It was hard to turn down an offer of a boat trip to spearfish for butterfish despite my childhood fear of getting into cold water, so Saturday morning saw me heading out to the outer Queen Charlotte Sound with my usual fishing setup plus my mate @Spear-It’s wetsuit and spear gun that he’d left me when he shifted to Australia.
You couldn’t have asked for a better day weather-wise, and the trip to our first stop – Ngaturuturu Rocks, off Koamaru – was most pleasant.
I wasn’t overly keen to get into the water, but my two companions were into it. I stayed onboard and fished with my rod, catching a nice smallish kahawai (typical – I come all the way out here, and still catch kahawai). The current was quite strong, as it can be in this spot, apparently; the visibility wasn’t the best for being underwater, so we moved on before too long.
Rounding Cape Koamaru, we turned south and commenced the same fishing attempts – me onboard with the rod whilst my companions jumped in the water with their spear-guns. They had more luck than me, bringing back some butterfish, moki and paua - I didn’t have much action at all. The small fish on the bait-catcher rig were about as interesting as it got for me.
We stopped at another spot on the way back, where they again brought some more butterfish onboard. I switched from my soft plastic to a hex lure that’s commonly used for kahawai, and soon hooked a feisty fish that I assume was a kahawai – it fought briefly like one, and I saw the white flashes of it underwater, but it got away. Soon after I hooked a darker-skinned fish with the same lure, but it also got away.
They allowed me to take some paua, butterfish and moki home for my meagre efforts, which has made me more resolute to get similar fish, if nothing else - lovely eating! My kahawai diet of late has perhaps made me appreciate the ‘better’ fish more…