"He wasn't getting pulled right out, but he was stuck on the ledge, sort of floundering in the water.
"There was a 3m swell at least, it was very, very rough. Not the sort of weather that anyone would swim in. He was probably only another couple of minutes away from drowning."
Mr Goodhue said he was "50/50" about whether to risk his own life to save the man, but after seeing two surfers go to help he waded in.
"I rang 111 first, threw [the phone] on the ground, and jumped in the water. There were huge swells.
"When I went out I was probably 5m away from him and I was up to my chest. I was more out there for moral support in case he went down."
He said the fisherman was dragged back in by the surfer, "walked up [on to the beach] on his own steam and then just collapsed".
"The first two that came in seemed okay, I think it was more just shock for them."
A St John spokesman said two ambulances went to the beach near Tip Rd after reports of one person being rescued and another "washed out to sea" about 4.30pm.
Two men were transported to Whangarei Hospital; one in a serious and the other in a moderate condition.
They were both discharged later that night, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Neither Police nor Coastguard were notified of the incident.
Mr Goodhue said there were often rescues at Bream Bay, usually of tourists who "seem quite oblivious to the dangers".
On January 20, Aucklander Hong Nghe was pulled from relatively calm water at Ruakaka Beach after he struck trouble about 100m offshore.
His fiancee, pregnant with their first child, watched as rescuers attempted to resuscitate Mr Nghe but were unable to.
The 38-year-old was the fourth male of Asian descent to have died on that stretch of beach while crabbing since 2011, and was Northland's first drowning of the year.
Mr Nghe had been in a family group on a day trip to the beach where they were crabbing.