My youngest boy, Jayden, is mad about fishing, maybe even more than I am; he comes fishing with me every chance he can. I had promised him an overnight trip up to D’urville for some time , but work, life, and the weather haven’t lined up until the weekend before last and being school holidays, all the ducks aligned, so we packed up the 650 and put it in the drink at Ōkiwi Bay then motored up to bottle point (one of my favourite places to fish).
Not long after arriving, I was sounding out the area and found some good snapper signs, so I told Jayden to drop down and see what was there. Less than a minute later, he hooked into a nice fish.
A nice 10-pound snap was a great start. After a couple more around the same size, Jayden decided to catch the biggest blue cod I’ve seen! Or it would have been; the only problem was that it got taxed on the way up, but the head on it was massive.
We headed into Mill Arm for the night with a great feed in the chilly bin, laying some of Nelson Premium salt ice from Solid H2O. Had a feed, then hit the sack. The next morning, tides suited to fish for a kingfish first up, so that’s what we did again bottle point. This time, it was my turn to catch a fish, so the jig went down, and up came a lovely king. We had a couple more drifts with no luck, so we decided to try to get some more snapper. And what happens? Jayden decides he wants to catch a decent kingfish on his 15-pound snapper set-up! After a lengthy battle with a few arm aches and pains, it was landed.
Now, if that wasn’t epic enough, what Jayden pulled up next shocked even me again on light snapper gear and the same jig that he was catching snapper, cod, and kingfish.
He gets the fish to the boat and then says, “Dad, I don’t know what fish this is. “ And he normally knows his fish! I looked over, and what did I see? A puka! While fishing in about 40m of water off Bottle Point! I was shocked and stoked for him; his first hapuka—incredible!
With a very healthy looking bin of fish, we made the call to make our way home, but we had one more place to stop on our way home to try for a JD (spot x). Jayden wanted to try out his new birthday soft bait rod and reel, so down went a soft bait. Seconds from it hitting the bottom, he was hooked, and yes, a nice john dory — brilliant.
I just wanted to share this epic overnight trip up to the island. We are so lucky to have such an amazing fishery right at our doorstep. What makes it even more amazing is that I can share these moments with such an incredible young man who is now starting to outfish his old man.
Signing off – AVP, aka A Very Proud Dad
