Back out of alert 3 chasing fat early Spring snaps and carrots in the little FC lucky charm

With a couple of weeks land locked in alert level 3 I was really looking forward to getting back out on the little FC. Last time I had missed out on my late Autumn fishing I love to do due to covid, coming into Spring and another little lock down I was hoping I wouldn't miss my early Spring fishing as well. Coming out of level 3 just in time, Stevo was back up in Auck's so we decided for an early Spring Snapper and Carrot sesh. We set off just before daybreak and launched with the sun already out of bed. The good news was, it was going to be a nice late morning with 2-4knts predicted. I had a couple big 5 kilo salty dog berleys on board for a good bait and berley bash and we headed off to one of my favorite spots. We anchored up in around 5mtrs and set the salty dog to do it's job.

It takes a little while for the berley to kick in but with good current flow it didn't take long for my first gurnard to make it's way to the bin. I was hoping that was a good sign until our excitement was squashed a little as we started pulling in a few little sharks - then the Kahawai turned up, although we were catching fish it wasn't the target species. Over the next hour or two we managed a gurnard or two between the unwanted, there were no Spring snaps knocking on our door and soon the question rose (should we do a shift) we were getting the odd carrot and I kept saying "don't leave fish to find fish" although hard due to the unwanted species we stayed put - Snapper can turn up at anytime and this spot has fired just before the slack. More Kahawai and a few sharks, I thought it was time to shift then all of a sudden something grabbed my bait and my little Avenger sung away. I wasn't ready for it with it sitting in the holder and by the time I reached it, it had gone. "Stevo I think that was a snap man - I think they are here" It had taken a good 3-4hours for the first scent of a snap but then Stevo got smashed....Yea boy they have turned up but Stevo dropped it mid fight so we were still unsure.

My next hook up stuck and it was a nice little pannie around 45cm, this was all I needed to know to stay. It was a little weird as it was now pretty much slack tide, this is when I like to fish for the carrots but were surprised as the snapper came on the bite hard everything else had left - no Kahawai - no Sharks and no gurnard it was all on with just snapper on the slack tide. It started to get a bit hectic with some nice 50-55cm fish coming aboard with the smallest around 40cm. It was crazy how everything had packed up and left the snapper to it, it was just bent rods and screaming reels. It was hot fishing right through that slack tide, snapper after snapper then as the boat slowly swung we picked up the odd gurnard as well. The big snapper hits slowed, a few more gurnard and then Kahawai came back as that current kicked in once again. We didn't mind to much as we now had a good 7-8 nice reds in the bin with 4 being that 50-55cm and with 3-4 big carrots keeping them company we had plenty of meat if we had to call it a day. We were keen to try for a couple more carrots so shifted to our gurnard spot.

We managed a couple more carrots and were about to call it a day when something big grabbed my bait and once again my little bait-runner began to sing, this time it didn't stop. I flicked the lever and struck but it just kept on trucking, my rod buckled like a horse and it took a heap of line. I thought stingray but it had some nice big head nods to it and I knew it was big snapper time. It was a long scrap with it using the strong current to it's advantage, what a scrap it was and nearing the boat we could see the beast, it was a solid fish alright - I don't purposely target these big fish but when I do catch them it makes a special day turn into an epic one. I always try to release big fish and our boat rules are anything over 10lb that can be released we give it a good go. Not only are these fish our future but it's great to know it's back out there for someone else to maybe catch one day and to see a magnificent beast like this swim away makes that catch more so special. We took a couple pics and holding it in the water it felt good to feel a few good kicks from him. I let it go after a couple of mins and although it didn't go back down straight away, with it actually swimming around upright I knew it was just trying to get it's breath back. If a big fish is to far gone it will just belly up when you let it go but he was swimming fine and after another min disappeared back into the murky depths...

What an epic ending to an awesome day back out on the lucky charm with Stevo, we had 3-4 nice big snaps each and about 4 carrots each. Once again we could have easy taken more but when you have some goodies in the mix giving you plenty of meat you really don't have to keep everything you catch.

Tight lines