Funny old start to the new season with covid, boat sales, and issues getting boats delivered under ever changing lockdown levels. Finally today got to see if Dean's new puddle jumper could catch fish. Yes, it can.
Launched at Opito at low tide so fished the first 4 hours of the incoming out in the BoI middle ground until the weather packed in. Filthy water after all the rain, very little bait around - no big schools spotted in the 30-40m depths, but sign on the bottom & despite the dirty water take home fish were hitting softbaits, albeit without there being any full on bite time.
This one took a 4" Zman paddle tail (bruised banana smallest tail I used all morning) on a 1oz Lightbulb in 32m. Big male, came to the boat dead & hardly twitched when the iki went in. 86cm pretty slabby so probably around 24lb.
Couple of 4-5kg fish, half a dozen around 40cm, lots of tail biters and a couple of nearly-legal kings that kept Dean honest for a while on 10lb gear.
Bigger snapper were all males so the bait & the females can't be too far off.