I remember my first couple of trips to Lottin and the surrounds early nineties, just at the time the area got it's first publicity in NZFN. 1st trip stayed at the Te Kaha Hotel, before it burned down a wee whiles later. Bruno who runs the Lottin Motel was still commercial fishing, the motel was non-existant.

To see a king 20kg or over - all one had to do was walk out to the rocks, and wait no more than 10mins, and one would swim by. Throw a bit of berley in. and kahawai arrived instantaenously before you could rig up.  Rat kings were plentiful. Large snapper could be targeted in the berley trail.

Likewise saw some tuna and big sharks jumping in close to the point.

The resident big king population took a noticable dive around (1996?)..which coincided when  someone started commercially targeting them out of Waihau with long lines using flying fish as baits.

being from welly - I know what you mean...

Was up at Lottin in early Feb, and saw a pack of real biggies...Second pass - we counted exactly 12 kings, the smallest was around 30kg..and the larger ones would have been 40kg. We hooked a couple and both were lost.

Would have been great if we had a video camera....

Definitely have an offering of some description ready, as if you hook a reasonable one - the biggies tend to travel in small groups.

The only downside to 'packs of kings' is that if your'e tossing poppers/pillies the of offerings etc..the smaller ones tend to be quicker to a bait.

There's nothing like being on the rocks and hooking a monster right in front of your feet.

{{{{Wiping the drool away}}}}

((((Adrenaline Shake))))

Lemme at'm

Hi BENDER,

thanks for the reply, we use a simaler system for the livies that we catch on site, my idea of transporting livies, sometimes for up to an hour to our fishing spot was to cover us for those times when catching livies seemes impossable ,usually because the kingies are around. I am fitting a live bait tank to my inflatable I,ll let you know how it works.

cheers Bryan

Hey rockstar - we have a system that we use a floating live bait net (you can buy them in the tackle stores for bugger all.)  We have a set line anchor and float, and attach the net half way up the rope. We have loops tied in the set line buoy rope and clip the net, top and bottom, to the rope using set line clips.

We do our livie fishing the day/evening before, leave them in the floating bait net overnight. Simply zoom up and grab them and you're away. Works great but I'm always worried that a big bitie thing is going to get to them overnight. Hasn't happened yet.

If you have jack mackeral they fall asleep and look dead when you haul the net in, but they wake up and go nuts when they get lifted out of the water.

YOU GUYS ARE RIGHT NOTHING BEATS SEEING KINGIES CLOSE TO THE ROCKS,WE HAD A GREAT DAY AT THE TOP OF CORO LAST WEEKEND WE WERE MONSTERED BY KINGIES ALL DAY LANDED TWO OVER 20KG AND LOST ONE THAT WOULD HAVE GONE 25KG. WE ARE CURRANTLY LOOKING AT FITTING A LIVE BAIT TANK TO OUR INFLATABLE SO THAT WE CAN ARRIVE AT OUR FISHING LEDGE WITH A SUPPLY OF LIVIES THIS WILL ENABLE US TO SPEND MORE TIME TARGETING KINGIES AND NOT SPEND HALF THE DAY TRYING TO CATCH LIVIES.

CHEERS BRYAN       {ROCKSTARS }