There has been a lot of anchovy/kahawai action around the Bays lately and I was keen to get some fresh Kahawai for bait and sashimi. There was plenty of sign just outside Waiake this morning - both on the sounder and surface boilups. Had a few casts and drops of very small anchovy-like Japanese softbaits on a 3gm jighead but no joy even though something nipped the tail off the lure off at one point. Never mind - time to cruise over to the Tiri channel. 

First spot on the Whangaparaoa side was a bit too close in as I was getting hooked into the weed too much even though fishing strayline style with a pea sinker. So I reset further out in about 12m of water more on the edge of the channel.

My plan was to strayline with fresh mullet for snaps with minimal sinker weight while deploying burley mid-depth. The snapper plan started to work quite well with a few keepers coming onboard. The best of them was this fattie at 42cm. Superb condition. Filleting later, no sign of the dreaded milky flesh. and this one was full of munched-up crab. Picture doesn't show it but this fish was really pale silver - certainly from the sand, not a kelpie:

 

The other string to the plan was to livebait for John Dory. There are heaps of them around this general location. On one memorable trip quite a few years ago I took three of them on the same livey in this area. To catch the livebait I deployed Sabikis. After the usual hassles with small and some not-so-small snaps I managed to get a couple of good Jack Macs and sent one down on the livebait rig. 

Time goes by and then two things happened - 1. very nice kahawai grabs my mullet strayline bait and I boat him. Thanks very much - there's my sashsimi; and 2. This guy hits the livebait and all hell breaks loose:

 

Picture probably doesn't do it justice as this was a well-conditioned fish. Estimate approx 90cm. Feeling benevolent today I decided to send it back. It swam off strongly. Both of us probaably had a grin right about then.

So there was the trifecta - Snap, Kahawai, Kingi. 

Not bad eh?