BOI Day 2 (the fish)

Today was all about the fishing.

An early alarm to get James' fishing boat in the water to see what kaimoana we could find. After a quick stop in Russell for some fuel, we set off. Target for the day - kingfish! And hoping to augment the catch with snapper and some other fish.

Our first main stop was out at the nine-pin, where there were absolute scenes with masses of Parore on the surface feeding. We dropped our lines to the bottom in search of snapper, but only found fish just on the 30cm mark which weren't worth keeping. We did catch a number of rock cod (apparently a delicacy in China, but thrown away in NZ) Grandaddy Hapuka (delicious!) and also three eels (also something I'd usually throw back but James and his family were keen to keep).

We tried a couple of lures after we saw a kingfish chasing a sinker back toe boat, but still no luck on that one.

Sick of catching baby snapper, and keen to show a bit more of the bay to the visitors, we shot over to bird rock to see what was on the other side. We found amazing blue water on this side, so we parked up. Here we caught a few blue Maumau, a brace of pink Maumau, a couple more Grandaddy Hapuka, but we were still plagued by 30cm snapper. I'm hindsight, Nathan wishes he'd jumped in the water here with his spear gun to have a look around given how beautiful the water was.

With a colorful bin full of fish (and empty of bait) we called it a day and went back to base.

We spent the afternoon cleaning and eating the fish (in a range of different dishes) and playing at the beach and in the water. Ready for bed and a Sunday sleep in!Read more