By Geoff Thomas
Gone fishing
When Andrew Potbury packed up his well-drilling truck and moved his family and his business from Auckland to Northland four years ago, he never dreamed that his love for fishing would make him $53,000 wealthier.
About four weeks ago, Potbury and two fishing mates, Tony Gillespie and Moana
Lawrence, also former Aucklanders who opted for a change of lifestyle, decided to enter the Lion Red 90-Mile Beach Snapper Classic fishing contest.
After 18 years, the contest has grown to 1000 hopeful anglers who pay $200 a head for a chance of winning daily prizes of $3000 for the biggest snapper and the overall prize of $50,000 plus a lucky draw chance of driving away in a new four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Not bad for spending five days fishing in the surf at 90-Mile Beach.
Potbury said they were a bit slow getting started on the first day and missed out on the most likely looking spots where rips and holes promised a chance of hooking a snapper.
"Some of the anglers are heading up the beach at 3 o'clock in the morning to grab their spots, and they have to wait till 9 to start fishing," he said. But they found an empty section of about 100m of beach and decided to try it the next day.
"We didn't get any snapper, but felt it still looked promising, so we went back on the following day and I decided to add a bit of bonito to my mullet bait to give it some odour.
"I tied the bait on and cast out the first cast, which is the best one as the fish haven't been disturbed. After about 20 minutes I had a good strike, and at first I thought it was a ray but it turned out to be a big snapper."
His fish pulled the scales down to 8.8 kg, and he then spent an anxious two-and-a-half days waiting to see what other fish were brought in.
"My ute broke down on the beach and I was way up at the top end of the beach and was walking back down - the contest headquarters were about 50km away - and the word had spread that I had landed a big one so nobody wanted to pick me up.
"Eventually some guys from Whakatane stopped and gave me a beer and a lift, and I told them where I had been fishing and they went back there the next day.
"My reel broke after I landed the snapper, so there was a bit of drama with the whole thing."
On the last day, word spread that a snapper of 10kg had been landed up the beach by one of the country's top surfcasters, New Plymouth's Leon Jury, and Potbury sweated until the fish arrived at the weigh-in only 20 minutes before entries closed and the contest ended.
"As it turned out the scales used on the beach were faulty and his fish was slightly smaller," said a relieved Potbury.
But Jury's snapper just pipped a 7.65kg fish landed by Moana Lawrence, who thought he had finished in second place overall.
The three fishing mates spend much of their spare time fishing and diving around the Karikari Peninsula and in Doubtless Bay.
Gillespie said that when he first moved there from Auckland 13 years ago he went fishing every day. Now he goes once a week.
They have first-class surfcasting on both sides of the peninsula, and if they want a guaranteed limit of snapper in about an hour, they just launch a dinghy off the beach and head out a few hundred metres to the deep water.
In mid-winter the larger snapper move in and straylining in about 15m of water at a couple of spots produces a bag of 6-8kg snapper.
"It's a paradise - you can dive for crays, and sometimes you don't even have to dive, or troll for marlin, or catch snapper," said Potbury.
What is the prizemoney going towards?
"The $50,000 is going there," he said, pointing to a large concrete pad where a new house will rise. "The $3000 is pocket-money."
By Geoff Thomas
Gone fishing
When Andrew Potbury packed up his well-drilling truck and moved his family and his business from Auckland to Northland four years ago, he never dreamed that his love for fishing would make him $53,000 wealthier.
About four weeks ago, Potbury and two fishing mates, Tony Gillespie and Moana
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