Boats launch for Megafish Hawke’s Bay’s delayed 2023 event

Today's near-dawn scene near the Hawke's Bay Sports Fishing Club in the entrance to the Napier inner-harbour as Megafish Hawke's Bay 2023 finally got under way at 6am. Photo / Supplied

Hawke’s Bay’s biggest annual fishing competition is underway – one day and one hour late.

The four-day Megafish Hawke’s Bay 2023, the Hawke’s Bay Sports Fishing Club tournament which has a history dating back 46 years, was scheduled to start on Thursday at 5am, but the first day’s fishing was cancelled because of adverse sea conditions.

Organisers then decided on a 6am start for Friday, to avoid dangers in the earlier-morning darkness with still considerable and sometimes substantially-sized obstacles in the form of debris off the coast, mainly logs and branches washed down by rivers flooded during recent heavy rain.

It’s attracted a record 550 anglers (100 more than last year), with more than 150 boats, of which club manager and immediate past-president Neil Price said about three-quarters were on the water by mid-morning.

“There are more than 100 boats, keeping in close, inside the imaginary line from Mahi to Kidnappers...but the radio is quite quiet,” he said, indicating the trolling boats and anglers weren’t having much early success.

On the way round the coast were four Gisborne-based boats, including the 65ft Good Newz with 7-9 anglers on board, including Leon Lewis who was on board last year when he landed a 235kg blue marlin to win the tournament and prizes worth over $20,000.

Most of the entries were snapped-up within hours of going online in November, all being eligible for the best “early-bird” catch as well as the best catch of the tournament, a combined total prize of $20,000.

The tournament was first held at Easter 1977, just 13 years after the establishment of the host club as the Hawke’s Bay Game and Off-Shore Fishing Club.

It attracted 82 anglers and 37 boats, and soon became one of the best-known tournaments of its type nationwide, becoming best known as the Coruba Shark Hunt, with the biggest catch being a 417kg mako in 1999.

The Megafish identity has now been around more than 20 years, increasing the numbers of target species, and the Coruba Megafish was last held in 2013, ending one of the longest-running naming-rights sponsorships in New Zealand sport.

Since 2017, and giving smaller boats a better chance, the major prize has been decided on a points per species scale. That year it was won with the catching of an 18.2kg by Napier angler Robbie Wigmore.

Some of the fights for the major prize historically went much further than the day of the catch, with one, in 2002, finalised in a District Court decision, and another, in 2016, challenged by prize insurers alleging a rules breach in a prolonged battle which ended in favour of fisherman and club stalwart Dean Young without having to go to court.

By late Friday afternoon, no major catches had been weighed at the Nelson Quay club, but there were reports from the sea of yellowfin tuna and kingfish catches and marlin being played.

The 2023 tournament finishes on Sunday.