We were in the mood for a bit of post-holiday kai moana the
other day so assembled the long lining gear and headed for the fisherman’s
table on the Kapiti coast. Upon arrival
the sea conditions were good with a slight cross wind blowing, so we began to
assemble the gear. However when it came
to baiting up we found that we’d accidently packed only pilchards which are not
the best bait for long lining in this area due to their softness and the fact
they tend to catch a lot of non-target species.
Nevertheless we baited up and sent tom out on the kayak to make the first
drop. 30 minutes later we brought the
line in to find it loaded up with a number of kahawai and a gurnard. We kept one kahawai for the table, gave one
to the people fishing next to us and used the last one to bait most of our
hooks for our second and final drop.
Once again Tom was sent seaward in the kayak and our final set was
made. This time due to tougher bait we
let the line soak for a bit over an hour before beginning the procession of
boys walking up the beach with the line thrown over their shoulders.
15 minutes later and the first five hooks appeared (all of
which had been baited with pilchard) and four of them had caught a kahawai which
we quickly released. Onto the final twenty
hooks which had been baited with kahawai and we found most baits had been left
untouched bar a couple of gurnard towards the end. Not an overly successful trip but as is
usually the case we went home with a good feed of fish which we have found isn’t
so easily achieved line fishing from the shore in the Welly region.
Fishing is not an easy thing to do. It requires lots of patience as well as some expertise to know how to hook the fish. You have done a good job!
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