Wanganui Manawatu Sea Fishing Club hosts successful annual competition

Pete Connolly, Ben Anderson and Ryan Tapa came home successful from the fishing competition with their large blue cod, snapper and kahawai. Photo / Lucy Drake

Whanganui's Wharf St boat ramp welcomed 190 people as they tried their luck in the annual Wanganui Manawatu Sea Fishing Club contest on the weekend.

The two-day event saw 65 boats head out at 5.30am in the hunt for fish, with the hopes of returning by 3pm to win from the prize pool valued at more than $34,000.

Club committee member Ben Anderson said it was an excellent weekend despite the water being a bit choppy, which left everyone slightly battered from a couple of hard days' fishing.

On Saturday afternoon Anderson said they weighed 238 fish and it looked like Sunday would have similar numbers, with around 500 fish caught in total.

This year the competition introduced the "Big Three" category which measured the combined weight of three fish- snapper, blue cod and kahawai - and the highest combined weight was crowned the winner.

The category features the most valuable single prize for the competition, with $1500 of products from Hunting and Fishing up for grabs.

"You do get a big camaraderie especially from prizegiving, there's a lot of healthy competition that goes on.

"But it's not so much about the prizes, it's about the bragging rights to be honest, it's pretty good," Anderson said.

"We've received really good support from the guys from Taranaki, Manawatu, Foxton, the west coast guys."

Anderson said around 20 per cent of the fishermen were from out of town.