Managed to get out from Leigh today for the first proper saltfly session in a long time. Opted to go fly only since my shoulder is still a bit tender and also kept it at a 6wt trout outfit mostly. What great fun. The other two were fishing lures only, mainly various metal jigs/spinners and some soft-baits.
The morning greeted us with endless large work-ups right from the outpost as far as you wanted to go really. I was up 3 kahawai before the other two even even landed one. They were going a bit big initially but eventually they caught up as they could land these horse size kahawai a bitter quicker than I could with my 6 wt
When the work-ups eventually died down a bit we headed towards Pakiri and set up a burly trail in the shallows. Worked really well for about an hour. A number of snapper (small, up to 32cm) and more kahawai. Got hit on just about every cast. Then it just stopped completely. Not sure if it was tide or what but it just stopped. Importantly almost all hits were when the fly was sinking or stationary.
Headed back to find some more work-ups and found some quite wide of cape rodney. I was boatman so not fishing when my mate's reel started screaming as he hooked, what we thought at the time was a rat kingi. Well it turned it to be a rather large skippy. My mate was very surprised and really pleased. His first. Not on fly but still really cool. Couldn't get another one so headed back in.
Absolutely great day with tons of fish landed on fly and lures. I hope the fishing keeps going like this for a few more weeks!
Here's a pic that shows the size of the kahawai. Great fun on a six weight.