Fishing: Youngster reels in another record

Small-fry Robbie Angus from the Bay of Islands has landed himself another whopper.

In February the intermediate school pupil scored a world record blue marlin and now he's added a black. Fishing with his father, John, aboard the Allure out of Cairns, Angus junior hooked a 256.5kg black that will set a record for under-12s if ratified by the International Game Fishing Association.

They were in Cairns specifically to try for the record as Robbie's 12th birthday approached. It was a good trip for the family with John winning the annual Lizard Island tournament with a black marlin in excess of 400kg.

Robbie's marlin took a mackerel skip-bait, thrashing one to bits, then hooking itself as it came back to take a re-set fresh bait. It swam at the boat, Robbie winding the slack in. Within a few minutes the boat had backed down onto the marlin and the deckhand was able to grab the leader.

Although some anglers will debate the value of a fish caught this way, without much fight, the method meets IGFA rules and Allure skipper Darren "Biggles" Haydon verified that Angus junior did all the work himself.

He uses 37kg line because the 60kg reels normally set for big marlin out from Cairns are too heavy for him.

Another New Zealand angler out from Cairns had a black estimated at 600kg on the line when it suddenly gave up the fight. Then up came a tiger shark with the marlin's head in its mouth like a dog with a bone. The remains were measured and compared with mounts, suggesting the fish was in record territory had it been landed.

Fishing locally has had its exciting moments too, with lots of Aucklanders scoring good-sized snapper in three areas, the Tiritiri Channel, the worm beds to the north of the Rangitoto lighthouse and on the Clevedon flats off Whitford.

There are big schools of fish in the 2-6kg range and the odd bigger one. The first females full of roe are showing up, whereas the big catches up to now have been males. So the snapper are preparing to spawn, and that means they will feed aggressively, taking any and all baits, the bite-time extending.

Many anglers have had the experience of being bitten off numerous times. The returned line shows it has been crushed by the teeth of big snapper rather than razored by sharks or barracouta.

Best times are still morning and night, and the two hours before the top or bottom of the tide are best.

At the Bay of Islands, Geoff Stone on Major Tom II reports good schools of fish in the area between Mita's Foul and the Black Rocks. Look for birds, use the sounder to locate bricks in the region and drift lightly weighted light line down to the fish, he recommends. Whole pilchards are working well. Fast retrieve of Zest jigs is producing some kingfish up to 15kg near the snapper schools.

Seventy-one Metre Reef and Bird Rock are also fishing well but you don't need to travel that far for a limit bag.

At Doubtless Bay, anglers are scoring well off the Mangonui wharf. Loads of john dory have been taken on live baits and small jigs. There are big bait fish schools coming into the bay and the harbour, and of course the kingfish are running too. Several have been caught off the wharf in the warmer, calmer weather. Local Phil Raxworthy landed a 22.5kg king at Knuckle Point, using a kahawai live bait.

The workers intending to build a bridge at Cable Bay whose job has been stalled by a protest had at least one productive day. They went fishing at Chuck's Cove and two hours later were back in the Cooper's Beach Sports store asking former charter skipper Doug McColl if they could use his scales. They'd landed a 7.4kg snapper off the rocks, at midday, in clear conditions.

McColl said the Rangaunu Harbour was also fishing well around the edge of the channel and around the beacons. Big kings had been seen schooling but not caught around Cape Karikari.

Plenty of anglers got out off the west coast in the past week, with big snapper found at the 40m mark all the way from Raglan to the Far North.

There are also huge kahawai around, but the gurnard caught last week were mostly on the small side.

It will be interesting to see how industry responds to the cuts to quota that have followed verification that the west coast snapper fishery is below sustainable yield - the usual practice being to scoop spawning fish in November while they are in close-knit schools.