Travelling with a Jetski

Kirk Davis hasn’t let the size of his vessel stop him from exploring almost every drop of New Zealand’s fishing waters. For Kirk, jetskis are the perfect vessel for experiencing everything our coastlines have to offer...

One of the things I love most about my Waverunner is the ability to go anywhere, anytime. Weighing in at only a few hundred kilos, towing it is straightforward, which makes a trip to just about anywhere not only possible but – at least for me – the norm. I keep a fully stocked tackle box in the front of the ‘ski at all times, so all I need to do when heading out is hook it up, chuck some rods and clothes in the car and drive! The majority of the trips I’ve done have been last minute, if not last second! A flexible job allows me to look at the weather, and when a window presents itself, hook on the ‘ski and go.

A couple of years back, I noticed a nice weather window approaching the upper South Island, and I was asked to film some content there from the ‘ski for the TV show I was on at the time. I booked a ferry while I packed the car, then hit the road with the Waverunner in tow, sorting out my accommodation on the way! I ended up in the beautiful Okiwi Bay just north of Nelson less than 24 hours later and had a couple of days fishing in some of the most scenic fishing conditions I have experienced anywhere in the world. Epic!

During a recent school holidays following what seemed like weeks of rubbish winter weather, a little three-day weather window presented itself one morning out of nowhere. I mentioned to my son Blake that the opportunity was there, and within an hour, we were heading north on a six-hour drive towards Cape Reinga on a father-son adventure! Once there, we made the most of the opportunity. The baitfish were in the harbour, and so were the kahawai and kingfish. Pulling into a little beach on the Waverunner to do a bit of landbased fishing is one of my favourite ways to fish with Blake. It allows him to have a wander around if he gets bored (which doesn’t often happen now he is getting older) and gives us both a chance to experience a different type of fishing than we would typically get off of the ‘ski. As we arrived at the chosen shoreline, there were piper everywhere and the little splashes also indicated that something larger was trying to feed on them. As the nose of the ‘ski touched down on the beach, I quickly cast a soft-bait towards the piper and instantly hooked and landed a kahawai. This got Blake pretty excited, so I gave him the soft-bait rod to cast while I got off the ‘ski and started unloading a bit of gear for the day. Not 30 seconds later, and as I was halfway up the beach with a handful of gear, the little Daiwa BG3000 soft-bait reel started screaming! Blake was hooked up, and this was not a kahawai. Line was disappearing fast from the spool of 6kg braid, but with 250m of the stuff on there, Blake wasn’t too phased. For the next 15 minutes, Blake fought this fish, eventually running almost a kilometre from where he hooked it over rocks and through two different little bays! He certainly wasn’t keen for me to help, so I jumped back on the Waverunner and watched his fight from the ‘ski. Eventually, the fish started tiring, and he somehow managed to guide it between a couple of low-lying rocks up onto the small sandy beach he now found himself on. Blake had just landed a beautiful kingfish in the far north of New Zealand, only hours after sitting on the couch, wondering what the day had in store. You won’t achieve that scrolling through Instagram! The next couple of days had similar results on other species including snapper and trevally – and, of course, the odd monster got away.

Blake's kingfish safely in his arms after a fantastic shore-based effort.

Adventures like this are what keep me coming back to jetski fishing. Pretty much everywhere in the country becomes accessible, from Cape Reinga to Bluff. You name it, and I’ve probably fished it on my Waverunner. I have caught 20lb snapper off North Cape, 20kg kingfish at Cuvier, fished and spearfished the Mokohinau Islands, caught all sorts of sizes and species in the Hauraki Gulf and had plenty of close encounters with dolphins and whales. I have slept on the beach at Great Barrier Island so I could catch the local monster snapper in the early morning, caught tuna out of Whitianga on the east coast and Mangere on the west coast. Further south, I have caught bluenose, hapuku and hoki in the Cook Straight and massive blue cod in the South Island. And those are just the New Zealand adventures! When you have a craft that is so easy to ‘hook and go’, the adventures are limitless, so give it a go – you never know until you try.

A rare visit from a false killer whale.