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Lets go 'Puka Fishing'By Scott Hollis-Johns I well remember the first time I went fishing for hapuku. At that time I was living in Christchurch and we mainlanders didn't go 'puka fishing, we went groper fishing. I answered a handwritten notice that was taped to the door of a local tackle shop: "Fishing trip, three days in the Marlborough Sounds, $140.00, Phone Ray . . . ." I phoned Ray, booked a place and discussed what sort of fish we would be likely to catch. Blue cod were a definite and groper were on, weather permitting. Then it was back to the tackle store, where I made some intelligent purchases aided by the shop assistant, and some not-so-intelligent buys based on magpie philosophy (it shines, therefore I must have it). On the first day of the trip we targeted blue cod. I had a fantastic day but totally exhausted myself testing out some of the then-new Grim Reaper jigs. They were great and I had the perfect reel, a Shimano TSM-IV Speedmaster. But the rod, a 10-foot one-piece LBG stick, was murder. Gave a great action to the jig I guess, but I almost got pulled over the side by my best fish of the day, a 4kg blue warehou, and I ached all over from working that huge pole. There were 17 people fishing with baited dropper rigs; they caught plenty of cod when they weren't untangling a mess of line. Being the only jigging convert on board, I missed all that drama. The second day was a disaster. Thirteen groper were boated, the biggest 38 pounds, caught by the skipper. It was a disaster because I dropped my first-ever pair of puka baits over the side, let all but a few wraps of line go from my reel, and waited. My rod started to load up. I was either snagged up or hooked into a world-record 1000-pound-plus groper (to this day I'm still not sure which). I thumbed the reel and leant back, figuring the worst that could happen was the line would break. In an explosion of graphite composite I lost everything but my reel and a few feet of rod, and landed in a heap on the deck, narrowly escaping serious injury. The rod had snapped, the line broken; game over. I was destroyed. Everyone else caught hapuku. What had been an exciting adventure for a budding young fisherman had turned into a nightmare. Why do I tell this embarrassing story of misfortune? Why air a memory that still turns my stomach many years later? Because you learn far more from your failures than you ever will from your triumphs. There are many lessons in the story of that tragic day. I now live in Tauranga and work on a charter boat called Pasador as deckhand. During the winter and especially in the spring we take groups 'puka fishing at Mayor Island. I have learnt a lot about 'puka fishing since that first misadventure. If you're new to fishing for 'puka, do yourself a favour and go on a charter (I got this bit partly right). Charter skippers know where the fish are. This is the most important factor in all successful fishing. There's a hell of a lot more water in the ocean than fish. Charter boats are on the water most days and if they're not, they know someone who was, what they caught and where they caught it. If there are no fish under the boat you're on, all that I have to say hereafter will be worthless. Don't go on a boat that has seventeen other people on it (as I did). It may be cheap and you might just catch a fish, but the quality of the experience will be greatly reduced by overcrowding. A lot of your precious fishing time will be wasted untangling the web of lines that will occur as a result of drift fishing in deep water with too many lines down. Boats that cater for these low-cost, high-number charters may not carry a deckhand to assist you, and if they do even a super deckie will not be able to help 18 people at once. Eight, not eighteen, is a good number for 'puka fishing on the average-sized 40- to 50-foot boat and you will find most of the big-name boats will advertise this as a maximum. Even with eight you will get the odd tangle, especially when everyone has a fish on at once, but it won't ruin your day. Don't go on a boat where the skipper fishes. You're paying the money, he should be too busy coaching those who need advice to catch fish. Had the skipper of the boat I was on not been busy fishing, he might have noticed I didn't have a clue what I was doing and saved me from wrecking my gear and not catching anything. If you can, go on an extended trip (two days or more). A single day's charter is fine for fishing out of Tauranga, but two days is much better. Leave in the evening and stay overnight near the fishing grounds for a 24-hour charter; 48-hour charters are options from Tauranga and the norm from Whakatane to allow more fishing time. The right gear Catching fish on your own gear is always a pleasure; you know it, and every fisherman likes to play with his toys. But if you don't have suitable gear and don't want to invest megabucks to try 'puka fishing, you'll find most good charter operations will have 'puka rods for hire. I sure wish I'd hired one. Pasador hires gear for $10.00 per day without hooks or sinkers and $30.00 with terminal tackle included. Graphically illustrated earlier in my tale of woe is the fact that when you go 'puka fishing 'any old gear' will not do the job. Not that 'old gear' won't do the job - old gear is fine as long as it's suited to the job at hand and is well maintained. My gear was brand new but totally unsuitable. Pasador's hire gear is game-fishing rods and reels from seasons gone by. Gamefishing gear often doubles as 'puka gear in the winter anyway, but remember to throw that line away before you start towing lures for marlin again. Don't let an unseen nick in the line during winter 'puka fishing cost you the marlin of a lifetime next summer. Reels need to be able to hold at the very least 350 metres and ideally 500 metres plus of 24kg line; 37kg is fine but because of the larger line diameter you well