The 20lb Hunt

After 8.5 years of grinding it out on a construction site in Sydney, there was one thing on Frank Watkins’ mind when he returned to the Coromandel: catching his first 20lb snapper. But it wasn’t all that simple. His goal was to catch a fish well over the 20lb mark and he wanted to do it from the bricks. Frank explains…

Growing up in the Coromandel, I started fishing at a young age with my parents who were both very keen, talented fishers. I was quick to build a passion for fishing and if I wasn’t playing rugby, I’d be out on the rocks or in the boat learning everything I could. I had a real obsession with targeting snapper and really wanted that elusive 20 pounder. Over the years I’ve caught some great snapper, with my biggest being 18.5lb out of the boat on 6kg line when I was 10. This is quite the feat in itself but still came up short of the magic 20 pounds.

After moving to Sydney when I was 21, fishing was put on the back burner for a number of years while I focused more on work and rugby. If you’ve ever lived in Sydney, you would know that it’s very easy to get caught up in the rat race, and with fishing in Sydney so slow and the cost of living so high, it was hard to find the time and motivation to get out there.

I really found my passion again when I decided to fly home one year and fish a landbased competition with my mum. I had one of my best days fishing off the rocks to date, catching two really good kingfish and a 5.5kg snapper, as well as losing a donkey at my feet. We went on to take out first kingfish, third snapper and overall team, and just like that I was hooked again.

I had it all planned out before I made the move back to the Coromandel. I would buy a big chest freezer and load it with fresh bait and make my own berley so I could still afford to live with the amount of fishing I was planning to do.

With 8.5 years of fishing to catch up on, I was quick to start scouring the coastlines for new untouched rocks and guts. In the early months of the year (Feb & March), I was out on the rocks as many mornings and afternoons as possible prospecting these new spots. I had some success catching good snapper up to 3kg and had the odd sighting of big snapper in the berley. There were also a few missed opportunities where I got busted off or pulled the hooks on solid fish.

As the water was still warm and the snapper were still moving back into the area after spawning, I was excited and confident that these spots were going to fire over the winter months and that one of them was going to provide me with my fish of a lifetime.

Then Level 4 lockdown came into play and just like that, catching my dream fish was quickly put on hold. I knew it was going to be over in a matter of weeks but with a balcony that looks straight out over the sea, I couldn’t help but gaze up and down the coastline everyday praying for the lockdown to end.

Fast forward a few weeks and the light at the end of the tunnel was visible – it was time to start planning my first post-lockdown fishing mission. The plan was that my fiancé Jane and I (both chasing our first 20lb snapper) would start filming and documenting our efforts off the rocks and out in the boat as we chased our trophy snapper to create a YouTube series called The 20lb Hunt. This series would capture all our efforts to obtain our dream fish, whether we were successful or failed miserably. In our first episode, we were going to be fishing with our good mate and local snapper slayer Brad Turner, aka Flounder. With Flounder already having a handful of fish over the magic number under his belt, his experience was only going to help.

The first morning saw Jane and I both landing good quality snapper, Jane’s going just over 5kg and mine weighing in at 6.5kg. Both are respectable fish off the rocks in anyone’s eyes but still well short of our target weight.

As I got geared up to head out solo the second morning as Jane was working that day, I couldn’t help but notice the extremely bright full moon lighting up the night sky. Knowing that with the full moon comes king tides, I was in for a battle getting to spot x. High tide was at 6.30am and I had over an hour walk around the rocks on my hands.

After climbing over rocks, stumbling around bays and wading through guts in the dark soaking wet from the waist down with at least a 30kg pack full of bait and berley, I finally arrived at the rock just as the sun was starting to rise. Then suddenly, Flounder popped up on the rock bone dry after walking in from the opposite end of the coast. I couldn’t believe it.

The water was dirty and the sea glassy with a 0.5 meter swell; it looked like the perfect morning to catch a big moocher.

First things first, we deployed the fresh home-made berley and put our big baits in a rockpool to thaw out. We wasted no time rigging up our rods and getting our lines in the water. After five minutes I got my first run on the Baitrunner. I let the fish run for a bit then struck and the line came up tight. After a couple of winds, a kahawai breached the surface as it desperately tried to shake the hook. As I pulled the kahawai closer to the rocks, two big kingfish came soaring into the bay right behind it. Flounder quickly wound in his fresh piper and flicked it out towards the trailing kingfish but as the bait sank down past the fussy kingfish, it was snatched up by a dark 2.5kg kelpy snapper hiding in the berley trail.

With only one good eater in the bin, the fishing then went quiet. With flounder out on the front rock casting his popper in every direction, hoping for a big kingfish, I rigged up half a yellow tailed mackerel on a single 8/0 Black Magic C Point hook and flicked it out behind the berley trail in the hope of a big snapper swimming by and hoovering it up. After five minutes, I got a couple of small nibbles. Clicking the reel out of bait runner mode, I wound in the slack cursing the rock cod that was ruining my good snapper bait then BOOM, something big picked up my bait and started heading for the horizon. After a huge reel screaming run, the fish stopped and I quickly got two winds in before it steamed off again. Holding on for dear life, I decided I needed to take action to slow this fish down before it got into the weeds. I cranked up the drag. This is something that is seen as a big ‘no no’ in some people’s eyes, but the fish started slowing down then came to a stop. As I pulled back on the rod to turn the fish’s head, I could feel the big powerful tail pumps pounding through the rod.

“Yep, this is a big snapper,” I thought as I desperately tried to get some line back.

I started to pump and wind as I scrambled up the rocks to higher ground to get a better angle on the fish. After the fish went for its third run, I got its head turned again and I started to gain line back. I was now high up on the rocks about 15 metres from the water’s edge as the fish had swum right out in front of the point. As the fish came closer to the shore, my line got closer to the rocks and I knew I had to move and get down to the water’s edge or my line was going to snap on the barnacle encrusted bricks. However, there was a 1.5-metre-wide by three-meter-deep gap stopping me from getting to the front of the rocks. I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to land this fish, so I jumped the gap and quickly wound in the slack. Thankfully the fish was still on and not too far from the rocks.

With a couple more pumps of the rod and cranks of the handle, the fish surfaced. As Flounder screamed, “ITS A HUGE SNAPPER, IT’S A F****** MONSTER!” I tried not to get too excited because I knew anything could happen and I hadn’t landed this moocher yet.

I started edging the fish around into a gut as we searched for a good place to land this beast. Suddenly the snapper came around the corner and I caught sight of it. It was definitely a PB.

My trophy fish was now right in close so I handed my rod to Flounder so I could grab the trace. With a surge bringing the fish right into my feet, I slid it up the rock, grabbed it by the tail and ran it up the rocks while Flounder was yelling, “This is your 20 pounder bro.”

We quickly got the big snapper on the scales. I couldn’t believe it. It weighed in at just under 11kg – 24 pounds of big healthy, hard-fighting snapper.

A lifetime of dreaming finally came to fruition when Frank Watkins finally nailed his trophy 20lb plus snapper which was release after pulling the scale to just under 11kgs.

After a couple of quick photos, we ran the fish back down the rocks and I jumped in the water to release it. The snapper was very tired after a massive fight, so it was going to need some assistance to swim off. After copping a few surges to the face, the big old snapper gave a big tail flick and went on its way.

After a few high fives and a couple of celebratory feijoas, we packed up and headed home... the deed was done!