Every Queen's Birthday weekend, members of the North Shore Surfcasting Club make the long drive from Auckland to Doubtless Bay to carry on the tradition of fishing against their Doubtless Bay Line and Rod Fishing Club counterparts for the annual Challenge Shield.
To win the trophy each club's three biggest snapper caught by separate anglers are brought to the scales, with the heaviest combined weight of the three fish winning. Having not won the shield for a few years the North Shore members turned up in force with one goal, to get their name back on the trophy.
"The weekend's forecast wasn't the best with winds from the southeast up to 35 knots and as the saying goes southeast is least. The wind never arrived on Saturday only getting up to 10 knots in the afternoon but the fishing was true to form for a southeast wind and pretty hard. Similar conditions on Sunday meant fishing didn't get much better."
Liz Virgo from the hosting club scoured a nice kingfish of 21.20kg out of Whangaroa on Saturday morning, while the heaviest snapper went to the NSSSC's Kevin Oglesby caught off the rocks out of Hihi and weighing in at 7.26kg.
The NSSC completed their mission and with a combined weight of three snapper being 18.68kg to Doubtless Bay's 14.08kg. The Far North anglers congratulated their North Shore counterparts graciously, and all were looking forward to the rematch next Queen's Birthday weekend.
