Autumn through winter, d’Urville Island is the place to fish, so for my 29th birthday, Scott, Matt, George, Ryan and I packed up our gear and booked a charter. We met up in Havelock then headed out to the island, ready for a piece of the action.
Somehow, we ended up not taking any bait with us and all we had was Baku Bakus and kingfish jigs. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem. We settled in around 70m of water, when I had decided to get out some super light gear and try my luck at catching some blue cod.
When I felt the first bites, I thought I’d had success. It didn’t feel big, but it didn’t feel small either. A decent blue cod for dinner. Suddenly, bam! Something a lot bigger than some cod was hooked on the end of my very small fishing rod. Five to 20 minutes later, we were able to see colour from the side of the boat.
A 107cm kingfish decided he wanted blue cod for lunch and had inhaled mine on the way up. Talk about live bait!
After that, the fish kept coming and we ended the day with handful of snapper and kingfish, including a whopping 30lb kingfish and a 24lb snapper for me, both my new personal best.
Many of the others also got new personal bests and the boat was filled with happy fishermen all round. What a way to turn 29.
