Particularly their Pink Leader 
for tying my own ledger rigs 
for surfcasting or as softbait 
leader, and the KLT and KS range 
of hooks for surfcasting and 
straylining (on the odd occasion 
when I wasn’t softbaiting).
We headed out of Tairua after 
a chaotic weather pattern over 
the previous couple of days had 
made things challenging to get out, 
with heavy rain, slips and winds 
gusting from 30-40 knots from the 
west.  However, on the last day 
of our trip on Friday the westerly 
winds had dropped away, and we 
planned to shelter up in close on 
the northern side of Slipper Island.
Arriving at the chosen spot around 
8am in the boat with good current 
close to a small rocky outcrop and 
headland on the other side of it, I 
deployed the Lowrance Recon 
trolling motor to keep us anchored.  
The electric motor is so quiet and 
helps provide a key advantage 
by keeping noise to a minimum, 
without the rattle of an anchor 
chain which can put wary fish off.
Brent soon had a good berley 
stream going and Scott was eagerly 
rigging and casting his cut pilly 
out the back (it’s hard to beat him 
such is his keenness).  I cut up 
some soft pilchards into cubes to 
mix in with the berley trail and a 
few strips of fresh kahawai we had 
left over from the previous day.
I casually cast out half a pilchard, 
set the Daiwa Free Swimmer to free-
spool, and left it in the rod holder. 
Scott was getting bites almost 
immediately. My rod soon started 
twitching from a small fish, while 
Brent dropped his favourite lumo 
Snapper Snacks baited with small 
pieces of pilchard. The fish were 
on the bite and already in the trail.
Over the next couple of hours, 
we had good steady action and 
fish coming into the boat as they 
Brent poses with a nice 
pannie taken on the 
lumo Snapper Snack 
off Whitianga.
Hooked up on the big fish 
with the Lanza overhead rod, 
the fish took plenty of line.
Feature
12  FISHING IN GODZONE MAGAZINE

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