My sister was over from the UK and it was my job to get her a decent fish. We were in Whangamata for Xmas and found a nice morning to head over towards Slipper Island and try for some kingfish on the stickbaits and then shallow water softbaiting for snapper. Great trip, lots of fish and a shark encounter to make it exciting.

Headed to Waiheke Island to chase snapper and kingfish and ended up going as far as the islands at Coromandel. Right at the end of the day Jody the Maori Fishing Legend hooks up his first kingfish on a stickbait.

Ever wanted to try stickbaiting or topwater fishing for kingfish? I cover the gear you need to get into this exciting form of fishing, the number one target for the kiwi stickbait fisherman. This is part 1 and it is aimed at beginner to intermediate fishers. There will be a part 2 (how to swim the stickbait) part 3 (where to find kingfish) and maybe a part 4 (off the rocks).

For my birthday, I decided I deserved a day out fishing and the forecast was good so off to Little Barrier Island I went. The plan was for bait fishing for snapper and live baiting for kingfish. Some stormy weather interrupted my bite session and I saw some birds feeding in some pretty crazy weather. Great day out!

A 7kg Snapper and a school of trevally under the boat all day long made up one of my favourite days fishing shallow water on the Hibiscus Coast. We were stray lining in shallow water with pilchards and berley and at the end of the day we tried some mackerel live baits, scoring the biggest fish of the day.

Landed on a Coromandel Island to do some rock fishing - targeting snapper and kingfish but also landed some nice kahawai and saw some trevally in the trail. Originally looking for a marlin off the rocks but had to settle for some smaller species.