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If you’re anything like me, when it comes to holiday time, the first thing you think is…I wonder if I can take a rod and reel. If it’s a YES, this thought process quickly evolves into some research, and subsequent agonizing, over how much gear, how many lures, what weight line, when you’ll escape and so on. This year, a family escape actually meant escaping the family. Well, the kids anyway. Just my wife, brother, and sister-in-law, all alone on a four day journey canoeing 145 kilometres down the middle reaches of the mighty Whanganui (once Wanganui) River from Taumarunui to Pipiriki. The plan was to canoe the river and stay at the camping and glamping opportunities on offer along the way. Just good outdoor action adventure paddling our way through canyons and the odd rapids. In my mind…surely there would be trout fishing opportunities?

NEW DISCOVER™ & REVEAL™ Replaces, Simplifies MAX-N+ range. Egersund, Norway – C-MAP, a leader in digital marine cartography and cloud-based mapping, has today launched a re-designed, simplified charting portfolio for Lowrance®, Simrad® and B&G® chartplotter with the introduction of C-MAP DISCOVER & REVEAL. Replacing the MAX-N+ range, C-MAP REVEAL charts display the very best of C-MAP. It boasts stunning seafloor and inland Shaded Relief along with all the core features of C-MAP DISCOVER, including full-featured Vector Charts.

I’m a big fan of Z Man soft bait bodies. I’ve used them for many years and found that they are usually my go-to choice, and I’m not alone. The other option is GULP, which are an entirely different proposition, and more recently, Catch and Daiwa entering the market with a very similarly based product to Z Man. That is, a tough, but very stretchy elastomer material in a range of tasty colours.

Here is the correct way to crimp a lure using mono for tuna and marlin, as instructed by Bonze Fleet from Bonze Lures.

Our north island road trip with young Flyn Jack (@Flyn Jack Fishing) had us dropping in to see the legendary Bonze (Bonze Lures) for some expert advice on rigging for marlin. Bonze is world famous as a true expert in his field, and if you want advice on how to catch marlin, Bonze is well worth listening to. It was so great to see such a busy man take the time out of his day to help out Flyn, and he gave us some great advice about setting up the boat, which eventually turned out to be very valuable, with Flyn landing his first marlin. It's pretty rough and ready, but I ran the camera to grab some of this advice as Bonze talked to Flyn, so take a look and you might pick up some tips.

The boys make the drive over to the Wild West coast and plan to pitch the tent on the boat and spend a night in the harbour. Snapper are on the hit list as the sun goes down and king fish as the sun comes up. Nato manages to film kings hunting live mullet in 4K 60 frames with his iPhone.

If you’re anything like me, you are lucky enough to regularly find yourself filleting nice eating sized snapper. Surely practice makes every cut perfect then? Yeah, not so much. Every time I think I have filleting dialed, and I might get a few absolutely bang on, there’s always that fish that just throws you, and you end up feeling like Edward Scissorhands on the piss. Here’s a quick vid taken on my phone by my mate Lloyd, after a brilliant morning session on the kayak.

The Hutchwilco New Zealand Boat Show is sending out a call to owners of retro and/or quirky powerboats or “oddities”. “To give everyone a bit of a lift after the tough times of 2020, we would like to create a display a special, fun display for the 2021 show,” says general manager Dave Gibbs.

Here is an incredibly tasty and different way to prepare any variety of fish that tastes amazing and is easier than it looks to prepare. It’s a great way to utilize trout, kahawai, or any other more popular fish species, that actually is more about the texture than the pure flavour of the fish.

The FG Knot with a Rizzuto finish is my go-to leader knot. I'll use it for GT, Tuna, Bass and everything in-between! But this here shows you the exact knot I tie when Popping and stick baiting for GT with my heavy setups.

The boys leave the harbour and head down the coast to shelter from the forecasted wind. Later that day the wind drops out and the nearest island seems like it’s worth a visit. After a few stuff ups Milan lands a couple big beautiful king fish.

After a couple years of no fishing, Nato wants to have a crack at catching a king fish on his fly rod. The boys find a pack of ray-riding kingfish and A fly is smashed in what the boys reckon is one of the greatest strikes they have ever seen. Nato manages to catch 2 more solid harbour king fish on live baits that were trailing behind the boat while fly fishing.