need heavier sinkers, a bigger reel and bigger, stronger muscles than mine to get much advantage over 24kg. The bottom may be up to 300 metres away, but with the wind drift on the boat plus a little current you may find you need 400 metres or more to get to the bottom. The new low-stretch, low-diameter lines that have recently become available certainly have a lot of advantages over mono when it comes to fishing deep water. They allow larger line loads on smaller reels, improve your 'feel' and allow you to fish deeper with lighter sinkers. But at present the cost of these new lines is higher than mono. If and when the price comes down I'll be the first to switch, but until then normal mono will do me fine. One cheap option is to topshot your reel with two or three hundred metres of this line. Rods These should be short (six foot or thereabouts) standup type, with plenty of grunt. Roller tips are good but not essential. To use these of rods effectively you will need a gimbal belt. Many hard-core 'puka addicts use kidney belts or shoulder harness to apply maximum pressure on the fish and save their forearms from turning into pine trees. Again, if you don't have one and don't want to buy one, charter boats will usually have a few of these for loan or hire. The all-important sinker I used to think that a sinker was just a lump of lead that came in different shapes and sizes. Then I met Lionel Renata of Kaumoana Enterprises. I spent an evening sitting next to a surf rod on a beach just north of Wellington with Lionel and fellow Fisherman writer Dave Thompson. During the course of that evening Lionel shared much of what he knew about lumps of lead - which was a lot. In my opinion Kaumoana sinkers are the best. If you can get some, do. The size and shape of your chosen sinker is very important and 16, 24 and 32 ounce are the ones to go for. A selection is needed, as during a day's fishing you may fish a range of different depths and you may lose a few. The best shape is the bomb or torpedo shape. Any old shape will sink, but not as fast as a streamlined one; and at worst, the wrong shape will spin or plane off to one side to tangle with another angler's lines before you even get to the bottom. Hooks Hooks for 'puka fishing are tuna circle hooks: these have proven by far the best choice. The reason behind this is that, unless you're fishing shallow water (100m or less) or fishing with low-stretch line, you will not feel any bites. With tuna circle hooks you don't need to: the fish hook themselves. Almost all hookups are in the corner of the mouth, and once there, they stay in. Tuna circle hooks are what commercial fisherman use for all types of longlining operations from snapper to bluefin tuna. Sizes from 7/0 to 12/0 are the ones to go for. I like the smaller end of this range, as there's more than just hapuku down there. Some interesting and tasty by-catch may be missed if you use really big hooks. If you're only interested in big bastards, go for a 12/0 or even 14/0. Another option is to incorporate a small hook into your rig either as a keeper on the same loop as your circle hook or on a separate dropper altogether. This makes it possible to capture of some small deep-water ooglies (perhaps something never seen before) or some of the more usual by-catch which I'll mention later. The trace on which to mount these really heavy sinkers and big hooks should be made of 200-pound mono, the ideal weight. Any lighter and you risk biteoffs and breakoffs. Any heavier and you will find it near impossible to tie loops. The sinker should always be tied on a breakaway trace. Use a length of line lighter than the mainline - ten-kilo is good for 24-kilo mainline. Tie your sinker to your 200-pound trace with this light line. Some of the best 'puka spots are over foul ground; why lose your whole trace and possibly your fish when all you need lose is a bit of lead? Many of the big fish landed on Pasador come aboard with no sinker on the trace even on what we consider clean ground. My guess is the fish run along the bottom after hooking up, dragging the sinker with them until it snags. If you didn't have a breakaway you could lose the lot, fish and all. Bait for those hooks Fresh is best. Barracouta, squid, and mackerel would have to be the top three, followed by whatever you have. Tuna, kingfish (criminal), sea perch (a sometimes common bycatch to fillet and put straight back down), and trout (crazy, but it works) will do the job. Prepacked frozen baits like pilchards and bonito are mostly too soft. If you have nothing else, tie them on with cotton so they don't fall off as they plummet to the bottom. Live baits work well but are difficult to work with and not always readily available. The only reason I can see for using live bait in preference to cut bait is if big kingfish live on the same reef as the 'puka you're after. You don't need huge cut baits; these will spin and tangle, sink slower and you'll go through mountains of bait. Small, streamlined baits are fine. Don't worry about disguising the hook. On that first 'puka nightmare we used one short length of squid just dangling off the hook and everyone else caught fish. Cyalume sticks Also called light sticks, these work by snapping a glass vessel of fluid which is suspended inside a plastic tube also filled with fluid. The two fluids mix and the chemical reaction causes light. They come in different colours, the most common being fluorescent green. The theory is that it's dark down where the 'puka live and a little light will help them find your bait. I haven't seen any dramatic difference in catch rate by using these, but then again I haven't done any real tests either. When the fish are on, everyone seems to catch them, light sticks or no light sticks. But I remember some occasions when the fishing was hard and a certain angler who was using cyalume sticks caught a majority of the fish. He could have been lucky and was certainly a very experienced 'puka fisherman, or the cyalumes could have given him the advantage that day. Our fishing goes like this: The skipper finds the fish on the sounder and, drawing on years of experience, sets the boat upwind and uptide slightly off the mark. Not as easy as you think, as the wind and tide are rarely the same strength or direction. Everyone spreads themselves down one side of the boat with baited rigs ready to go down. The boat is turned side-on to the wind, which is usually stronger than the tide, and it's 'bombs away'. The plan is for the boat to drift over the fish and the baits to pass right in front of them. Deepwater drift fishing 1. Get the line to the bottom as quickly as possible. As soon as you get the word, drop your line. One well-known Whakatane boat sounds a horn to signal 'bombs away'. 