Geoff Thomas: grunt fishing at its best

Pete Lamb flicks another scarpie off the hook. Photo / Geoff Thomas

They love scarpies in Wellington. In fact, they love them in the South Island too and, as you travel south, the name changes to Jock Stewarts. The reason these little fish, which would not do well in a beauty contest, are so popular is you catch so many of them.

So when skipper Pete Lamb, who is widely acknowledged as "Mr Fishing" in Wellington, instructed his fishers not to put back the large scarpies, the obvious question was "Why not?"

We know the little fish make good bait for groper, as hapuka are called in this part of the world, but the fish bin had sufficient for the groper fishing which was planned for slack tide later in the day.

"I love to eat them," said Lamb. "That's my dinner," he added, as he flicked another scarpie off a hook.

The black and red-striped scarpie is technically a red-banded sea perch.

It has a large head and mouth and is covered in prickly spines which will easily penetrate unwary fingers, so treat it with respect.

Lamb does not even touch his fish, but wields a de-hooking instrument with practised ease, flicking off blue cod which don't make the grade and small scarpies so they go back into the sea without contact with human hands.

Always a good idea with any fish being released.

The weather was predicted to rise to 35 knots in the morning, then ease off in the afternoon. These Wellington charter boys watch the weather continually. It changes all the time and, as it turned out, the forecast was amended mid-morning and it turned into the sort of day you expect on Lake Tarawera, not Cook Strait.

So Lamb instructed his deckhand, Jono, to bring out the heavy artillery as the boat headed for Karori Point, a few kilometres along the coast. "We've got a good groper hole in a hundred metres and it's been going well lately," he told his group of 12 keen fishers, who were part of a Plumbing World group who had won the trip in a promotion.

The big rods were all old "stump pullers" equipped with sturdy Penn Senator reels. None of the fancy new stuff here.

This is down-to-earth grunt fishing. The one concession they make to modern tackle is to use braid line in place of the old monofilament, which stretches and can act as a handicap in deep-water fishing.

The rig is completed with a trace of about 150kg breaking strain mono and two large circle hooks. A strip of squid or a half scarpie completes the attack.

The key to all groper fishing is manoeuvring the boat so it drifts at the right angle over the spot, which may be a patch of reef or a single rock or pinnacle.

Lamb is a master and, after a dummy run to test the drift, he shouts: "Right, go." Ten lead cylinders weighing 32oz (sinkers are always denoted in imperial weights) pull the baits down and 10 rod butts are settled into the gimbal belts.

The first rod bends, then another, and the fishers grunt as they work the big reels.

"Don't strike, just keep winding," says Lamb.

A hundred metres is shallow for groper but, even at this depth, lifting the rod to strike is a waste of time unless the reel is wound at the same time.

"But let them eat the bait first. Wait till you feel the weight come on," he adds.

Like all fishing, there is a technique and, after these plumbing boys had mastered it, eight fat groper lay in the ice bin.

On the trip back to Seatoun in Wellington, Jono fillets the catch and everybody goes home with a healthy bag of boneless fillets. It's a pretty slick operation, in spite of the weather.