With the Easterlies still in play and a mtr swell with off shores out West there was only one thing to do for this time of year, that was to go target carrots off the sand out West for a few hours. Targetting them with the kontiki can be hard to do but if your catching them on the surfcaster then there's no need to send it to the horizon.
We made our way up the beach with a plan to set the tiki just beyond the breakers and I was really looking forward to flicking out a bait on the surfcaster. Stevo was up from Tauranga so a bin of carrots would be great to take home. Driving the beach I was on the look out for a particular spot to have a good shot at a gurnard on the rod. I have caught a few over the years off the sand, it can be hit and miss and with the tide pretty much on the rise I had to settle for a hole that would fill up over the high.
Half way up I got Stevo to do a quick turn around, I had seen what I thought was a Kahawai lying on the beach which would be perfect bait for our first set. It was a Kahawai and it had no tail so picking it must of had a toothy critter attached to it at some stage. Arriving at a spot where a hole sat to the side of a little bank Stevo started on setting up the tiki while I set up my surfcaster and flicked out a bait. With having fresh Kahawai already we didn't have to wait for fresh bait so we baited up and had the tiki pulling our first set.
Getting back to my rod I noticed the line had become slack and pulled to the right, winding up the slack I struck just in case something was still on. I could feel a fish at the other end and a minute later I had a solid Kahawai sliding up the sand. We had more fresh bait for our second set if it was needed. I flicked out a new bait - half a pillie was my choice for the day for targeting gurnard with the rod, moments later I was onto my second fish, this time I could see a bit of orange in the white wash - yea boy it was our first carrot.
After that Stevo fired up the tiki winch and we noticed the GPS hadn't worked as the line was coming in hard right from being pulled in that typical north current. We were hoping even though it didn't go out straight the baits were still just on the outside of the breakers for a chance of a carrot or two. We ended up with 4 on our first set, even though not a lot it was a good start to our gurnard day plan. We fixed the GPS Mac-Guyver styles so it would go straight out this time and once we had sorted out the second set I was back out there flicking out another fresh bait, it didn't take long for my second gurnard to make it's way to shore. I love surfcasting Muriwai and although it was slow on the rod I was loving it.
I got no more enquirers on the rod as Stevo fired up the tiki winch for the last time, it had been soaking for 40mins just out past the breakers and we were hoping for a few more carrots for the bin. This set was a lot better for us, carrots were lined up coming in through the surf. One after the other white wash turned to orange as another carrot made it's way up the sand. In the end we ended up with a nice harvest of fresh carrots, with a couple on the rod and the rest on the tiki which basically gave us 7 nice fat carrots to take home each.
Another great Reel Kiwi Fishing adventure with a mate and a few fish in the bin - can't ask for much more than that.
Tight linesTargeting gurnard with the kontiki and few fat carrots on the surfcaster