'Alibi' - Bay of Islands and Far North

Ken Taylor and his two man charter had a great trip to the Three Kings recently. Americans Doug Ulmer and Robert Strohbach, came over to New Zealand with the objective of spearing the biggest kingies they could and, if possible, a marlin. Their spear guns are custom-built and very specialised.

They started off ‘slowly’, spearing several kingfish at Spirits Bay in the 45 to 55lb range, before heading over to the Three Kings — where it all happened for them. On the first day, Robert speared a monster kingfish that weighed an incredible 103.7lb and Doug a smaller one of nearly 60lb.

The only disappointment was that due to a strong current and big swell, Robert was pushed up onto the rocks while fighting the fish, necessitating a boat retrieval. The fish was then played and landed from the boat, making the fish ineligible as a record.

For the next two days they looked around for another ‘Mr Big’, but despite seeing large numbers of fish to around 60lb, decided against killing any more.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, they headed back towards North Cape, trolling hookless lures and hoping for a shot at a marlin. As so often happens, the Compass Rose and closely located Fingers produced, with two marlin showing interest in the lures. One disappeared as soon as the diver hit the water but the other stuck around for a while — unfortunately just outside the effective range of the speargun, so no shot was taken.

Alibi continued on towards the Bay of Islands, but this time the lures were armed with hooks. Twenty miles east of the North Cape they raised a blue marlin estimated to be in the 170 to 180kg range but unfortunately didn’t hook up.

After another brief billfish encounter at the Garden Patch and losing a big mahi-mahi at the back of the Cavallis, Robert found himself hooked up on an unseen fish and eventually landed a 16.6kg wahoo — one of only a handful ever landed in New Zealand waters. It was a great way to end a memorable trip and you can be sure that two very happy Americans will be back again next year!