The plan was hatched Friday afternoon to smash some kings at Channel Island. Within seconds of seeing the text i was keen and packing the jigging gear, and a slow jig rod just in case.
Met Jim (Pottsy) and Pete (Pe Pete) at Maraetai ramp early saturday morning, jammed out mountain of gear on the Surtees 6.1 and shot off across to Waiheke Island to find some livies


The livies were hard to find so the call was to jig and stickbait all day and everyone was keen.
On the way we saw some epic bait balls but they simply were not biting. After stopping twice the call was to smash it on to Channel. The conditions were beautiful and we finally got there

We threw jigs and stick baits but nothing would smash them but the sign was begging for snapper so we decided to drop some slow jigs. Not too much longer and I soon had a beauty on the daiwa pirate silver/blue 150g with a pink/blue skirt and upgraded hooks. The little 200 okuma was humming away and up popped this beauty after a bit of a tussell

Checked it at home 10 hours after i caught it and it went 19.4 lb 78cm so just smashed my personal best. Everyone was high fiving as we knew it was a goodie
The kings were still not playing ball so we decided to try some of the workups on the way back.
We were looking at the sounder but not much showing until pete spotted some birds.
A quick detour just 500m away and the sounder lit up

 
What resulted was hours of carnage











Such an epics session with a couple of those being 16-17lbs with about 8 or 9 10-14lbs released. The action was so hot we missed photos on a lot of quality fish
So the kingy mission turned into the most insane snapper mission that any of us had been on. Most were caught on slow jigs in silver/blue, orange and pink, but they were also smashing our 2-300g jigs intended for kings on a regular basis. Enjoy!

Good report William! That photo of your fish doesn't do it justice,although photos rarely do. It was a horse! A good day that's for sure - hopefully a few more like that during the spring work up season.

Blardy good! Some great pics there, that 2nd snapper pic is awesome, even looks bigger than the first one.

Nice one Will, big ups to you & our skipper Jim AKA Potsy it really was the most intense Snapper fishing I have experienced. The fish were in very good condition & were feeding aggressively mostly hard on the bottom but some took jigs on the drop but most surprising was some big snapper were also taking big jigs being mechanically jigged well up the water column. Manic fishing, great skipper & crew mate = awesome day on the water in godzone!

Karl,The work up started out as just two or three gannets diving a few hundred meters back behind us however turned into a sustained feeding frenzy for all involved including the three fishos in our wakka!

Mean report F.A. on a decent day out by the looks!!
How far north did you come across the workup action?

Nice report William, looks like some hot snapper action!

Great work guys, some serious snapper jigging

Way to go William, some blo-ody good looking fish there mate.........nice.

got to love those slow jigs in conditions like that,
excellent fishing guys, jealous as hell....