Professional Skipper - Free Sample issue (July/Aug 2011)

FISHING NORFOLK, LAND OF THE SHARP WHITE TOOTH… BY CAPTAIN ASPARAGUS I don't think you could get a more home- like piece of foreign soil than Norfolk Island if you tried. Driving around the island you could pretty much be anywhere on the Coromandel Peninsula, admittedly with slightly more Norfolk pines than you would normally see. It's a great spot. I was up there on my latest trip to have a shot at some fishing with Dave Bigg in his awesome new boat, Amberjac. I had gone to Norfolk in February to do just this, but sadly, due to many reasons, she was not ready then. Now it was the start of April and she was launched, run in and rarin' to go. All was well and good, and I was hot- foot to get in her and see how she went on the water. Dave's last boat, Toroa, was an open 6m boat that, while very seaworthy and tough, was not really much of an all-weather craft, especially given the occasional rather iffy weather Norfolk i it ous f s notoriifor. As itit turned out,t we had perfect weather for testing Amberjac, as it never dropped below 15 knots all week of my visit. In other words, it was rough. I had brought the full spread of gold reels for the trip and brother, let me tell you, you better arrange some excess baggage capacity if you plan on flying with five heavy gold reels! So, off we went. Launching by means of the derrick at the Cascades Jetty was slickly done, and we cruised off to the nor'west, looking for birds and hopefully some gamefish action. To cut a long story short, we didn't. Soon enough, we were trolling these big daddy lures around a pin some 17 miles nor'west of Norfolk, picking up kingfish, easy as. The kings were bouncing the lures with gusto and we soon had several flopping their last in the fish bin when we decided to Even I could snag the occasional fish. Try an 11.5 kilo trevally try jigging on the school below us. Although we were miles from the island, we were only in some 35m of water, the island being just a small pimple on a huge shelf of rock almost uniformly this deep some 100km long and 50km wide. Kingfish plus jigs equals hook-ups. It is the most basic fishing maths there is really, and in short order we were firmly set into fish. Rods bent, drags hissed, line reeled out and all was well with the world until…. Blam! One after the other, all three of our lines were thumped, ripped out for a good 100m, before dropping slack. Sharks. Dammit! If you think sharks are a problem fishing here in New Zealand, mate, you gotta try fishing in Norfolk at the moment. This is truly Shark City. If you have a fish on the line for more than a minute, the chance of getting it to the boat are minimal. We would cruise for 15 minutes from mark to mark, stop the motor, look over the side, only to see a whaler shark circling eagerly below us. I must say it is a sight, and thought, that makes you develop suckers in the soles of your feet. This is not a place for a quick swim! With the sharks promptly eating half a dozen nice, shiny new jigs, (You do not get your gear back from the sharks. It truly is the "shark tax", a more lethal form of the 'coutta tax that so delights our tackle shops every winter in New Zealand), the decision was easily made to knock off the jigging and concentrate instead on some bottom fishing for the local snapper and sweetlip, or red throat emperor, known locally as trumpeter. These were easy to catch as well, and on pretty stout line, locked hard with some serious drag settings so we could at least land some of these critters. Did I say some? I mean heaps. Drop a two-hook ledger rig over the side here and in less than a minute you will have at least one, often two, trumpies banging away on your gear. If you lock and load, crank like hell and get the fish boatside in under a minute, you usually get to keep them. Take any longer though, and you're back to that damn taxman again. Still, this was fishing, it was fun, and on Amberjac, a pleasure. With her generously high gunnels and tons of room on deck, she is a great boat to fish in. Because she has such a long waterline length she is enormously stable, and rides through a pretty nasty slop made by the Tasman Sea's 15 knot breeze comfortably and efficiently. She is a very sea-kindly boat. At rest, at the drift, her gull-wing design gives her great st tabilit this beaut boat. bility, too. I was seriously impressed by However, testing Amberjac was just one of my missions on this trip. I had a few other toys I had brought with me to try. Various rods, reels, lures and pieces of fishing paraphernalia all wanted a good seeing to and I was getting an excellent chance at doing just that. I guess the first gear I should mention were the two new rods I had with me. I have never been very keen on jigging with spinning reels, preferring overheads for most of my fishing. However, this time I had a pair of jig-spin rods with me from Thompson Walker in Auckland and a pair of Van Staal rods (a high-end rod and reel company based on the eastern coast of the United States. Google it). One was a heavy duty 500gm rod on which I had loaded a TiCA Talisman reel loaded with 80lb Berkley Whiplash, and the other was a very cute 275gm rod, more suited to 30lb line I feel, and smaller reels. On this rod I had the very sexy Penn Conquer 5000, loaded with 30lb Rovex braid. I gotta say, for someone so dedicated ABOVE: Adrienne with a nice bonito on a Strike Pro lure and the little Van Staal/Penn set up. A sweet combo 50 Professional Skipper July/August 2011 r to my overhead reels, these rods certainly made me have some second thoughts. The small Van Staal with the Penn reel was just a honey of a set to use. The reel is a ballsy little thing, with all the drag the rod can handle, and this light little set is ideal for ladies, children and anyone

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