This Viking Kayaks, Kayak Fishing trip report sent in by Lyndon "Milkey" Cox fishing with Matamata local Peter Hughs on his 3rd time kayak fishing... Peter  has recently sold his boat. I had been making it a point to text him whenever I got fish of any size or had an awesome fishing session.  So eventually he caved and purchased a Profish 400.

(photos like these sent on a regular bases were enough to drive Pete to sell his boat!)

Our work (Fonterra) fishing comp was on at Coromandel last weekend so he came along hoping to get some tuition on the ins and outs of kayak fishing. In the morning we paddled out to a spot that I had marked on a previous trip. I handed him my 2^nd softbait set and proceeded to give him a quick 5 minute lesson. Within an hour he had smashed his PB of 4kgs with a 5.25kg fish. Smiling from ear to ear he thought this kayaking thing was the ducks guts.

Things went quiet after the boats turned up so we headed in for lunch. Late in the afternoon we headed out again. Not much was happening for Pete, but I had a couple of 3-4kg snapper in the back. As the sun went down things started going off and the fish turned up in droves.

The 10-15 knot wind was causing some good chop but the fish were on the chew. It was then that I looked over and saw Pete heading up wind with a bent rod. I gave him another few minutes as I was having too much fun catching and releasing several fish. I peered over again and saw him still heading into the wind. I packed up and headed over to him and was greeted with complaints of a sore arm and mentions of some “serious weight” on the rod.

After words of encouragement like “Don’t muck this up Pete!”, 20 minutes later up popped a solid lump of fish. Several yahoo’s, high fives and back slaps later we were off back to the camp. Hanging the snapper on the scales showed 9.4kgs!! He had cracked the 20lb mark!

 Weighing in the fish the next day resulted in the heaviest fish for the competition and the other 113 anglers looking on in envy with many remarks of the fact it was caught from a kayak.

Pete is a very happy lad and I bet he’s still smiling about it.

 A word from Pete 

“Had an awesome weekend out with Milkey, up off Papa Aroha, caught (and released) some great fish. Since it was my first real shot at softbaiting, and my 2nd & 3rd time out in my Profish 400, had a brilliant time, beat my PB 3 times, with the final mark set at 9.4kg, winning heaviest snapper in a small work competition we were in”. Peter Hughs