Offshore Fishing

A last walk on the beach before leaving this lovely hideaway somewhere in the north of the Coromandel peninsular.

A pair of Dotterels delighted us pecking in the damp sand as the tide receded.

Today we are leaving Little Bay for Amodeo Bay (named after the captain of a ship which ran aground here). Leigh has booked us in to Anglers’ Lodge where we planned to do some deep sea fishing and Mary joined us for the day. Leigh and Dan have stayed at this place before. They love their fishing. Dan even has a boat of his own back in Taupo.

Amodeo Bay was about half an hour round the mountain range and down by the coast from Little Bay. We arrived in time to go out fishing for about 3 hours in the afternoon but just had to check that the weather would be ok out at sea.

All was well and before long we were bumping along on the rough seas. We were on a chartered fishing boat just for the four of us. The plan was to look for gannets diving. These highlight the areas where the bait is. The bait is fish such as pilchards which swim near the surface, and the bigger fish which we are after, i.e. snappers, are below these near the bottom of the sea, about 30 metres.

We eventually anchored the boat near one of these gannet-bombing areas and dropped our lines into the heavy swell. No sooner had my weight hit the bottom of the ocean than I felt a tug and hauled up an unusual spiney pink fish with big eyes and a wide mouth. I was the first to catch a Snapper! …well two actually!!

This was so exciting and another big first for me on my adventure. This was a good spot as we all continued to catch many fish here for a while until the skipper decided the shoal must have moved away according to the fish-detecting instrument on board.

We spent an exhilerating day following the trail of the dive-bombing gannet and filled a bin with fish of varying sizes. Leigh caught the biggest which was about 9lbs, Dan thought. At a high point Richard, our skipper, had to help us all unhook our fish at the same time. He was as excited as we were.

Apart from the huge yellow faced gannets, I spied a few other seabirds including the very ugly Petrel. “It looks like he fell out of the wrong side of the nest”, Richard commented as he circled the bird so I could photograph it bobbing up and down on the waves. Photographs were not easy on the high seas trying to keep your balance with a rod in your hand!

We finally returned with our huge catch and Dan had the unenviable task of gutting and cleaning our haul. He did get some willing helpers in the end. In the meantime, Richard cleaned up the equipment for the next fishing trip while the eels came up searching for the spoils.

By this time, wouldn’t you know it, the sun had gone down over the yardarm. I can get used to this life very easily!

We toasted our success and settled down to a delicious supper of fried Snapper and risotto… so much better when you’ve caught it yourself a few hours earlier.

We finished our meal just in time for the Rugby Wales-France semi-final, but I was just too tired to keep my eyes open and slept for nearly ten hours… another first!!

Thank you Leigh and Dan for a most memorable day!!