Napier's Megafish 2021: Anglers hooked and ready for action

Close up and personal with the bounty of the ocean at a Megafish Hawke's Bay weigh-in. Photo / File

Organisers of the four-day Your Solutions Megafish sports fishing competition are full of anticipation ahead of Thursday's start, with a possibility of the biggest entry in more than 30 years.

Earlybird entries with the Hawke's Bay Sports Fishing Club closed a fortnight ago with 319 on the books – an earlybird entries record and about 130 up on last year, when 438 anglers and 124 boats had entered by the time all entries closed.

Additionally, Monday's first pre-competition night out, when fishers could hook-up with the experts to get all the information they need, attracted well over 150 people – as many as three times the number anticipated.

New event manager Keri McKenzie and major sponsor and keen sports fisherman Adam Satherley said traditionally there are significant numbers of latecomers who have waited to assess the likely conditions before deciding to enter.

They and club president Neil Price say that among the reasons for the interest is the increase in numbers of boats, as people look to domestic recreation amid the travel limitations imposed by the Covid-19 crisis.

The competition, first held in 1977 and for many years known as the "Coruba", in what was one-of the longest-running sponsorship arrangements in Hawke's Bay sport, was at its peak in the 1980s when there were more than 700 entries chasing the biggest prizes, for the biggest catches – usually sharks.

To widen interest in the event, the major prize – in a pool of catch and spot prizes worth over $100,000 – is decided on a points basis according to the species and weight, meaning it could be won by a kingfish or a tuna as much as it could be won by a marlin.

Tuna species have claimed the major prize in each year since the new structure was introduced in 2016, while the biggest catch in the history of the tournament was a 417kg mako caught in 1999, while a 384.2kg mako was caught in a three-hour battle at sea in 2009.

A club record striped marlin of 153kg was landed in the same tournament, last year a 12-year-old HB club member landed an 111.6kg marlin in the weeks before the competition, and in the Gisborne-based Tatapouri Fishing Club tournament soon after last year's Megafish competition, a Hawke's Bay fisherman landed a blue marlin weighing 273.5kg.

Some hope for those chasing the bigger fish came when a striped marlin of about 85kg was landed by a club member about 10 days ago, while kingfish and albacore have been featuring among recent catches.

Most of the anglers will be in Napier by Wednesday night, when a briefing will start at the fishing club at 7pm.

It's scheduled to begin on Thursday morning with the milling of boats off Hardinge Rd, Ahuriri, with a shotgun start at 6am. Fishers will be hoping for a better opening than last year when the first day was abandoned because of strong southerly winds.

While the weather in Napier is forecast to be mainly fine through the week and the Waitangi Day weekend, southerlies are expected, but experts say it's changeable and decisions will be made each day.

Emphasising the safety aspects, McKenzie said the competition has the overriding theme: "Let's have fun, but not too much fun."

Weigh-ins will be held daily at the fishing club, with the last catches to be weighed by 4pm on Sunday, followed by the prizegiving ceremony.