It was the bottom wetting trip for Dean's new Senator - as expected everything worked on the boat as it should, the weather was great, the snapper had no interest in artfully presented softbaits, but were happy to snack on fresh jack macs, when Big M turned up right on bite time.

Dean hooked the first decent snapper, & fought it most of the way to the surface, before our unidentified new companion removed all but the head. Shortly afterwards, as we went through the bronzie/tope/mako debate I thought I might have hooked the culprit - I've called a few sharks as snapper, and vice versa, & this one was owning me on 20lb gear. After some time, & only seconds after we identified it as a big snapper, it became an ex snapper, as a big mako turned our dinner into his lunch.

The next couple of fish saw some serious pumping-and-winding going on, as we attempted to beat the beast - tracing a nice pannie takes on a whole new dimension when there's 200kg of Mako, mouth open, aiming for both the fish and your hand.

Fortunately, we had an Annie with us. She not only hooked the mako, on a stupidly small piece of bait, she also cunningly entangled him with the anchor rope, broke him off, and apparently broke his spirit, as he troubled us no more. She also caught most of the pink maomao - perhaps not the same fighting quality as makos or snapper, but better eating than both.

35m water depth, very short bite time just before high tide, best bait fresh jack macs, but frozen skippie/squid/macs working ok as well.      

Most frustrating, yet to have them turn up in our snapper spots but they have taxed the heck out of any kingies we have caught this year.

Both bronzies & makos in huge numbers. They have been nailing 4 out of 5 kings we hook.

Had six sharks swimming around the boat out at the North ground a couple of weeks ago.

Always been around but this year just seems out of control, almost given up chasing kings