So off we go ago and settle into my normall routine of targeting fresh bait as much as we can and it wasn't long before big Kahawai were coming on board. A quiet first hour or so as we anchored on high tide I said to Hinga we wont really get into them until the current starts building as the tides going out. Which is usually after the two hour mark..And like hundreds of trips before the Snaps turned up and started smashing our straylines armed with fresh whole fillets, heads, tail sections off the Kahawai. We let alot go this trip probably six 5-7 kg Snaps with the goal of a genuine twenty plus pounder  for Hinga. I was first to get one, a hook swallower so home it came. A short time later Hinga had a big run on one of her reels! With the previous trip on learning about straylining, letting the fish run, how to play it she did everything bang on! I hardly had to tell her anything...Five or so minutes later i was netting her a 9.5 kg Snap! Mission accomplished.. That one came home to for her celebrations.. 

So now we are into the third trip, her enthusiasm and passion higher than usual as she now wanted to catch another big one and a possible new PB. Gone are her days of ledger rig fishing out deep.  although she will be hard pressed to change the way her friends fish on other big boats she goes out on. In all the years of this kind of fishing off Mokau Hinga now releases alot of  fish that were once her pb she regarded as big. Ok this was a weather interupted trip as the wind got up at lunchtime and we had to bail. I was also trying for a big one for the Hirepool Baitmates Comp.  I  Already had an 80 and an 80.5cm entered but was after an 85 cm plus model. Bugger we had to pull the pin as the second fish of the morning was over 20 lb and Guess who! Hinga had another one... a school of big ones had turned up and we had to leave. I take no risks anymore in the little boat, if it looks like and starts whitecapping straight back in we go which is five minutes. A few Photos this time- Hinga with our two, Shes only little, the fish look alot bigger! Her second 20lb and me a few weeks back an 80.5cm over 10 kg. Cheers...

She can come fishing with me anytime.

Well done. You have started something now.

Alan