I dont have a #17 so here goes something that I will always cherish.
Basically this is more than likely the last 20lb snapper my father is likely to spear, as he no longer jumps in just stays on the boat. (it went 23lb but we will get to this later on)
The morning cracked off like so, packed the boat up the night before, did the pre-dawn drive from Whangarei to the bay of islands and was on the water at 6am.
Now generally fish frames / left over scallop shells / cray bodies get used as berley.. Me being me accidentally grabbed the wrong container of stuff for a berley.. so with it defrosting over night.. there was 2 packets of squid, a few pillies and then atleast half a doz KY fillets.. in the bin, to my surprise when opening the lid on the water getting ready to chuck it overboard in a gut that tends to produce well for big snapper here and there.. thought oh well, its going over now.
Yep I grabbed mums bait bin
The gut is about 20m long and has a width of around 1.5-2m depending on where you are. goes from 8m at the bottom to 15m (an idea of the angle it runs) and you can sit and peer over it in 4m of water.
I took the deeper end and Dad took the shallower end, as he was approaching the gut to peer over all he saw was the face of this fella. Boomfa, Dads shaft didnt even manage to leave the barrel of the gun and he essentially kebabed it.
When the fish got mounted the guy who does the mounts up here was fascinated that this greedy little 68cm snapper had 2 whole KY fillets in its guts and a few squid! Fancy that guys!