We headed out on a friend's launch last Sunday to fish the shallows inside of Rangi. With low tide around 11.20 we were there from around 9.00am to 1.30pm. The first four hours were very very quiet and the temptation was to try somewhere else, but we persevered and the weather was great.
The salmon berley was flowing and we picked up some jack macs on sabikis for fresh bait. But no bites at all until just before 1.00 the switch turned on. We don't whether it was just a bite time or a school came past. Anyhoo, my wife Ruth picked up a good panny around 40cm. Then my Thunnus 8000 started screaming. We have been living up in the BOI for the last few months and caught a lot of good snapper from 60 - 80cm and this one felt well into the 70cm range. While I was on, Ruth's baitrunner also started screaming out line. I eventually had my fish under control when the line went slack damn.
On inspection it looked like the 40lb trace had been bitten through. Bugger. Ruth fought hers well and a nice fish at least 65cm and 12 lb+ came on board (no measurer or scales). We normally return anything over 60cm and this one swam away happily. The fishing stayed good for a wee while, then shut down again - we needed to hightail it anyway to get back under the bridge at the OBC before the tide was too high. Five nice pannies in the bin and a big smile on my wife's face.
How good is it that such great fish are still available inside Rangi - but I think we got a little lucky.