I was in town (Helensville) Wednesday last week, and met John the skipper of one of the charter boats on the Kaipara harbour, he had 8 days of charters ahead and would I like to be "decky" for a day. This involves being there, making the tea, and doing a bit of helming, (steering for you landlubbers), helping out a bit, but mostly fishing from the bow of the boat, not very comfortable, but OK for a free trip.
The good ship Serene at the wharf
High tide was about 10am this far up the river, so I boarded at the mooring 9 am and we were to pick up the charter at 9-30 half an hour down the river
Leaving the mooring
At the wharf we picked up 13 keen Korean fishermen, very friendly and sociable, but a bit of a language barrier, most communication through the youngest one on board (21).
There was plenty of time to ready fishing gear as it is a 2 1/2 hour trip down the river and harbour to the graveyard at our 9 knots and going with the outgoing tide.
The North Kaipara head lighthouse (disused)
The Graveyard is an area covering most of the northern channel of the harbour, the main one used by sailing ships to enter through the 2 or 3 kilometres of the entrance sand bars to export the Kauri timber cut from the vast forests growing around the many rivers that drain 2/3 rds of Northlands land area. Try google earth for where we are and the Kaipara harbour entrance.
Navman GPS allowed the anchor dropped to position the boat in front of a small rise in 18m of water.
The tide was at its strongest and I needed 20 oz to hold the bottom, (15 KG main line and 30KG trace) first of all with a 1m trace, but I kept getting robbed by small fish, so after seeing some good fish from the rest of the boat, changed to sinker on the bottom and 2 droppers at 8 and 20 inches with 2 6/0 recurve hooks, cut silver trevally and squid the baits.
Bugger, missed the first good take, rebait then down again, and put the rod against the rail while cutting more fish baits, then, why is the line pointing up current? yes a solid snapper thumping away deep down. Not as big as I thought, but a good start at about 5lb, so I leaned over grabbed the swivel and there was fish No 1 on ice in the bin.
After another couple of smaller fish I hooked one that did not want to leave the bottom, up a few meters, then wheee-- down again.
finally, my superb fishing skills and brute force saw some colour, and a substantial snapper broke the surface, as I could not get past the cabin, the skipper netted it down the side of the boat,
A happy Rhod with 6.08 KG (13lbs 3oz) of fat snapper.
Towards 4pm and low tide the confused swell from the bar made even standing up hard, and fishing as well quite tricky, time for the long trip home. and time to clean the catch.
The crew all fished out!
scaling his catch, snapper and kahawai.
It is not always as good as today, mostly just fish of about 2lb, but with a limit of 10 snapper each plus other species, most days see plenty of fish to take home for about 25 pounds cost, and for me and the skipper 11 hours on board. I kept 5 fish and gave 3 to a good friend, keeping the 2 best
Destined for the smokehouse, I will E-mail a fillet to Dave and he can share it out.
Home 
Once again I'm green with envy 
