KEY POINTS:
It was the day before April Fool's when a mate rang to relay second-hand a story about a blue marlin being chased, gaffed, lassoed and landed by a snorkeller off Te Kaha.
It would be the East Coast outpost chosen for this ruse, I thought - isolated and difficult to track people down.
Turns out it's true. Garth Trafford and family from Opotiki were returning from a dive for crayfish when they stopped on Mussel Rock just off Te Kaha Point in 3 to 5 metres of water to gather mussels and kina. His son Scott and mate Joe Lawrence were in the water when they noticed a large shadow and at first believed it to be a shark. Garth called it as a marlin.
"They practically walked on water to get back to the boat. When Joe realised it was a marlin, he grabbed the gaff and went straight back over the side," Garth Trafford said.
The fish circled the rock, scratching one side then the other to remove sucker fish. Lawrence, in wetsuit with flippers, went underwater, waited until it swam past and then buried the gaff in the front of its gut cavity.
"It went berserk," Garth said, as he and wife Karen watched. With Scott also hanging on, the fish circled wildly for 10 minutes before it started to tire. It was 20 minutes before Garth could get their boat Dun Workin' next to the marlin and wrap a rope around its head and bill and then the tail.
"There was white water everywhere for that first 10 minutes.
"Another guy in a tinny who was also at the rock took off, then came back when it was all over and asked 'What happened to the two guys attacked by the shark'?" Garth said.
Weighed at Te Kaha, it turned in at 161kg. The boys combined weight is about 170kg, Garth estimated. The marlin was smoked, the head and straightened-out gaff will be mounted.
There has been a second odd catch from the area.
Commercial flounder fisherman Micky Beeching, who has worked the area for many years, pulled in a 20kg yellowfin tuna snagged in his gill net in 15m of water straight out from Ohope Beach. Whakatane Sportfishing Club vice-president Mick Goodin passed by the net on his way out for the day and noticed large schools of mackerel in the area "so presumably that's why he was in close in shallow water and on the bottom".
Marlin were still being landed this week but the fishing effort was well down on recent seasons, Goodin said, citing fuel prices and a shrinking economy.
Snapper fishing continues apace in the Hauraki Gulf. Afternoons have been better than mornings said Lance Paniora on charter boat Smokin' Reels. We struck a slow day last Saturday morning but had an interesting comparison in terms of fishing methods, given there were three boats each with two anglers following identical drift paths driven by a northeasterly from near the reef marker at the Rangitoto Island lighthouse out to the channel.
We had limited success with the standard soft baiting routine of drogue out the front to slow us and fishing out the back, casting in direction of the drift.
So Adam Clancey who presents Sky TV's Black Magic Fishing Show turned us around, drogue off the side so the stern faced the island and we simply let the soft baits dribble out the back, no action on the rod, just the lure bumping along the bottom. We picked up good condition fish to 3kg.
The others struggled to get a couple of just-legals - then improved their take when adopting our method.
Meanwhile, the ledger rig baited with squid and pilchard and left in the rod-holder failed to collect a single fish.
There's a feast for the eyes of fly-fishers with the upcoming film festival at the Rialto cinema in Newmarket. Organiser Nick Reygaert is one of a crew who feature in The Search - Tahiti in which they hitch rides on tramp steamers and fish uninhabited atolls around French Polynesia. The two-hour screening on April 15/16 also features fishing in Alaska for trout and salmon and in Mongolia for taimen as well as Kiwi scenes.
Yee-hah! Mates lasso 161kg marlin
Two East Coast friends took a wild ride when they gaffed and lassoed a 161kg gamefish while out diving for crayfish this week.
Scott Trafford (left), of Opotiki, and his mate Joe Lawrence landed the blue marlin off Te Kaha.
After Mr Lawrence plunged a gaff into the fish, he and Mr Trafford held on to it for 10 minutes while it circled wildly before starting to tire.
"It went berserk," said Mr Trafford's father, Garth. "There was white water everywhere."
