After a good scrap where the 
fish had also sought refuge in the 
rocks, Graeme managed to coax 
the snapper out and I netted a 
nice 2kg+ kelpie that was in fat 
condition.  The shallow and reefy 
structure had good fish, but we 
had to retie rigs a few times after 
busting off and I commented to 
Graeme that if a big fish takes the 
bait, it will be hard to stop them.
On the very next bait, I had a big 
take and powerful run as the fish 
took the bait at speed and headed 
into the shallows and I could only 
hold on as it reached the rocks 
before we could follow it in the boat. 
It busted me off just like I predicted!  
I was losing count of the times 
we had to retie our leaders and 
hooks, it was starting to annoy 
me and now the wind had finally 
dropped out, we decided to go 
wide in search of bigger pelagics.
TROLLING FOR PELAGICS
We headed straight out from Whale 
towards White Island in the distance 
to look for a reef or working birds 
to drop jigs on for kingfish, we also 
had trolling lures in case we came 
across tuna.  We had reports from 
anglers who had caught bluefin on 
Tuesday close to White Island on 
their way back in from Waihau Bay, 
so you never know what you could 
come across out here off Whakatane.
We stopped at the 100m mark, 
and I grabbed the binos as I could 
see flying gannets further out.  Sure 
enough, there were more birds 
than I could see with the naked 
eye, and they were going in and 
were about a kilometre off towards 
Opotiki’s way along the coast.  
We shot over at speed with 
Graeme on the helm and I got a 
Black Magic Maggot lure rigged 
up in case there were tuna.  The 
screen of the Lowrance HDS Pro 
sounder showed plenty of bait and 
big marks up near the surface!
Softbaits were picking up the odd 
fish at Whale but switching to 
bait resulted in more action.
Trolling around diving gannets 
at 70-80m with White 
Island in the background.
Feature
14  FISHING IN GODZONE MAGAZINE

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