on a charter out of Kawhia (pronounced KA-fi-a). We finally got to the harbor at 7:00am after a faulty alarm (not mine) and two wrong turns forced us to zip speedily through the twisty road leading us through the hills of New Zealand.
The sun was just breaking over the Eastern sky as we pulled into the harbor casting a beautiful scene of a sea town waking up in front of us. Unfortunately we would only see the sun once more that day as it slipped below the clouds in the West briefly before it dove into the salty abyss. The Dove left the dock behind with "14 pob" (persons on board) as the Maori skipper reported to the coast guard. The usual Captain was away hunting feathered foul since it was opening weekend of duck season, but he left his trusty deckhand to man ropes with his son acting as the first mate.
As we snuck out of the harbor and slipped over the dangerous sandbar a pod of dolphins joined our trek to the fishing grounds. They leapt through the water closing the gap between them and us till they were all around the boat. Several swam directly in front of the bow, only a few feet from the boat. Occasionally they would break water with a gasp shooting mist in our faces.
When we got to the fishing grounds we baited our hooks and dropped the tasty looking muscles and chopped up fish into 30 meters of the bluest water I had ever seen. Immediately we started pulling in fish. The action was great! The fist Kahawai hit the deck behind me with the first mate scooping it up to skillfully take the fight out of it and dump it into a bucket of saltwater for the purpose. The pole jumped in my hands soon after and the fight ensued with me winning in the end. I had landed my first ever saltwater keeper. A 16" Terakihi, and good eating I was told. The action continued with more Kahawai and the occasional, highly prized, Snapper. Bruce and I both also landed a Red Gurnard which grunted in disgust at being caught. Bruce said because of the noise they make, the are often called pigfish. They were also said to be delicious, so we put them in the chilly-bin.
After a while we headed farther out to the reef where there was supposed to be more snapper. On the way there a few people let out some lines behind the boat and we caught two species of Tuna this way, Albacore (one that reeled in) and Skipjack (a beautiful shinny swimming machine). When we got to the reef w
e started catching more Snapper, and a few yellowtail (that we used for bait). Then the Barracouta started hitting. The water was so clear that you could see them circling 30 feet below us, waiting on a chance to take cha
se at our passing gear. Occasionally a blue shark would slide by, barely noticeable until it flashed into action as we would land a fish. I ended up landing a barracouta, but the skipper took it off. They are pretty dangerous in the boat according to the seasoned fisherwoman next to us....and she had the scar to prove it. The barracouta were tons of fun to bring in, but the were also death to our rigs so after a failed attempt to drive them away by sacrificing one of them to Davy Jones, we moved again.
e started catching more Snapper, and a few yellowtail (that we used for bait). Then the Barracouta started hitting. The water was so clear that you could see them circling 30 feet below us, waiting on a chance to take cha
se at our passing gear. Occasionally a blue shark would slide by, barely noticeable until it flashed into action as we would land a fish. I ended up landing a barracouta, but the skipper took it off. They are pretty dangerous in the boat according to the seasoned fisherwoman next to us....and she had the scar to prove it. The barracouta were tons of fun to bring in, but the were also death to our rigs so after a failed attempt to drive them away by sacrificing one of them to Davy Jones, we moved again. Other people on the boat caught carpet shark, blue shark (which we kept), a fish they called grandpa fish, which looked a lot like Nemo! (I suspect it was some clownfish species) We also landed another species of junk fish which the skipper called by a 
french name, not repeatable on this blog.
french name, not repeatable on this blog.
Even from 13 miles out, Mount Taranaki loomed in the distance like a slumbering giant, and as the sun sank lower, it guided us back to the land. As we pulled in the cove, a last ditch effort by the sun shone brightly off the light tan cliff faces in front of us. The end to a great day on the water. As we drove back to Hamilton, I couldn't help but think, what a blast it would've been with Grandpa and all the other Dotterer walleye warriors. Nonetheless it was a great day, just the thing to get my mind back from the preceding crazy three weeks.
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