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.

Scott Cushman from Digital Fish has been having a go at smoking his own fish and loving it. He has been doing quick easy hot smokes and has been learning a few tricks a long the way - like brining the fish beforehand and how it makes a difference to the flavour of the fish. Here’s the set up and some tips to get you started on smoking your own fish. Kahawai are a great fish to try your first smoke - they taste great and its hard to mess it up.

Hunted out a good snapper rock spot in the boat out of the nasty Sou-wester. Neighbours Steve & Zoli came along to learn the ropes and catch some fish for dinner. Zoli caught the first 2 decent snapper and they were good ones - he was stoked. I had a go at stick baiting for a kingfish but alas I lost a favourite little Heru Ulua 60gr lure so if you find it floating in the Hauraki Gulf, I will give you a reward for its return :-).

How to stop polluting the ocean with balloons when live bait fishing for kingfish. It's very common to rig a balloon on a live bait set up using kahawai for live bait when targeting kingfish. When the kingfish hits the kahawai, the line to the balloon snaps and floats away to pollute the ocean. I have been thinking about this for a while as it becomes obvious too much plastic enters the sea. I am trialling this set up and will gives updates after I've had a go with it but it is a sound approach to keeping your balloon attached but still work.

It was adventure time and we set out to find a good rock spot on Kawau Island. The little fish did a good job of taking all our bait but we had a few options throughout the day to keep the bait coming. Right at the end of the day, I managed to snag a good one.

Reports of kingfish everywhere in the workups were enough to get me out the next day in the boat and heading to Kawau Island. We came home with a feed and as usual, it was another full day of fish and adventure.