2. Remain in contact with the bottom at all times. Keep the line tight. Let more out as you drift into deeper water. Every few minutes, wind in about ten metres of line and unless it comes up really tight (you're snagged or have a fish on) let it back down and regain contact with the bottom. You must be on the bottom to catch fish. If you're fishing really foul ground (the skipper should be able to tell this from the sounder) you should find the bottom and then raise the sinker a few winds to lessen the chance of snags. 3. If you think you've got a fish on, wind! Don't wait and see what the fish does. If you wait, the fish may drag you into a hole and snag you up. Pump and wind like crazy to get the beast clear of the bottom. 4. Big fish can feel like snags. Hold on tight. Don't assume you have a snag and stop pulling. Even if you only get half a turn with each pump, keep going. If you're gaining line and the boat is not sinking, then that fish which feels heavy enough to be a new island is coming up. 5. Pace yourself. Once you have the monster clear of the bottom, slow down and take your time. It's not a race and you want to be physically able to have another drop later in the day, right? 6. Be ready for your fish to blow. Hapuku and bass have air bladders which, because of pressure changes when you winch them from the deep, will blow up, causing the fish to rapidly ascend to the surface near the end of the fight. Make sure you keep the weight on when this happens. Bluenose also have an air bladder but often don't blow, and this makes for hard work right to the boat. Beware of these un-blown bluenose, as the big ones can suddenly lunge under the boat and break you off. By-catch There's a lot more to hapuku fishing (in the Bay of Plenty, anyway) than just catching 'puka. Bluenose (Hyperoglyphe antarctica), a member of the warehou and rudderfish family, will feature strongly and will often exceed hapuku catches. Bad news? No way: bluenose, commonly 510 kilos, can grow to 35 or 40 kilos and catches of 20kg fish are reasonably common. As mentioned earlier, they can fight all the way to the boat and compare favourably to the 'sack of spuds' fight a 'puka puts up. They taste great, some would say better than hapuku, and are often sold as hapuku or groper in fish shops. Bass (Polyprion americanus) have often featured on the covers of Fisherman and other mags, mainly because they can get bloody big. They generally occur in deeper water than hapuku and are more frequent in rocky areas. We mostly catch bass in over 250 metres. Gemfish (Rexea solandri), also known as southern kingfish and in Whakatane as hake, are one of the deep-water toothies. I still have a sore finger after being bitten by one while trying to remove a hook three months ago. A little like a barracouta to look at but shorter and stouter they are, unlike barracouta, excellent to eat. Frostfish (Lepidopus caudatus) are the long silver fish that get washed up on beaches in the winter, hence the name. Also toothies, they are also excellent to eat. Sharks can be a pest or a joy, depending on one's outlook. Blue sharks (Prionace glauca) and mako sharks (Isurus oxyrinchus) predominate and most of the big ones will get away by destroying your trace after they have made their presence felt by zooming around and cutting off a few other lines. On the other hand, if you've never caught one before it can be an interesting experience and the bigger ones will give you a good workout before they bite off. If you land one, small makos are not bad eating; I saw mako as 'fish of the day' in a restaurant just recently, but next to hapuku and bluenose they rate poorly and should be released unharmed. Makos are very fond of fresh 'puka so it's a good idea not to leave your catch splashing around on the surface for too long or it might lose weight. Another shark you might catch is a porbeagle (Lamna nasus), which look very similar to a mako and are related but can be distinguished by a more rounded dorsal fin and a generally shorter and stouter body. Rays bream (Brama brama), similar to a trevally in shape but with stiffer, sharper fins, appears silver/black; it is another toothy but smaller and less menacing. If you start catching these, you're not fishing properly because you're not on the bottom. Rays bream occur in midwater and are not a common catch because most people do what they're told and fish on the bottom. Spotted gurnard (Pterygotrigla picta) are like red gurnard but with most remarkable markings; a beautiful fish and, as the name suggests, covered in spots. Big tarakihi can be caught while 'puka fishing and there are also ling, trumpeter, alfonsino, sea perch (Helicolenus percoides, also known to this writer as jock stewart, scarpee, jimmy canyon, maori chief and good 'puka bait). Spiny dogfish and rubyfish have been caught and if your last name is Worthington, and you're fishing with sabikis in 1000 metres, God knows what you might catch. Freeze the weird ones and phone Clive Roberts or Chris Paulin at the National Museum in Wellington. You may have just discovered a fish no one has ever seen before. Good luck. END. |