New Zealand and Tonga trip!!

[tecdave]

Hey guys,

Well its been a while since my last post, Starting off over the new year period, we went up to Hendersons bay by Rarawa. There were some big schools of karwai and trevs and lots of good snapper working the outer edges of the reef, managed to get my best snapper after surprising it in a shallow gutter, a low gut shot managed to hold and we were eating a 19.5lb fish for the next few days!!! Nearly 20!!!!

A trip out in the yak off tutukaka produces a feed of crays and a nice king of 13kg but very little else even with some weed line dives down past 20m.

I then went off to Tonga for a fortnight, warm clear water all round!!! Diving was really good with jobfish and corral trout seen and speared on most trips. The sharks were a bit of a problem at some sites with a number of grey reefs surrounding me after shooting a particularly bloody trevaly!! But I didn’t loose a fish! On my last day of diving from the rent a boat we dived a headland with a bit of current lots of bait fish were seen and then 2 large doggies came cruising in, they were at least 40-50kg and stupid dave thought he could take them on even after being warned!!!! I was using a 1.3 ra with twin 17mm rubbers, break away and 2x 11ltr floats only!!!! I hit the first fish from behind with a great shot just behind the gill plate angling forward. It stopped in its tracks did a big yawn and just carried on as if it had a tooth pick in its side!!!! Uh ohhh, the bungee went to the max and water skiing started!!! The fish then went deep, I let the first buoy go and it shot down and started to compress I was then repeatedly dragged down to 3-4m for about 5mins, each time giving my fins a good work out to get back to the surface!! Then it all went slack when the spear pulled, at the time I was much relived as I thought I was going to lose the lot!! But later I wish I could have landed the beast!!!! Bigger floats next time!!!!

After returning to NZ we went up to Whangarei heads for waitangi day weekend, Vis was average (<4m) but the scollies were thick and the bronzies on fire!!!!! I had just shot a kingi and was on the weed line at smugglers when on my next dive, this thing came in on me! (3m) It didn’t hang about but with such crap viz was not enjoyable. I went back out to the spot an hour later with my Girlfriend (shark bait!!) and shot a trev which instantly brought back the bronzie, he was all fired up now with lowered pectorals and a unfriendly smile!!! I decided that the trev wasn’t that sacred to me and let him have it!!! A quick exit to the yak was executed and back home!!!

Sorry this is a bit long but we are nearly there now!!!
Tapotupotu bay was the last trip with a dive around the right hand headland. After being in the water for only 2 mins a big trev came cruising up to me so I slotted him through the gills. Was by far the best trev I’ve seen never mind shot and went 7kg on the scales that night, tasted bloody good on the bbq too!!!

We are leaving NZ in the nex few weeks and are off to Samoa so ang info on areas or boats would be more than welcome
Cheers
Dave.

[takeshi]

Nice catches! beautiful pics and a good story to read. What are you doing, round-the-world tour of spearos heavens? NZ, tonga, samoa sounds like a nice trip. Post a story from samoa, it's nice to read stories from warm places during the piss-poor excuse for spring we are having here in stockholm

[magiatika]

cool story and good fish. pity about the dog tooth.
do you know what kind of snapper you shot? (the one on the photo)
enjoy samoa.