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.

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.