After meeting Mogi and his Grouper Boys at Auckland airport, Chris, Shane and I loaded them into our cars and made the drive to Mangonui to rendezvous with Cascade to begin our 5 day jigging charter to the 3 Kings.

We arrived at Mangonui at around 2 pm and met with Brett the skipper of Cascade shortly afterwards and loaded the gear and started rigging rods......The Grouper Boys had a wide assortment of quality gear with Stella’s, Saltiga’s, Ocea Jiggers and Torsa’s being the preferred reels, while Valley Hill, Carpenter and Custom Works rods dominated. Line class was predominately PE8. 

We arrived at the King Bank at sunrise on Monday and were almost immediately into quality fish. Kingfish up to 30kg hit the deck regularly with an assortment of others adding variety.

Shane muscled a 30kg Bass on his JM500/OJ4000P while I had a 220lb leader shredded through the reef by a better fish pushing heavy drag on a JM400/Stella 20000 combo.

The following day we went straight to the Middlesex Bank with high expectations of big bad Bass and monster Kingfish. Brett set up the drift in 130m and I dropped the Zest deep slim to the bottom....2 cranks of the OJ5000P was met with a crunching strike and the Xzoga500 folded away into a serious working curve. The short but brutal power play which insued resulted in my first Bass.

Next morning, Luke went for a quick dive which produced some nice Cray’s and a bag full of Kinas.

We decided the King Bank was the place to go. Shane and Luke the deckie set the spread for an early morning troll on the way. Twice we had solid strikes from billfish only to have them throw the hooks. Both Strikes came from black and purple coloured skirts.

 

Jigging was hot at the King Bank with the Grouper Boys get stuck into some quality Kingfish.

Mogi and the Grouper Boys were using primarily slider style jigs up to and over 550g while Chris, Shane and I were using mainly bottom weighted Zests and JM Rockets up to 500g. Both styles worked well throughout the day, but the chrome and silver slider jigs came into their own in the early evening with multiple hook ups on big kingfish. Mogi’s jigging style is very relaxed and he rarely changed it, starting with 3 or 4 high lifts of the rod with 2 cranks of the handle per lift followed by a slow to medium paced 1:1 mechanical jigging. This style coupled with the sliding jigs proved very effective.....Chris took both of the top fish for the day with a hefty 30kg Bass and a very well conditioned 35kg Kingfish.

  With sore backs and aching arms we settled into our anchorage and a good night’s sleep.

Jigging the shallows around the Princess Group was our mission for our final day and it was with very heavy drag settings we dropped our jigs into the white water and washes.

Fishing was slow and it took some time to find the fish. Chris got stretched by a turbo charged 25kg fish, but never gave an inch.

 The Grouper Boys had success too with a few good fish, and some wipeouts including a broken Custom Works rod.....PE6 rated rod with PE8 maxed out is looking for trouble.

Shane and I had a play with the softplastics taking some nice trevally. Chris chimed in with a nice kelpy out of the suds.....

With the fishing relatively slow, we made the call to run to the King Bank for one last afternoon and evening session. A couple of smaller Bass kicked things off and right on the change of light all hell broke loose with multiple hook ups and some pretty funny rail dancing with several Kingfish to 30kg hitting the deck.

 

The fishing during the trip was consistent, with the change of light periods producing very hot sessions. All jigs worked well, with the heavy sliders the Grouper Boys used almost exclusively producing great results. I had some success with large softbaits in deeper water(100m+) and Chris experimented with soft baits on his assist hooks with good results. We broke two rods, one on a fish and the other was an accidentally broken landing a kingfish. My Tiburon and Mogi's Stella(oscillating system)were the only reels to fail. Any weakness in you gear will be exposed on these trips....Invest in the best. 

Brett and Luke on Cascade worked tirelessly to look after us and get us onto the fish. Brett has a very good attitude, loves fishing and earned our respect the way he ran the charter. All up a fantastic trip with loads of memorable moments and even better company.

what a trip. wicked report and pics sean