With all the talk of nice fish sitting in Doubtless bay Stevo and I decided to go do our second kontiki set that side this time, driving a long the beach finding our spot it seemed there was a lot of weed around. We were hoping it wasn't going to be an issue but hooking up weed right on the shore line wasn't a good thought. Half way down the beach there were a few patches with less weed starting to appear, some places it was sitting about 10ft out which would easily hook up on our baits.
We found a nice spot with not to much weed in the water and just had to make sure the baits didn't pick up any shoreline weed. The great thing was the wind was offshore this side so it was a little more comfortable for us.
We didn't worry to much about the surcasters this time, being a higher tide I find the lower tide to be better for me and more the late evening. It was nice and overcast but with the tiki being able to get out a good k or two it doesn't matter as much. We had a mixture of baits with kahawai, squid and mullet - we always try to have at least 2 different baits and spread out not just half and half on the line. Stevo set the seahorse while I baited up, we have the GPS model which is always a good thing to help when needed.
All baited up Stevo dropped the tiki in and she was under way - with all the talk about lots of fish this side Stevo set it for a 15min run and the plan was just a short soak around 20mins. If we did have to much fish the plan was to try and release what we didn't need. It can be difficult to release fish from a kontiki set just from the time they have been sitting on the line and even to swallowing the hook. What we have done with Stevo's kontiki is we've ditched the longline hooks and gone to a standard octopus recurve 6/0 hook.
These hooks are a lot bigger and ever since using them we have only caught a couple fish that have swallowed the hook, if trying to release fish it is a lot easier to just slip the hook out which is usually just in the corner of the mouth 99% of the time. 20mins had past and it was difficult to say lets bring it in as we normally soak no less than 35-40mins but we did have a second set up our sleeve if needed but we were hoping for just the one with 4-5 fish.
Stevo cranked up the winch as it started to drizzle, a min or so in he said it felt a little heavy to. We were hoping it was fish that made it heavy and it hadn't picked up any of that weed that was everywhere. It took awhile for the start of the ties where the hooks clip on to appear which had sign of weed and the first sinker and swivel was choker of it, the heavy-ness that Stevo said while winding seemed it was going to be a full string of just weed. After that first big clump on the sinker we had our first Snap on our first and second hook so maybe it wasn't all weed? and they were both nice fish around 50cm.
There was defiantly a bit of weed there but we also had 4 nice fish from 45-50cm with in the first 6-7 hooks! The weed wasn't heavy but it kept on coming but so did the fish. The crazy thing was they were all around the same size so far, our 7th fish was a little smaller around 35cm but having these big hooks and a quick soak it was as though it had just been caught so Stevo easly de-hooked it and set it free. Most of the hooks were de-baited as they came in or they had a fish on the hook, our 7th hook had a nice tasty carrot on it.
Getting to our 7th Snapper I prayed for no more but they just kept on coming, they were all such nice fish around that 50cm. Another Snap and another Stevo was having to bring them up 2 at a time. Getting to the last sinker we left the tiki in the water and grabbed the more lively ones to see if we could get them back. This is why we did the short soak we new from the reports that we may end up with quite a few - although not over our limit and all of these fish were pretty much 45-50cm we wanted to release what we could.
Once again the big hooks worked well - only one had swallowed which we were defiantly keeping and the ones that we grabbed to try to release the hooks just rolled out. We were grabbing 2 at a time and getting them back in the water where they swam around us until they were able to slowly swim away, I know most would say we should keep them but just like fishing with a rod if they are healthy enough to release then Stevo and I are going to try to release. They swam away one after the other it was so cool to see and in the end we kept just 4, it was such an insane arvo setting the tiki and we defiantly didn't need to do a second set.
We packed up and called it a day - another awesome fishing sesh with a mate and a few fish in the bin and a magic place to do it in.
Tight lines