RUAKAKA'S Beach and Boat fishing competition on Friday and Saturday was such a huge success that, by Sunday, organiser Leesa Quann had lost her voice and couldn't tell us the results.
Instead, we established via email that a tagged snapper worth $100,000 was one of the ones that got away -
but some lucky fishers managed to land a boat and other goodies worth close to $200,000.
More than 2000 senior and 100 junior tickets were sold for the two-day event, one of the biggest fishing contests in New Zealand.
Mrs Quann said 3000 people packed the marquee for the final prizegiving on Saturday night, many of them sticking around to dance to Midge Marsden and the Hauraki band.
The competition, now in its third year, drew competitors from as far away as Canada, England, the US and Australia. Kiwi competitors came from as far south as Hokitika and Dunedin.
Beach and women fishers were well up on last year, and a new kayak category was introduced. A total of 700 boats took part.
"But nobody caught the Lion Red $100,000 tagged snapper," Mrs Quann said. The fish was caught and tagged by fishing personality Graeme Sinclair before the event, with footage of the tag-and-release shown on the big screens on Thursday night at the tournament briefing.
Mrs Quann was unable to say as yet how much money had been raised, but said it would go towards community groups including Coastguard, St John, Scouts Ruakaka, St Francis Xavier and One Tree Point Primary Schools, as well as the local kohanga reo and playcentre.
The heaviest overall kahawai was caught by Jason Hill of Whangarei, weighing in at 3.06kg. Waiotira's Robert Ballintine won the john dory section with his 2.29kg catch, while the heaviest trevally, weighing in at 4.35kg, was caught by Colleen Hayward of Whitford.
Stan Thorburn, also from Waiotira, caught a 22.5kg whopper to win the kingfish section, while the heaviest snapper of the weekend belonged to Jason Tarrant-Hoskins of Whitianga, tipping the scales at 12.01kg.
Jay Peck of Whangarei was lucky enough to win a prize for a fish closest to the ``mystery weight', while New Plymouth man Greg Whitham won the Haines Hunter boat package.
