Chatham Islands Fishing

Fishing

My last year's fishing expedition was devoted to a small fishing spot 800km south-east of Chatham Iceland, the principal of the Chatham Islands group. I' ve traveled with Tony Stenhouse and Richie Cryer. It was our missions to try fishing on shore; when we boarded an Air Chathams plane at Wellington Airport on a gray February morning, we were curious to see what the weeks would have in store at Wellington.

Coming to Chatham Island for an equal gray night, we took the coach through a sparse, shallow countryside to our lodging in Waitangi, the town. We were ready for all land-based scenes and came with a multitude of devices. We needed a whole days to organize ourselves for Fishing of the Weeks, and we rented an all-wheel drive lorry and visited the nearby fishing plant where we could buy a few crabs that were not "export quality".

Those Cories were part of our lure stock and payed off during the workweek. Its remote location, coupled with a mere 600-person resident community, has saved fishing from the trade and recreation pressures on New Zealand's continental shelf. It is astonishing to see the wealth and accessibility of fishing, even from unlikely shore locations.

If you like the mixture of different kinds is another question, but there is no shortage of them. We' ve captured bluefish, mocha, turkey, kahawaii, butterfish and various types of sharks. The destinations for this weekend were big blu moji, big bluefish, and hapuku - one of those rocky ones being our "holy grail" for the journey.

In general, we were hoping to gain an insight into the fishing industry and the islands - a proces of experiment and mistake. After the logistic was arranged in the afternoons of the second morning, we went to some small cliffs to relax. When we arrived, we saw a group of about thirty little bluish moji fins under the weeds in front of us.

Larger ones were in the 4-5kg to 5kg area, but in broad sunlight we could not lure a bit, so we threw them overboard and captured some really big gurnards and a few kahawais before a pest of huge thorn shark (6kg and bigger) with the dying ligh. Then, our focus went back to the moji, and while fishing in the dark we catched several in the area of 1-2 kg, with a few larger beasts.

In the course of the weeks we ended up with much more mokis. Several of the better ones were in the 4-5kg cramp, with the largest being a 7. 3kg beast that Tony intercepted from the quay - a great endeavor against a charged enemy that snaps under the quay heap. This quay also produces a fistful of butterfishes over the course of the entire fortnight. This is usually so timid that they spend a life fishing on the shore.

After that we spend our leisure hours on the cliffs and shores of Port Hutt in the northern part, but still in the protected water of Petre Bay. Sometimes this was imposed on us by the waves that came from all sides, a memory that we were on a small isle in the Pacific Ocean.

Fishing for Atlantic cod, however, was spectacular. I introduced myself to the Port Hutt Cliffs by throwing a lure right at my foot in no more than three meters of sea. In a few seconds I had caught myself a really big turquoise hake. Fishes like that just kept moving and for a while we kept weighing them, with a characteristic load between 2 kg and 3 kg.

These are big-eyed, deep sea hake, and our first afternoons were full of unbelieving smile. Grown up on the South Island, I captured my quota of blues, but catching big ones so consequently in the middle of the flat foe was an eye-opener. We' even captured them on sand dunes at some range from cliffs and reefs.

We had a really good stock of bluefish on Chatham Island, and we had royalty on fillet during the whole group. While we can think about some spectacular fish, that's what we haven't caught that's left me with the most. Chatham Island has the capacity to be the "last onshore fishing border".

They are trapped by the cliffs, but apart from the quay we saw no other fishermen on shore or even any sign of them - the common scrapped stock and end device was striking by its lack. When the casual native fisherman takes `Puka from the cliffs, I have no doubts that will motivate and prepare fishermen with a lot of quality fishing experience on their own hand.

Sadly, our attempts to attack them were limited (they were growing to the surface) by the meteorological conditions and the woods of Stierkelp around the cliffs we were fishing. Sadly, they were gone almost immediately upon their arrival, but it was the largest college of relatives I had seen for some while.

Though we have only seen bottom shark like the Sevengiller and Top, Chatham Island is known for its great-whites. Drop large, hammering mokis ('they'll probably weigh more than 10 kg in these waters) and you'll have a uniquely high qualitiy fishing ashore. The seclusion and costs of getting to the Chathams probably hindered more human beings from trying.

The Chatham Island offer is different from any other New Zealand landbased fishing area. They can' t get your car or inflatable there so it is probably best to think of it as an oversea voyage. We had a lot of free weeks there to see through the place and make a few errors.

There are a few things to consider when you are considering a shore excursion to the Chathams: - The only way to get there is via Air Chathams, and they are flying directly from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. - The possibilities ashore are many, so you should take a wide range of fishing gears with you.

Considering the restricted free luggage allowances, you should consider coordinating and dividing the equipment for your group instead of having a complete one. There' s very little equipment on the isle and it tends to be pricey. It is indispensable to get the most out of fishing on the isle.

Free luggage does not allow you to take any lures, so please allow some initial travel sorting in the bag. Crabs are available at the fishing plant and are excellent baits (especially for Moki). Fishing is easy with clean fishing lures. - Go in summers and go for a sabbatical.

It gives you a good opportunity of good wheather at a moment when the fishing in the area are in numbers. You can also take a weekend to fly to Pitt Island and spend a whole fishing trip (it looks even better than Chatham Island!). Explore charts and Google Earth before setting out to find out which areas you want to go fishing.

The early organization of entry through privately owned lands could help to realize that'Puka off the cliff! I' d highly commend Chatham Island. Fishing talks for itself, but the natives are unbelievably kind and inviting, and there is much to see and do.