I went to live in New Zealand for a year, Whilst I was out there Ijust had to try their fishing style for myself. The main fish caught are Snapper, Gurnard and Sharks.
The Snapper are an incredible fish, and when you get one on your line you know you have got it. they put up a good fight, but well worth the effort.
They range from between 1.5lbs up to 60lbs. The good thing about fishing for snapper is that you can use any bait that you can think of as they are so easy to catch.
Gurnard are in abundance in NZ and they are really beautiful when caught and put straight onto a hot Barby! The thing we found about the Gurnard is that when you have hauled them in, they start to bark like a dog. I found this very amusing as I had never caught one in the UK before.
The Highlight of my trip was when I actually pulled in a blue shark from off the jetty at a place called Shelly Beach in the West of Auckland. It was just over a metre long and when it was weighed it was just over 22lbs. Although this was by far the biggest fish I had ever caught in my life I was told by the locals that the fish was only about 2-3 months old and I felt really good about throwing him back in to grow older gracefully.
Anybody wanting to go to N.Z. must try the fishing as it is a fantastic experience and well worth the time and effort. But you will have to get used to the fact that Multipliers are very rarely used, as all the locals prefer to use fixed spools. So unless you take your own multiplier, as I did, you will have to put up with a fixed spool.
Graham Smith
