Huge entries as big Hawke's Bay fish comp starts

In search of the good ones at the start of the Megafish tournament. Photo/HBSFC

Hawke's Bay's biggest fishing contest was well on the way to becoming the biggest in many years, closing-in on the four-day event's rare mass start on Wednesday morning.

Most of the 438 anglers and 124 boats entered in the Your Solutions Megafish Tournament by early Tuesday night were off Westshore and Bay View for the countdown to the 6am start of the Your Solutions Megafish the next morning.

Ahead of the competitors' briefing at the Hawke's Bay Sports Fishing Club near the entrance to the Napier Inner Harbour, on a night where temperatures in Napier and Hastings remained over 30 degrees Celsius after 8pm, there were more worries about the breezes rather than the heat.

But organiser Joe Bicknell was confident there will be no need to cancel any of the fishing and the competition would see-out four days before it finishes on Saturday.

Club president Neil Price said: "It's the wind we worry about."

Albacore was the most common species boated on the opening day, one of 10kg the early leader. Price said at least two marlin had been hooked but were soon free.

The competition is in its fourth year under its modern guise, since a 2016 revival of the big-tournament concept three years after the last Coruba tournament in 2013, which brought to an end the association with the global rum brand which had endured at least 35 years since the first Shark Hunt in 1977.

It peaked at 754 rods registered in the early 1980s, and in 2013, with sharks long-gone from the competition, there were 443 anglers and 124 boats.

Anglers now chase a major prize of $10,000 for the prize catch based on a points scale based on multiplying the weight, depending on the species landed among the target-fish range of marlin, tuna, albacore, skipjack, kingfish and snapper.

Hopes of some big catches were raised when a 111.1kg marlin was weighed at the club last week.

There's an even bigger lure this year with a $45,000 boat up for grabs on Saturday when drama will peak as hopefuls claim keys delivered in a final-night draw, with only one able to start the engine.

Bicknell said there were about 250 entries in 2018 and 350 last year, and the further increase had been evident from the time "early bird" entries opened.

Price said it was the first time a mass start had been held for many years.

The tournament, which attracted dozens of sponsors, has again become one of the big events in Napier's super February, which this month includes three Mission Estate concerts and the city's Art Deco Festival.

The tournament is also one of a range of events run by the Hawke's Bay Sports Fishing Club during the season, with the ardent angler schedule complemented by such events as Kids Wharf and Shore Comp in November and the Napier Family Fishing Classic to be held on March 7-8.