Fishing around the North Island of New Zealand

[redsetta]

Hi all,
Thought I'd try to kick off a topic thread on New Zealand as I've noticed a couple of Kiwis joining the site recently.
I often fish around the Hauraki Gulf, which is regarded by many as the finest snapper fishery in the world.
It can produce any number of species throughout the year, from snapper, kahawai, trevally and tarakihi to john dory, king fish and about four different varieties of shark (not to mention some truly gargantuan rays).
Here are a few pics from a late summer trip (March 2011) about 15mins straight out from our biggest city, Auckland. (Note the pen for scale.)
Apologies for the pic size - haven't figured out how to work Photobucket properly yet.







We fished from about 8-11am on a Friday and were done - caught more than 50 fish in that time... (we were kept pretty busy!)
Snapper have a legal limit of 27cm, which all keen fishos happily adhere to.
Everyone I fish with has a 30cm personal minimum.
We kept eight fish each (there were three of us) and returned more than 20 keepers (ie 34cm+) to the Gulf.
The largest four were all more than 60cm.
It was a great day!
I'll endeavour to get some more Gulf missions and land-based game trips documented over coming months...
All the best, Justin

[Norcal Pescador]

Goodonya Justin!
It's always nice to see what others are catching. Need a bigger Esky?
Rob

[Bryan Young]

I love those.  In Japan (not that I'm in Japan now), we call those fish Tai.  It is a good eating fish as sashimi, shabu (dipped in hot water for a few seconds, dipped in a sauce then eaten), bar-b, steamed, soup,...

I'm getting hungry again.

[whalebreath]

...In Japan...we call those fish Tai....

Well a person learns something new every day-that must be the fish sold here in Vancouver as Tai Snapper and Yes it is delicious!

[Dominick]

They look like the fish one gets fried on a stick in Greece, YUM.  Dominick