The big fish.

we made a plan to meet up later with phil and lorna in opunake. We said if we catch anything we would have a fish fry.

we met paddy, his son mark and estefan from new mexico at a maui station road. we then drove down this road and parked on the side. we grabbed the gear and hiked through sand dunes to a fishing spot.

for the first hour and half we were hooking sharks. it was fun, laurie and i both got a try. Paddy was getting angry with the shark and wanted us to lay into them, now that we were on steel leaders.
I was pulling in this fish, really aggressively, until paddy got a glimpse of its tail and realized i had a new zealand snapper on the line . He then coached me into how to land this big fish. It took twenty minutes of reeling this fish in. i had to walk with the fish down the beach when the surf went out and then pull again when the surf broke. Finally the fish got landed and paddy came running over for a high five and hug. I was in shock. only ten percent of people in NZ catch this fish. Everybody was so stoked. we then through our lines out again and caught some sharks, this time landing one. we then went to the weigh station, where we found the fish to be 9.02 kg. thats a 20lb fish. more high fives. Paddy and mark were fantastic guides. They just loved fishing. we went to paddys dairy farm , where we met his family, and laurie and i got to see his garden and play with his dogs. he filleted the fish and we had a grand old time hearing his fish stories. we called lorna and phil and let them know we would be eating fish tonight.

we drove to the campsite where phil and lorna were. we showed pictures of the fish which no one could believe.. we ate fish, and ate fish, and ate fish that night. it was fantastic. we drank beers that night and prepared for big surf in the morning.