Success on the Manukau

A perfect day on the Manukau Harbour

Wowee we finally had a great forecast for the last weekend in July and a chance for the Manukau Kayak Fishing Club to get out on the water. Sunday dawned bright and the trip was on. I sent out a text to members and of course got a few no’s - “it’s too cold” and “I’m a minister, this is the one day of the week that I do have to work!!!” But in the end three of us met up in Waiuku and headed to our destination of Matakauwau on the Awhitu peninsula.

Up till this weekend the weather had delayed many of our trips so our fledgling club has been a bit slow getting off the ground but is building strongly now. Manukau Kayak Fishing Club is run along the same guidelines as the Yakity Yak Club. When you join we take you through our fishing kayak skills course. The skills course teaches members rescues, paddle technique and safe practice. The course helps you to paddle confidently and safely, by doing the skills course everyone is starting off with the same knowledge and confidence to join in on all the trips. We have a planning meeting once a month, to plan trips and tell stories, not many stories yet but we’ll get there.

Anyway Lee, John and I arrived at our spot, taken from the Manukau Harbour SPOT X map and loaded our gear. One thing I have noticed so far is that for kayak fishing you don’t have to load up the boat as you do with sea kayaking, which is my paddling back ground. Still in my Cobra Marauder I can load up if need be. Matakauwau has a great boat ramp that is accessible even at low tide so we parked at the top of the ramp and used trolleys to get the kayaks to the water.

Our Spot X pointed to a spot about 500 metres off the boat ramp but there were 10 power boats already sitting there so we anchored 200 meters behind them on the incoming tide. I was using two rods, one with a Squidgy Black Magic flasher rig which I have used successfully in the past and the other was a Manukau Harbour running rig with about 6oz of weight to get it to the bottom in the strong tidal flow. For bait I was using squid, Bonito and Pilchards. After about 15 minutes of sitting quietly I felt the sinkers lifting off the bottom, I started to take up the slack and BAM a nice strike which felt like a good sized fish. I felt the weight coming on so I tightened the drag on my new Penn 460 Slam and in I pulled my first Gurnard for the day which measured in at around 41 cm.

Things after that went a bit quite for a while but this spot was meant to fish better on the out going so we had about half an hour to wait. Lee was having no luck just ahead of me while John 50 metres behind me was getting bites but couldn’t hook up. John, on his Explorer, was using a new Rocker Rig on his Penn Sea Boy rod with a Penn 360 G.T reel. Just as the tide changed John hooked on to his first fish, also a Gurnard and for the next hour he seemed to keep reeling them in, three more before my next one.

Poor Lee, on his catch 360 hadn’t even had a bite so up anchored and moved closer to the shore, I picked up my second Gurnard, also on the Manukau rig, it was well over the 25 cm limit, then I quickly hooked up a third fish which I thought was an absolute monster or a sting ray being the Manukau. My drag on the trusty old Penn Long Beach was set to full and I started heaving it in, finally getting it to the surface only to find it was a foul hooked Gurnard which had also tangled my other line. I released the fish, as one likes to be sporting and pulled in the tangled lines only to find another good sized Gurnard hooked there which I kept. The next half an hour was spent untangling Flasher Rig from Running Rig, in the end I chopped the Flasher Rig off just to get fishing again. I set a Running Rig on the Penn Long Beach as well.

We didn’t fish for much longer but just before upping anchor I hooked another good sized Gurnard, this one measuring 42 cm. Time to go home, the Cobra Marauder again proving a dream to paddle and a great stable base to fish off. 

All in all a great day, fantastic weather and good company. In the end John came home with 5 gurnard, I nabbed 4 and Lee didn’t get a bite. For the record I caught all my fish on the Running Rig using salted bonito or pilchards, the Flasher Rig and squid as bait was mostly ignored, John caught all his fish using pilchards on a Rocker Rig. Lee was fishing with Ledger Rigs.

Good thing when we rocked up to the beach, fisheries officers inspected our catch commenting we had done better than those in the power boats. So if you are interested in kayak fishing and don’t know how or where to start or want to meet other kayak fishers for regular trips come in and talk to us at a C & K Store and join the club.

Fresh Gurnard is on the menu tonight. Another successful day out with the Manukau Yakity Yak Club	Boys and their toys. The lads take a break and compare catches.